Silly love songs by Paul McCartney:
Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs
And what’s wrong with that
I’d like to know
'Cause here I go again
I love you, I love you
“After the Lovin’” by Englert Humperdinck.
Pardon the glurge . . .
“So I sing you to sleep after the lovin’
With a song I just wrote yesterday”
urp
A Road Song by Fountains of Wayne
*I just wanted to say hey
I’ve been writing you a road song
It’s a cliche, but hey
That doesn’t make it so wrong
And in between the stops at the Cracker Barrel
And forty movies with Will Ferrell
I need some way to occupy my time
So I’m writing you a road song
I sure hope you don’t mind *
One Down by Ben Folds
I’m really not complaining
I realize it’s just a job
And I hate hearing belly-aching rock stars
Whine and sob
Cause I could be busing tables
I could well be pumpin’ gas
Yeah, but I get paid much finer
For playin’ piano and kissin’ ass
This is one I wrote just an hour ago
And three-point-six at last
This Is Just a Modern Rock Song by Belle & Sebastian
This is just a modern rock song,
This is just a sorry lament,
We’re four boys in corduroys,
We’re not terrific but we’re competent.
I came in here to say this one.
How about “they just don’t write 'em like that anymore”
I write the songs - Bruce Johnston
“not gonna write you a love song today”
Brian
Todd Rundgren’s Chain Letter is about the act of writing a song:
This is how I thought I’d start my song
And it seems a little silly when I think of it
But now I’m so far along
And no one really wants to know that he’s wrong
…
Now I’m in the middle and I just don’t know
If I’ll make it any further if the words don’t flow
David Bowie - Sound and Vision
I point you to post 20: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21626608&postcount=20
“I Want a Cigarette” by Tommy Womack:
“I was thinking I was the victim of some kind of family curse
So I went outside and had a cigarette so I could feel a little worse
Then I went back inside and checked in with the nurse
Sat down in the waiting room and scribbled out this verse.”
I think emo band Fall Out Boy do this a lot. Especially with their song titles. But for a specific lyric from one of their better known songs:
Sugar We’re Going Down and the lyric
I’m just a notch in your bedpost
But you’re just a line in a song
TCMF-2L
From Dire Straits’ “Heavy Fuel”:
My chick loves a man who’s strong
The things she’ll do to turn me on
I love the babes, don’t get we wrong
Hey, that’s why I wrote this song
From Bruce Springsteen’s “Bobby Jean”:
Maybe you’ll be out there on that road somewhere
In some bus or train traveling along
In some motel room there’ll be a radio playing
And you’ll hear me sing this song
The latter isn’t really about writing the song, but it acknowledges that it is a song, which is interesting in its own way.
West End Musical–Mitch Benn
Still Writing Songs About You - Old Dominion
“A pawn shop in Dallas cut me a deal on a six string
It doesn’t know how you look how you laugh how you kiss me
Well I’m on the end of the bed and it’s way past two
I’m stuck on a line cause I know what rhymes with you”
(A sampling, you can probably guess by the title that the whole thing is about song writing!)
A Song for Everything - Maren Morris
“What’s your time machine?
Is it Springsteen or Teenage Dream?
One danced you through love
One rocked you through lonely
Mixtaped your heartbreak and made you feel holy”
(This isn’t quite about writing, but it is a song about songs.)
A lot of the songs mentioned are not really ABOUT writing songs, they just mention it as an aside.
One that is really about writing songs, or rather trying and suffering from writer’s block, is The Song of the Candle by Stan Rogers. One of my all-time favorite songs.
Also, I am surprised no-one has mentioned **Your Song** by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.My gift is my song, and this one’s for you
And you can tell everybody this is your song
It may be quite simple, but now that it’s done
I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you’re in the world
Randy Newman’s Rednecks:
The first four lines are a reference to Georgia governor Maddox’s 1970 appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show,” even though Cavett is a gentile from Nebraska.
I just watched that interview for the first time, and although I’d be the last to defend Maddox (I’ve lived in Georgia for less than a year), I think Newman and the character speaking in the song have a point. Cavett took a cheap shot at Maddox, and he and his audience were arrogantly smug in confronting this notorious Southern racist while assuming that as Northerners they weren’t racist at all. Which is the point of the song. (Read the rest of the lyrics, if you’re not familiar with the song.)
I feel like there’s got to be a John Denver song that fits the OP, but I can’t think of one.
Fair point. So riddle me this: where does Cecelia by Paul Simon sit? It is said to be addressed directly to the muse.
Celia, you’re breaking my heart
You’re shaking my confidence daily
I guess you could argue it’s a song about not writing songs…
j