Driving home today, I was listening to the Rezillos’ live performance of “Thunderbirds Are Go”. This got me to thinking about other songs inspired by TV shows, movies, and other pop culture phenomena. Not TV or movie theme songs, but songs about TV shows, movies, etc. My favorites:
[ul]
[li]“Thunderbirds Are Go”, The Rezillos. “Calling International Rescue / No one else can save us like you do . . .”[/li][li]“I See Moe”, Guadalcanal Diary. “Sometimes I look in the mirror, and I see Moe”.[/li][li]“Twist Barbie”, Shonen Knife[/li][li]“Man on the Moon”, R.E.M.[/li][/ul]
And yours?
Twilight Zone by Golden Earring.
Help, I’m steppin’ into the Twilight Zone
This is a madhouse
Feels like being home
My feet they can’t move
Under moon and star
Where am I to go now that I’ve gone too far
You will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
The Young Fresh Fellows; “The New John Agar”
About the B-movie hero and star of Tarantula, The Mole People, and *The Brain from Planet Arous.
I’d throw away my guitar
To ne the next John Agar…
Barbie Girl by Aqua.
Andy Always Dreamed of Wrestling and Golly, Ollie! by The Bobs
July 13th, 1985 and When the Beatles Hit America by John Wesley Harding
Lois Lane, Takin’ the Kids to Disney to Disney World, Olivia Newton John and Isaac’s Lament by Uncle Bonsai
Little Skipper by Mel Cooleys
One Week by Barenaked Ladies
From their album Gordon:
Brian Wilson
Be My Yoko Ono
New Kid (On the Block)
Grade 9, Blame it on Me and Box Set also make several pop-culture references, putting them in pretty much the same realm as One Week, IMO - referencing, but not really ABOUT those references.
In that case, Tengu, Be My Yoko by The Bobs
There is that infamous song “Pop Muzik” by M.
also there are these compilation CDs that are entitled “Songs based on and insiped by…” whatever. One such CD is that of the Powerpuff Girls.
Well, Wesley Willis alone has about 150 songs about bands, TV shows, etc.
I won’t bother to list them here.
“You can really knock it out! You are a low-down dirty man.” Wesley, referring to Arnold Schwartzenegar.
–Tim
Science Fiction Double Feature from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. RiffRaff’s voice, Magenta’s lips, and a whole lot of references to b-movies from the 40s to the 60s.
I think it was the Bloodhound Gang (who suck the big unmentionables IMO), who once said (paraphrased), “Most bands write songs about love; we write songs about pop culture.”
Then there’s Weird Al Yankovic and the rest of the Dr Demento squad, who have made a career out of taking songs ledged in the current pop culture and adding pop culture-referencing lyrics to them. I shudder to think of what they’ll do with Who Let the Dogs Out?.
And there’s eight million and three songs in the vein of Man on the Moon, which are about some famous person. Also, there’s a lot of progressive rock songs about The Lord of the Rings, if that counts as pop culture.
One that actually answers the OP is Jimmy Olsen’s Blues by the Spin Doctors, which laments the life of Clark Kent’s unfortunate co-worker. And coincidentally, since I’m not that much of a Superman fan, the other one I know of is Superman’s Song by the Crash Test Dummies (they were big in Canada!).
There seems to be a lot of it going around.
Mope by the Bloodhound Gang
Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles
Any songs by 2gether
That god-awful pop piece of crap LFO song…“Summer Girls”
any number of Barenaked Ladies songs
can’t think…oh well…that’s all I have to say about that
Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star
How far back can we go?
All I came up with is “Bicycle Built For Two”
There are probably lots of other references to The Wizard of Oz, but…
Oz never gave nothing to the tin man that he didn’t already have.
also War of the Worlds by the Moody Blues.
“We Didn’t Start the Fire”-Billy Joel
“If I Had a Million Dollars”-Barenaked Ladies
“Buddy Holly”-Weezer
“Come Out and Play” by Twisted Sister leans heavily on the movie Warriors, specifically the line
“Warriors(Twisted Sister), come out and play!
Warriors(Twisted Sister), come out and play-ay!”
Let’s see…
“The Streak” Ray Stevens
“Pac-Man Fever” by who the hell knows?
“The Curly Shuffle” by who the hell knows?
“Key Largo” (something about Bogie and Bacall) by…somebody or other
“Heartlight” by Neil Diamond (Inspired by “ET”)