“R.A.M.O.N.E.S” by Motörhead.
“Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple refers to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, among other things.
Next time you put this mix together, throw in Lulu by Trip Shakespeare:
“Lonely when I hear the band
That used to play, when we were looking for music.
Lonely when I hear the band
Do you remember, do you recall?”
A few:
“Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” - George Jones
“Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)” - Waylon Jennings
“XTC vs. Adam Ant” - They Might Be Giants
“The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” Prince
“Morrissey Rides a Cockhorse” - Warlock Pinchers
“Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance to Anything)” - The Dead Milkmen
Man, I swear every third Cafe Society thread I contribute to, I mention Jeb Loy Nichols.
But his songs are always talking about listening to other artists, and the one other fan I know of keeps saying we should get a playlist together with all of Jeb’s recommendations.
*We’ll get out all the old records
Just the way we used to do.
We’ll disturb the neighbors,
And we’ll dance til the night is through…
We got Tony Joe White, we got Merle Haggard,
Culture and the Mighty Heaters,
We got Bobby Womack and Curtis Mayfield,
Bill Monroe, we got Bob Lou…(who?)…
We got music…music…sweet music…yes we do.*
And that’s only one of a number of songs where he mentions what’s on the radio in the background, or what they were listening to on a road trip.
LCD Soundsystem, “Losing My Edge”
Exile in Guyville is Liz Phair, not PJ Harvey.
There are quite a few hip-hop songs that reference other artists, either in respect or to diss them. It’s more common for this to just be a few lines, but sometimes that’s the subject of the entire song. An interesting example is the group 3rd Bass, whose only major hit was a track dissing Vanilla Ice.
Getting into more obscure stuff, there’s an amusing song called “Hats Off to Halford” that’s about Rob Halford (the lead singer of Judas Priest) coming out of the closet.
Also by LCD Soundsystem - “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House”.
Paul Simon’s “So Long Frank Lloyd Wright” and “Rene and Georgette Magritte and their Dog After the War”… or was the OP only referring to *musical *artists?
“Jackie Wilson Said” by Van Morrison
“Geno” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners is a tribute to Geno Washington.
“Out For The Count” by Orange Juice namechecks both Bobbie Gentry and one of her biggest hits:
“I dreamt of Bobbie Gentry and her warm enchanting smile/ she said she’d never fall in love again, at least not for a while.”
“Sweet Gene Vincent” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
Oh, how about Jackson Browne’s “The Load Out/Stay?”
“Late” by Ben Folds is about Elliott Smith, and his death.
“It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” mentions Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, and Lester Bangs.
“Monkey” by Counting Crows makes a reference to Ben Folds.
Ben Folds Five has a song called “Alice Childress,” though, to be fair, Ben Folds claims it’s about someone he knew growing up, and didn’t realize there was someone famous with that name.
“Boxing” by Ben Folds Five is told from the perspective of Muhammad Ali, and in it, he’s talking to Howard Cosell.
“Rockin’ the Suburbs,” by Ben Folds mentions Michael Jackson, Quiet Riot, and Jon Bon Jovi.
“Department of Youth” by Alice Cooper mentions Donny Osmond.
WHAT!
How about something from this century?
“Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus mentions Jay-Z and Britney Spears.
“Tim McGraw” by Taylor Swift.
“Harder, Better, Faster, Strong” by Kanye West mentions Prince.
And the only tune that the fiddle would play
Was Oh, the Dreadful Wind and Rain.
Even when titled “Two Sisters” or “Cruel Sister,” the narrative that the narrative requires (revealing the murder) is itself.
“KRS-ONE” by Sublime
Thanks! I’ll add them in.
In some other thread I mentioned the infinite regress of “The Tennessee Waltz”.
“Destroyer” by the Kinks appears to be a sequel to “Lola.”
John Lennon’s nasty “How Do you Sleep” is all about Paul.
Dylan’s “High Water Rising,” a great song, is a tribute to Charlie Patten, a blues pioneer who wrote songs about the 1927 Louisiana flood. Highway 61 era songs, especially “Desolation Row” are full of references to real artists and others. And he mentions Alicia Keyes in “Thunder on the Mountain.”
There are lots of references to Dylan lyrics in other songs. “My Whole Work Lies Waiting Behind Door Number 3” which I heard Steve Goodman do is about “Let’s Make a Deal” has the line in “Like a Rolling Stone” “do you want to make a deal?” And Jaime Brockett’s song about the Titanic has “like all tough sailors do, when they’re far away at sea” from “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.”