# Songs that are puns (and other wordplay) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 24, 2007, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748 "2007-08-24T12:38:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/1 "2007-08-24T12:38:33Z")
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Crosby, Stills, and Nash (I’ll bet plenty of people don’t realize the actual spelling of “suite” in the title) Deja Vous – Siegel-Schwall Band All Gall – Flanders and Swan (about Charles de Gaulle) Rhinocratic Oaths – Bonzo Dog Band (as opposed to “Hippocratic.”) ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/2 "2007-08-24T12:49:35Z")
“Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” Sly and the Family Stone ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/3 "2007-08-24T12:52:23Z")
**Levon** — Elton John and Bernie Taupin For the lyric, “He shall be Levon”. (He shall believe on.) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/4 "2007-08-24T12:54:05Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Rhinocratic Oaths – Bonzo Dog Band (as opposed to “Hippocratic.”) [/QUOTE] Also, [Cezanne Says Anne](http://tinyurl.com/yogfeg) ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/5 "2007-08-24T13:11:29Z")
Led Zep’s _D’yer Mak’er_. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/6 "2007-08-24T13:23:52Z")
_Moonin’_- from the musical _Grease_ _I Hold Your Hand in Mine_- Tom Lehrer ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/7 "2007-08-24T13:27:21Z")
More than titles, you know. Rush has a song called ‘Anagram (for Mongo)’ in which the primary words in most lines are anagrams of each other. Fun song but apparently written just for the wordplay. ---
**Author:** ![Gail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Gail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gail)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/8 "2007-08-24T13:28:51Z")
I always thought Nazareth’s _Hair of the Dog_ was a pun. (_Heir_ of the dog = son of a bitch Maybe I’m giving them way too much credit. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/9 "2007-08-24T13:44:50Z")
There’s the old favorite [Mairzy Doats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mares_eat_oats), which Mom and I used to sing to pass the time on long car trips when I was little. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/10 "2007-08-24T13:49:16Z")
[QUOTE=Gail] I always thought Nazareth’s _Hair of the Dog_ was a pun. (_Heir_ of the dog = son of a bitch Maybe I’m giving them way too much credit. [/QUOTE] _Hair of the dog_ is a pretty established idiom - based on the notion of ‘like cures like’ - i.e. that a hair from a dog would cure a bite from that same dog - it goes all the way back to the Romans. In more recent times, the phrase has been accepted to mean a drink of something to cure a hangover from drinking a lot of the same thing the previous night. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/11 "2007-08-24T13:50:49Z")
Oh… I see the song’s lyrics contain the phrase _Son of a bitch_. You might be right, although it seems a bit of a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/12 "2007-08-24T13:51:56Z")
ABBA’s _Eagle_ is a song about being an Eagle, but is also an homage to the group the Eagles ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/13 "2007-08-24T14:24:45Z")
Maybe not a pun as much as an extended metaphor with a few good puns tossed in … _Sniper_ by Harry Chapin does a lot with comparing a conversation to a sniper shooting at people. The sniper, ignored his entire life, finds a way to make people listen to his questions. When he starts shooting, “his pointed questions [are] sprayed”. When the cops take him down at the end, “with their final fusillade, his answer had come”, fusillade being both “a rapid verbal outburst” and “burst of gunfire”. Pretty cool song. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/14 "2007-08-24T14:28:41Z")
The blues song\* “The Sky Is Crying” actually milks the old Hendrix “kiss this guy” mondegreen (intentionally or not) by repeating the lyric “The sky is crying” throughout, then at the end changing it to “This guy is crying.” \*forgive me if its original form is otherwise, I only actually know it from Stevie Ray. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/15 "2007-08-24T14:46:05Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nej4xJe4Tdg) Bob, by Weird Al. A tribute to Bob Dylan entirely in palindromes. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/16 "2007-08-24T15:11:30Z")
"[The World’s Address](http://www.lyricsdepot.com/they-might-be-giants/the-worlds-address.html) ", by **They Might Be Giants** , which not only has a pun as its title but comments self-referentially on its own paranomasia in the chorus. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/17 "2007-08-24T15:35:45Z")
Country songs (recent ones, anyway) are famous for using an idiom in the title and twisting the meaning. “She Let Herself Go” “There Goes My Life” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/18 "2007-08-24T15:37:20Z")
Not a song, but a band: **Loop Guru** ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/19 "2007-08-24T15:41:18Z")
If bands are allowed I’m going for _The Beatles_. ---
**Author:** ![Borborygmi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/borborygmi/32/217_2.png) [@Borborygmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borborygmi)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2007, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748/20 "2007-08-24T16:05:23Z")
Elvis Costello songs often contain a fair amount of wordplay, which is sometimes cool and sometimes annoying. A favorite of mine is “High Fidelity”… a song about relationship faithfulness which both gives new meaning to the term and deftly references the usual meaning (“Can you hear me?”). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-are-puns-and-other-wordplay/416748.md?page=2)