Songs that basically consist of nothing but a long string of pop culture references

Cafe Society
1

Ok, off the top of my head, I can think of two songs that basically consist almost entirely of meaningless pop culture references. That is to say, there is a chorus, a musical bridge and then basically just a rambling list of stuff from movies, TV, politics and current events:

  1. We Didn’t Start the Fire - Billy Joel ("…Rock&Roll, the Cola Wars, I can’t take it any more!!!)

and

  1. One Week - Barenaked Ladies ("…Watchin’ X-Files with no lights on…We’re dans la maison…I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one…Like Harrison Ford I’m getting frantic…Like Sting I’m tantric…Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy…")
    are there any other songs like this?
2

TV Party by Black Flag is kinda close. It’s largely lists of TV shows (now almost all cancelled).

Sodomy from Hair might count, as might the song that starts off talking about LBJ on the IRC (can’t recall the exact title).

3

Methinks you ignored the odd-vious: American Pie by Don McLean.

4

REM: “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”

5

There’s a song from the mid-1970’s, “Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)”, which consists largely of a list of musicians.

6

If you’re allowing parodies and such, there are several of Weird Al Yankovic’s songs that would qualify (“I Can’t Watch This,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Dare to be Stupid” …)

7

As far as pop-culture references, it’s hard to beat Beck’s “Loser.” A long string of non-sequiturs that basically refers to all sorts of loser behaviors and pastimes.

At least, as near as I can tell.

8

The Artifical Joy Club album Melt contains several pop references from Star Trek to Bambi vs. Godzilla to Forest Gump to Tarantino to Pez. Its a Canadian band which didn’t last too long in the spotlight, one of Leslie Howe’s projects (and probably the latest incarnation of One to One for those who remember the late 80’s – early 90’s).

[slight hijack]
For those Americans not in the know, Leslie Howe produced and co-wrote Alanis Morrissette’s first album Alanis. Jagged Little Pill was her third album and the first two are a little hard to find now.
[/slight highjack]

-DF

9

This Note’s For You: Neil Young & The Bluenotes lament the commercialization and list a few products - mainly beverages.

A Simple Desultrory Philipic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’s Into Submission): Simon & Garfunkel’s homage to politicians, writers, philosophers & their muical contemporaries.

Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s entire album We’re Only In It For The Money tears down a whole host of Hippie/Beatles pop culture.

Bob Dylan does it alot too - most memorably (for me) in his song Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream; where he tells of sailing to the New World on the Mayflower and finds himself smack dab in the middle of contemporary (late 60’s) America.

As far a list of pop icon names, you can find an alphabetical lists of people mentioned in Monster’s thread “Songs that name other people” linked below:

Here (First 323 Names (A thru G),

Here (Next 340 Names (H thru Presley) and

Here (Last 250 Names (Previn thru Z).

10

Ookla the Mok does one called Still Can’t Buy Me Love

11

Dire Straits: Money for nothing (the song is based on utterances they heard during the pre concert set up)

Devo: Whip It

12

Eytan Mirsky’s (I Just Wanna Be Your) Steve McQueen is basically a bunch of McQueen movie titles made into a love song.

13

Almost any song by Bloodhound Gang is nothing but pop culture.

14

Bowling for Soup’s “1985” fits this description nicely.

I still like it, though.

15

Julie Brown’s Will I make it through the 80s’ fits this.

There was a parody of the b-52s Love Shack called Radio Shack which captures geekdom of that technological moment.

16

Babies of the 80s by Something Corporate

17

Purple Toupee by TMBG has a few, like, “I heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks
Somebody put their fingers in the President’s ears
It wasn’t too much later they came out with Johnson’s wax.”

There are a few more too.

18

Tom Lehrer’s National Brotherhood Week would also fit into this.

19

Don’t know how I forgot about that one.
As for American Pie, all I know is the chorus (and that a levy is like a dike or canal or seawall or something).

20

Probably not exactly what the OP had in mind, but there was an old Charlie Daniels Band song called “The South’s Gonna Do It Again” which mentioned just about every southern rock band popular at the time.