Songs that break the 4th wall

So Fine by Guns 'n Roses has “Guitar, c’mon!” for the solo.

As for self-reference, breaking the fourth wall, Such Great Heights by the Postal Service has :

“when you scan the radio I hope this song will guide you”

We Are Not Going to Make It by the Presidents of the USA (I think someone else actually wrote it, but they’re the most known for it) is a meta-song about how they aren’t any good. It begins with a failed take, and then makes references to the (in)ability of the drummer and singer using the singer and drummer themselves. There are also the lines:

“we don’t have the talent
and we don’t have the time
and we don’t have the patience
and we don’t know to rhyme”

‘Down Together’ by The Refreshments contains this lyric:

“We could chase our shadows around the lawn
until we’re both exhausted
I could forget the words here one more time
and hope that no one notices”

For all of me that album ‘Fizzy, Fuzzy Big and Buzzy’ is one of the greatest albums of the 90s. It’s astonishing.

You’re certainly welcome.

Superdude. Resident Hair Band Semi-savant.

“Superpowers”- Five Iron Frenzy

Sometimes we have a deadline
for writing our songs.
Five minutes left to write this one
la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la.

From Once More with Feeling, the musical episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

The song is “Walk through the Fire”

Kirsty MacColl’s “A New England” - “I was twenty one years when I wrote this song, I’m twenty two now, but I won’t be for long.”

The Pogues’ “Rainy Night in SoHo” - “Now this song is nearly over. We may never find out what it means.”

Sixpence None the Richer’s “Anything” - “This is my forty-fifth depressing tune. I’m looking for money as I clean my artistic womb.”

Sixpence again, with “The Lines of My Earth” - “This is the last song that I’ll write, 'til you tell me otherwise, and it’s because I just don’t feel it. This is the last song, 'til you tell me otherwise, and it’s because I just don’t feel it anymore.”

Not sure if you guys will think this one counts, but:

Beth - Kiss

Beth, I hear you callin’
But I can’t come home right now
Me and the boys are playin’
And we just can’t find the sound…

Great Expectations - Kiss

*You watch me singing this song

You watch Pete beatin’ his drum*

The Clash, pressured by their label to produce a radio friendly hit song, came out with “This is Radio Clash.”

You can go ahead and get married
And this’ll be our secret thing
I won’t tell a soul
Except the people in the nightclub where I sing

–Old 97’s, Designs on You

Steely Dan Deacon Blues

“I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play it wrong”

This Song Don’t Have a Video by Loudon Wainwright III

“25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago and “These Words” by Natasha Bedingfield–both are about cases of writer’s block when trying to write the song.

Or even Billy Bragg’s “A New England” ;). The two lines you quoted are also the first two lines of Paul Simon’s “Leaves That Are Green.”

Willie Nelson’s “Sad Songs and Waltzes” opens with “I’m writing a song all about you,” and laments in the chorus that “though [his] record may say it, no one will play it, 'cause sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.”

Did Billy Bragg write that song? I had no idea it was a cover. MacColl’s version seems pretty gender specific, with lines like, “I put you on a pedestal, you put me on the pill.”

Checking Wikipedia, it appears that she added a verse to the song, which I presume was that one. Bragg now includes it whenever he performs it, in her memory.

I really need to get more of his albums. I’ve only heard Mermaid Avenue to date.

See post #16.

Doh! I checked for the Willie Nelson song, but I didn’t think to see if anyone had mentioned the Paul Simon one.:smack:

I think she added the one that ends “I never asked that boy to stay” - I can’t remember ever hearing it without the pedestal/pill verse.

Rutles, Piggy In The Middle
(a parody of “I Am The Walrus”)
“I know you know what you know
but you should know by now
that you’re not me”

.

Violent Femmes, Prove my Love
“Third verse, same as the first”

Wings, Silly Love Songs
“You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs.
But I look around me and I see it isn’t so.
Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.
And what’s wrong with that?
Id like to know, cause here I go again
I love you, I love you,
I love you, I love you,…”

Okkervil River: “John Allyn Smith Sails”, (on an unrelated note, this song finishes with a new take on “Sloop John B.”)

“By the second verse, dear friends
My head will burst, my life will end
So I’d like to start this one off by saying
‘Live and love’”

Nitpick, I know, but it’s “sue me if I play too long”
Lotsa brilliant lyrics in the Steely Dan catalog.