“Well I heard Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sing about her”
In the same song, Bon Jovi also reference Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”:
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My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said I did it my way
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What about referencing a couple albums, with one of the albums also being a song?
If that counts, The National "Don’t Swallow The Cap’ -
And if you want (dead seriously)
To see me cry (don’t swallow the cap)
Play “Let It Be” (pat yourself on the back)
Or “Nevermind” (dead seriously)
Mott the Hoople’s “Drivin’ Sister” starts out with a reference to the own earlier song:." Eight track machine playing ‘Half Moon Bay.’"
This is stretching it…
At the end of The Twelve Days of Christmas by Doug and Bob McKenzie they talk about the song.
Boy, that song was a beauty. It moved me.
Yeah, I think it ranks up there with Stairway to Heaven.
I just heard Communication by Spandau Ballet on the radio:
Dictate or relay, I could send it to your home,
“Return to Sender” - I could sing it down the phone!
The first six words of Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn are “Put on my Blue Suede Shoes.” I think that might maybe be a reference to some song.
Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict by Pink Floyd ends with the line “And the wind cried Mary”
And people came from miles around, everyone was there
Yoko brought her walrus, there was magic in the air
An’ over in the corner, much to my surprise
Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan’s shoes wearing his disguise
I said hello to Mary Lou, she belongs to me
When I sang a song about a honky-tonk, it was time to leave
Someone opened up a closet door and out stepped Johnny B. Goode
Playing guitar like a-ringin’ a bell and lookin’ like he should
Rick Nelson “Garden Party”
In the song Killing me Softly with His Song, first recorded by Lori Lieberman but more famously covered by Roberta Flack, the he is Don McLean and his song is “Empty Chairs.” I’m not sure that should count, since it’s not obvious from the lyrics which song “Killing me” is referring to.
Simon & Garfunkel’s A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission) is basically a list of names, but it includes the line “Andy Warhol, won’t you please come home?” In the same notes as Bill Bailey.
Rocket-Def Leppard
“I Don’t Want To Die In This Town” by Old 97s:
There was a highway
Frank singing “My Way”
Or maybe it was Sid.
I’m not sure how strong the evidence is for this. Supposedly there’s evidence that the composers of the song confirmed it in the past; however, in later years they denied that there’s any truth to it.
Below is a snippet of an interview with Charles Fox, the lyricist.