In the Grateful Dead’s version of Stagger Lee, after the revenge shooting, she hears a band playing *Nearer My God To Thee, * but she sang Look Out Stagger Lee.
In John Fogerty’s Centerfield, he refers in passing to Chuck Berry’s Brown-Eyed Handsome Man.
In the Beatles’ Come Together, the opening lines are lifted from Chuck Berry (Aeromobile?) “Here come ol’ flat-top, he come groovin’ up slowly.”
Randy Newman lifts the title and a line or two from Stephen Foster in My Old Kentucky Home. I’ll give you one verse and the chorus.
*"Sister Sue, she’s short and stout,
She didn’t grow up, she grew out.
Papa says she’s plain, but he’s only bein’ kind.
Mama says she’s pretty, but she’s almost blind.
They don’t let her out much except at night,
I don’t care, 'cause I’m all right.
The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home,
And the young folks roll on the floor.
The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home,
Keep them hard times away from my door."*
Happy Mondays, Donovan (as well as being named for 60 pop-folkster Dovovan, whose daughter Sean Ryder later married), references “Sunshine superman”
Oh sunshine, shone brighty
Through my windoew today
Could have tripped out quite easy but I decided to stay
Hold ouit your hand said whitey with the blame
Gonna bring you up so you really dig the pain
Take you under my wings so you’ll never be the same
Cos your wife is so much older and both her legs are lame
A sunbeam shone brightly through my window today
Could have gone 20 miles but I decided to stay
Nitpick: The last line is “The Seether’s Louise.” As in Louise Post, lead singer. I went to High School with her - gotta keep it real.
To the OP: How about You Better You Bet by the Who:
“I got your body right now on my mind
and I drunk myself blind
to the sound of old T-Rex”
Or if you want a song title reference rather than the artist, how about Intergalactic by the Beastie Boys:
“It always brings me back when I hear ‘Ooh Child’”
Or artists referencing their own songs:
The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground
“I sang on ‘Do What You like’
and if ya missed it,
I’m the one who said just grab 'em in the biscuits.”
Boyz in da Hood by Eazy-E:
“Then I let the Alpine play
Pumpin new shit by NWA
It was “Gangsta Gangsta” at the top of the list”
Don’t Sniff Coke by Pato Banton:
"In February 1985 Pato became a winnah
because I did that tune called “Hello Tosh: Gotta Toshiba”
Some friends of mine in Tallahassee used to be in this amazing power trio called Magic Juan, and John (guitar, vocals) wrote a song called Possessed By The Devil where he somehow managed to work in this:
I can do many things, I’m possessed by the Devil
Satan laughing spreads his wings, I’m possessed by the Devil
The band was just incredible to see live. Ahhh, such fond memories.
[QUOTE=MacTech]
Alice Cooper (real name Vincent Furnier) has done this on the last couple of albums…QUOTE]
Hey, MacTech, how you doin’?
You missed some, sort of. Self references, anyway. -
“Earwigs To Eternity” (Pretties For You") is a reference to one of the the original names of the band.
“Return Of The Spiders” (Easy Action), same thing.
“Mr and Misdemeanor” also on “Easy Action” has a line - “Here’s new pretties for you.” that refers to the previous album, “Pretties For You”.
Aerosmith’s Just Push Play includes the line “F’n a/they’re gonna bleep it anywayWalk this way/we’re coming at you anyway”
Luniz’ I Got 5 On It remix has the line “Cause this is how we do it like Montell Jordan,” with someone singing that song’s chorus under Knumskull’s rap.
Mya’s Movin On’ has a line by Silkk the Shocker going, “Well now I’m a No Limit Soldier/Known to keep it rowdy/You know one’s that make you say uhh/And Bout It, Bout It.” That’s a reference to Master P’s (yeesh, where’d he go?) Make Em Say Uhh.
At the end of Jimmy Buffett’s Don’t Chu Know?, he changes the chorus line (and melody) from
“Don’t chu know, don’t chu know, don’t chu know”
to
“I don’t know, I don’t know” (from his better-known Volcano), before launching into a verbal riff about having heard that line somewhere before, and it “must be another one of those songs I’ve written about not knowing anything, or knowing too much, or not knowing where I’m going, or not knowing where I’ve been…”
I think he’s also thrown the “I don’t know, I don’t know” chorus onto the end of a few other of his lesser-known songs, too. I just happened to be listening to that one the other night.
Then, too, I recall David Bowie doing a follow-up song to Space Oddity - I can remember how it sounds, but not the title. Can anyone else?
The same song references Tommy and Gina from Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”:
This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow’s getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain’t even lucky
Got to make your own breaks #2 stoopidest lyrics
According to Wikipedia, there are a couple of songs that reference the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset”:
A 1987 Bob Geldof song Love like a rocket tells of Terry and Julie’s romance having gone cold twenty years on. In it, “the Waterloo sunset won’t work for her anymore”.
John Wesley Harding wrote the song In Paradise which included Terry and Julie. One version of the song also includes the chorus of Waterloo Sunset.
