Homer Simpson likes his tunes. I wonder how many real life songs we can name that he has either sung, parodied, or expressed his appreciation of:
Kiss - I was Made For Loving You
Frank Sinatra - It Was A Very Good Year (I Drank A Very Good Beer)
Bee Gees - Staying Alive (Table Five)
Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Dancing
Village People- Macho Man (Nacho, Nacho Maaaaaan!)
Homer, along with the rest of the church, accidentally sang as a hymn, Iron Butterfly’s “Inna Gadda Da Vida”
In “The Homer of Seville” (where he realizes that he’s a brilliant singer if he’s lying on his back), he sings “If Ever I Would Leave You” from Camelot and “Se Il Mio Nome Saper Voi Bramate” from “The Barber of Seville”
Without using the Internet, I can recall:
Yummy Yummy Yummy- The Ohio Express (listened to by Homer on, among other dates, July 20, 1969)
Spanish Flea- Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana Brass
Conga- Gloria Estefan (“C’mon everybody, join the sexual congress/not the kind of congress that involves Paul Tsongas”)
Tubthumping- Chumbawumba (“I take a whisky drink, I take a vodka drink/and when I have to pee, I use the kitchen sink/I sing the songs that remind me I’m a urinatin’ guy…”)
Cars- Gary Numan (“Here in my car, I am washing off blood/most of it’s mine, but some of it’s not/here’s Marge”)
Oh! Suzanna- written by Stephen Foster (performed on harmonica by Homer and Barney on The Gong Show)
Sugar Sugar- The Archies (a hallucination in “Boy Scoutz N The Hood”)
Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows- Lesley Gore (Chief Wiggum’s preferred chase music)
Watching Scotty Grow- Bobby Goldsboro (sung by a delusional Homer after taking too many hits in “I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot”)
Witch Doctor- David Seville (sung in a sensory deprivation chamber)
The Can-Can- written by Jacques Offenbach (mirror-based hallucination of his pectoral muscles)
I Dream of Jeannie theme- written by Hugh Montenegro and Buddy Kaye (sung by Barney in a bikini in one of Homer’s hallucinations)
We’re In The Money- Written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin (sung by chorus dancers and King Kong in another one of Homer’s hallucinations)
You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch- Written by Eugene Poddany and Theodor S. Geisel (rewritten by Homer as “You’re A Genius, Homer Jay”)
Uptown Girl- Billy Joel (Homer’s preferred hippie freakout music)
Wannabe- Spice Girls (Homer’s preferred trucker music)
Convoy- C.W. McCall (sung by Homer into Bart’s Mr. Microphone-esque toy)
Yes, We Have No Bananas- written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn (a lullaby to Maggie which makes him cry)
Lullaby- written by Johannes Brahms (another lullaby to Maggie Homer believes is about Christmas)
Take Me Out To The Ball Game- written by Albert von Tizler and Jack Norworth (sung by Homer to annoy Frank Grimes)
Here Comes Santa Claus- written by Gene Autry, et al/Jingle Bells- written by John S. Pierpont (Homer combines these into one song)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer- written by Johnny Marks (Homer forgets the lyrics to this song during the credits of the first-ever televised Simpsons episode)
Rock and Roll Part II- Gary Glitter (Homer inexplicably thinks about this song during a funeral)
Meow Mix jingle (Homer inexplicably thinks about this song during a trial)
Armour hot dogs jingle/Ragu Chicken Tonight jingle (beloved songs of the Simpsons family)
Oscar Meyer jingles (Homer is annoyed Jay Sherman knows the entire “I wish I was an Oscar Meyer weiner” song, and sings a rewritten version of “My bologna has a first name” to himself in the bathtub)
Kids (from the musical Bye Bye Birdie)- written by Adams and Strouse (sung by the entire town in “Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken”)
Happy Together- The Turtles (two dream sequences- one in “The Way We Weren’t”, one in The Simpsons Movie)
Spider-Man- written by Paul Webster and Bob Harris (sung to Plopper the pig in The Simpsons Movie)
You Light Up My Life- Kasey Cisyk (sung by Homer and Marge in “The Way We Was”)
(They Long To Be) Close To You- The Carpenters (Homer and Marge’s song)
Homer inexplicably has a Starland Vocal Band tattoo, despite the fact he believes that band sucks.
“It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” – R.E.M., which appeared in the episode.
Mandy - Barry Mannalow - Sang it about a girl named Mindy (or a man named Andy)
Takin’ Care of Business, Bachman Turner Overdrive (Homer insist they play it while performing at…something. I’ve forgotten the rest of the episode)
The Joker, Steve Miller (Young Homer sing along with it in his car)
Mandy, Barry Mannilow (Homer sing a version while infatuated with his coworker Mindy, which rather confuses Lisa)
O Holy Night (IIRC, that’s the song Homer’s singing when his voice cracks, shattering Abe’s dreams of his son becoming a famous singer)
I’m guessing “Shavin’ My Shoulders” wasn’t a real song?
Actually that one started as “Big Spender” from Sweet Charity before it transformed into Staying Alive:
Hey Big Spender
Rainbow suspenders,
Electric Blenders,
Spend some dough on table 3.
Now give it up for table 5!
(to tune of staying alive by Bee Gees)
Ahh, Ahh, Ahh, Ahh
Table 5, table 5.
Ahh ahh ahh ahh
table fiiiiiiivvvvvvvvee!!
It actually does have its own ASCAP listing: written by Al Jean and Dan Castellaneta, published by TCF Music Publishing. (I believe Al Jean commented that he actually gets royalty checks for that song on the episode’s DVD commentary.)
Other songs of Homer’s creation that somehow get royalties paid to them:
Where Is The Rent? (from Rent II: Condo Fever!)
Chop, Chop, Dig, Dig
Mr. Plow
Nothing In Al Capone’s Vault
Dancin’ Away My Hunger Pangs
(These are the only ones I have heard of that have Castellaneta as “songwriter.” Homer himself has written a number of other songs, including Everybody Hates Ned Flanders, I’m Talking Springfield, Baby on Board, and C. Everett Koop, as well as a song about Mr. T.)
Well, whadda ya know.
That darn song always gets stuck in my head. It can be embarrassing if I start singing it out loud.
Flintstones theme, adapted.
“…he’s about to hit a chestnut tree.”
In which he expresses a general appreciation of Queen…
When I was seventeen
I drank some very good beer
It was some very good beer that I purchased with a fake ID
My name was Brian McGee
I stayed up listening to Queen
When I was seventeen.
Another is “My Country 'Tis of Thee”, of which Homer tearfully sings a line or two while watching the “American” toilet flush in Bart vs. Australia.
“Your playing, while technically proficient, lacks passion.”
“You want passion, eh?”
Blue Spanish eyes
Teardrops are falling from your Spanish eyes
Homer’s improved take on “Smoke on the Water:”
They burned down the gaaaamblin’ house
It died with an awful sound
I am hungry for a… candy bar
I think I’ll have a Mounds…
mobo, I’m pretty sure one of the writers (Vitti, I suppose) came up with “Mr. Plow” on his own, thinking it would be rewritten and replaced with something better. It wasn’t. Maybe Castellaneta improvised the tune?
What about
D’oh
A deer.
A female deer.
(Sort of a family effort, though)
He’s a big Grand Funk Railroad fan, so much so that he asked The Who to play Grand Funk songs during their New Springfield show. I don’t remember Homer ever singing “We’re an American Band,” though.
“Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na fishing” and “na na na na na na na na na na na na na na leader”.
Does the time he hummed “Sax-a-ma-phoooooone” into Lisa’s sax to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony count?
He also attempted to sing Buckner and Garcia’s Pac-Man Fever, claiming that the song plays itself. Based on Homer’s performance, it didn’t.
In the ASCAP listings, most of the Simpsons cues are just listed under “Simpsons cues,” with additional information in the listings themselves. Jeff Martin wrote the Mr. Plow jingle (as he pointed out in the DVD commentary for the episode, he basically plagarized the melody from the Roto-Rooter jingle), although the specific title doesn’t appear in his cue listings (although various others do, including a one-second jingle for english muffins he’s surprised he actually gets paid for.) The “Mr. Plow” listing I was referring to is co-written by Castellaneta, Al Jean, and Mike Reiss. I have no way of knowing for sure, but perhaps it’s Homer’s ill-fated second jingle:
I’m Mr. Plow and I’m here to say
I’m the plowenist guy in the U.S.A.!
I got a big plow and I’ll move a lot of things
Like your cow if you have one