Curiously, I was just thinking about this the other day (before seeing this thread). “Almost any” isn’t actually a fair characterization for Nirvana songs. As a short case study, take the 24 tracks on their two major-label studio albums. Of these, only one third have song titles which don’t appear in the lyrics:
[ol]
[li]“Smells Like Teen Spirit”[/li][li]“Lithium”[/li][li]“Territorial Pissings”[/li][li]“Lounge Act”[/li][li]“Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”[/li][li]“Milk It”[/li][li]“Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”[/li][li]“tourette’s”[/li][/ol]
A further four have song titles which occur, albeit not prominently, in the lyrics:
[ol]
[li]“In Bloom”[/li][li]“Breed”[/li][li]“Scentless Apprentice”[/li][li]“Very Ape”[/li][/ol]
The remaining twelve tracks have titles which feature prominently and repeatedly in the lyrics:
[ol]
[li]“Come as You Are”[/li][li]“Polly”[/li][li]“Drain You”[/li][li]“Stay Away”[/li][li]“On a Plain”[/li][li]“Something in the Way”[/li][li]“Serve the Servants”[/li][li]“Heart-shaped Box”[/li][li]“Rape Me”[/li][li]“Dumb”[/li][li]“Pennyroyal Tea”[/li][li]“All Apologies”[/li][/ol]
The version of this book that I read had a prologue by the author explaining that he deliberately (and may even have opened the ‘job’ of naming the book to his friends IIRC) set out to choose a title that had absolutely no relevance to the text or story within. For intellectual or ideological reasons pertaining to the structure of the work, it seemed. Maybe he doesn’t even remember the reason (or lack thereof!)
[QUOTE=CalMeacham;. I’m convinced the 1960’s Doris Day film Please Don’t Eat the Daisies threw in a song with “Don’t Eat the Daisies” in it so that people wouldn’t ask where the title came from.
.[/QUOTE]
In the book one of Kerr’s sons takes everything literally. If she told him “Stop hitting the table with your fork” he’d put down the fork and start hitting it with his spoon.
She was giving a formal dinner party and thought she had run down the list of everything he was not supposed to do. However, she did not tell him not to eat the daisies in the table’s centerpiece.
Kid ate every one.
Of these, I think at least the following are quite obvious:
Lithium > The narrator is on that drug.
Frances Farmer etc > Is about Frances Farmer
Tourette’s > Singer is angry like some Tourette’s people.
I wouldn’t say that the lyrics are particularly representative of someone on lithium, which is a mood stabilizer. It’s not known for producing hallucinations, excitability, sexual arousal, etc., which the song’s narrator reports.
Anger isn’t a symptom of Tourette’s. More likely the song was named for the way some people with Tourette’s have uncontrollable verbal tics.
It’s been a long time since I read the book, but I remember that man being Begbie’s father.
nm
Remember that scene in This Is Spinal Tap where Nigel was playing a lovely melody on the piano, and was asked what that piece was called? He answered “Lick My Love Pump.”
That was supposed to be a joke showing that, even when playing a beautiful tune, Nigel still thought like a dirty-minded adolsecent.
Well, oddly enough, Frank Zappa did that kind of thing all the time. He regularly wrote or performed very pretty music, then gave it a silly, ugly, puerile or borderline obscene title.
Not just a beautiful tune, but a sad one. It was in D minor, the saddest key of all.
I can hear the influences. Mozart, and Bach. It’s really a Mach piece.
I agree with those thoughts. But I still say these are the reasons the songs are named that way. The titles are related, they are just not that good a fit.
What about True Romance?
Regarding Name of the Rose, I had been told that the title referred to the in-story discussion of whether or not Jesus owned a purse (i.e. was he truly free of the concerns of the material world, or did he use money.) Is this a retcon of the title?
My own contribution: Rainy Day Women No.12 and 35. Huh?