MetaChat - Songs that quote other songs?

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24 August 2007

Songs that quote other songs? A small fascination of mine are songs that quote other songs; the use of a lyric or a referential guitar part can open up another point of reference within the song.→[More:]I don’t mean outright ripoffs or influence (garage rock in the 60s wouldn’t have existed without the Stones or the Beatles), but actually using the quote to bring some meaning to your own song. For instance, the song “Yip/Jump Music” by Clem Snide is not only named for a Daniel Johnston album, but also references the song “Worried Shoes” from the album.

Of course, this could also be seen as an insular and pretentious snub, but that's another post entirely.

With all that, what are some of your favorite songs that quote other songs? Also: quote, not sample

post by: sleepy_pete at: 14:17 | 40 comments

It's not quite a quote, but I've always loved it that Public Enemy chose to respond to the Beastie Boys with "Party for Your Right to Fight."

posted by cobra! 24 August | 14:23

Golden Earring's "Radar Love" has the line "Brenda Lee is comin' on strong," "Coming On Strong" being the name of one of her hits.

posted by JanetLand 24 August | 14:24

Ah, response songs are great as well. Yeah, not quite a quote, but close enough. Of course, the song's still no "Roxanne's Revenge". kidding, kidding, sorta

posted by sleepy_pete 24 August | 14:27

I think the epitome of this is "You Were Right" by Built to Spill.

You were wrong when you said
Everything's gonna be alright
You were right when you said
All that glitters isn't gold
You were right when you said
All we are is dust in the wind
You were right when you said
We are all just bricks in the wall
And when you said manic depression's a frustrating mess
You were right when you said
You can't always get what you want
You were right when you said
It's a hard rain's gonna fall
You were right when you said
We're still running against the wind
And life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone
You were right when you said
This is the end
Do you ever think about it?

posted by matildaben 24 August | 14:36

Great question!

In the song Take Me Home Tonight, Eddie Money sings

Take me home tonight
I don't want to let you go till you see the light
Take me home tonight
Listen honey
Just like Ronnie sang...

and then Ronnie Bennett from the Ronettes sings

...Be my little baby
Be my little baby

and she's quoting her own song (Be My Baby), which is sooo meta.

posted by iconomy 24 August | 14:37

It's a big, big thing in hip-hop music. Among other examples, Jay-Z quotes Biggie incessantly (so much that Nas' 'Ether' asks 'How many more of Biggie's rhymes are gonna come out your fat lips?'), and certain lines, like 'Here's a little story,' 'Two years ago, a friend of mine,' or 'What more can I say,' recur very frequently.

My favorite example, though, is Marvin Gaye's 'Darling You're Wonderful.'

posted by box 24 August | 14:38

Soft Cell breaks out into "Where Did Our Love Go" in the middle of "Tainted Love."

posted by jrossi4r 24 August | 14:40

From the song "Cool in the Backseat" by The Nields: "When I was sad, you got me a puppy, we told it not to grow older/Then somewhere near Salinas, I let him slip away..."

posted by rtha 24 August | 14:40

Another one - the Better Than Ezra song called Extra Ordinary:

Still I couldn't get arrested
Though I got more hooks
Than Madonna got looks
And just like that AC/DC song
"Come on baby, shake me all night long"

So much for the late rent
Cause your money's spent
And it's cold inside
But just like that Barenaked Ladies' song
"I'm hot like wasabi" when I'm next to your body

The two songs they're quoting are You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC and One Week by BNL, probably obvious...

posted by iconomy 24 August | 14:50

Golden Earring's "Radar Love" has the line "Brenda Lee is comin' on strong," "Coming On Strong" being the name of one of her hits.

Is THAT what they're saying? For some reason, even though I knew it was pretty impossible, I always thought they were saying that Brandon Lee was coming on strong, implying that this was a good thing because it looked like he'd be a good kung-fu prospect to replace his father. I guess your version makes more sense and is, you know, actually possible.

Another response sort of: Wilco's Hotel Arizona doesn't really refer to Hotel California, but the gag name wouldn't work without the Eagles.

And how about Petty's "Runnin Down a Dream," with the Del Shannon/"Runaway" reference?

posted by cobra! 24 August | 14:52

There's a Travis song, "Slideshow", where the chorus starts:

...there is no design for life
There's no devil's haircut in my mind
There is not a wonderwall to climb
or step around...

For melodic references, Tenacious D is notorious for sprinkling little riffs from other rocks songs - like Zep's "Stairway to Heaven" in the middle or near the end of the D's "Tribute".

posted by muddgirl 24 August | 14:52

These are great, thanks. More please.

iconomy, not obvious at all. Although, "Just like Ronnie said..." came up the other day in conversation and I just got it out of my head. Thanks for putting it back in.

posted by sleepy_pete 24 August | 14:56

I wrote a song once that had the line:

And Bob Weir says they can't revoke your soul for tryin'
So I keep on tryin'
With the help of that silver gin.

It's sorta apropos to this thread, anyway.

posted by danf 24 August | 14:57

wait, "sang" not "said," although I've always thought it was "said" for some reason.

posted by sleepy_pete 24 August | 14:57

mass-market indie pop reference:

Snow Patrol (yea, yea I know I know...) in Hands Open sings:

Put Sufjan Stevens on
and we'll play your favorite song
"Chicago" bursts to life and your
sweet smile remembers you

/mass-market indie pop reference

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 14:58

Echoing Matildaben: "You Were Right", but Built to Spill. A personal fave.

posted by me3dia 24 August | 15:02

hurrr, guess that's not exactly a QUOTE now, is it? Merely referential...

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 15:02

(me3dia that was not directed at you, merely me bemoaning my lack of reading comprehension, sorry)

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 15:03

Oh, also, "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits references "A Place for Us" from West Side Story *and* "My Boyfriend's Back" by The Angels.

posted by me3dia 24 August | 15:05

No worries, lfr; besides, references weren't excluded by the question.

posted by me3dia 24 August | 15:07

just like that Barenaked Ladies' song

...and BNL musically quotes a couple of guitar licks from Rush's "Spirit of Radio" in "Grade 9"

See also: the Beatles' "Glass Onion"

posted by Joe Invisible 24 August | 15:08

The Nervous Little Dogs' memorable cover of "The Girl from Ipanema" starts off with the funky bass riff and "Heeeey!" of Wild Cherry's immortal "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)."

And there's the title line from a Marshall Crenshaw song: "I'm Sorry, But So Is Brenda Lee."

posted by PaxDigita 24 August | 15:11

Check my recent "songs about the music biz" thread - there are a bunch in there like "Three verses of Dixie" and "Shooting Star"

posted by Miko 24 August | 15:15

"Just like Ronnie said..."

e a r w e r m z!

You're welcome ;)

posted by iconomy 24 August | 15:20

I don't know if this counts or not but in Elliott Smith's "Baby Britain" he says "the radio was playing Crimson and Clover". No quotes though.

posted by puke & cry 24 August | 15:23

Here is a whole song (written by Emmylou Harris) with allusions to other songwriters.

A kickass on, to boot.

Sadly, the MP3 exists on my home box.

posted by danf 24 August | 15:30

Q-Tip and Janet Jackson tip Joni Mitchell in "Got Till It's Gone" with:
Joni Mitchell never lies (lies, lies)
You never know what you've got till it's gone
which is from Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi"

posted by Hellbient 24 August | 15:51

I thought Joni Mitchell was quoting a song in This Flight Tonight:

I'm drinking sweet champagne
Got the headphones up high
Can't numb you out
Can't drum you out of my mind
They're playing "Goodbye baby, Baby Goodbye,
Ooh, ooh, love is blind"
Up go the flaps, down go the wheels
I hope you got your heat turned on baby
I hope they finally fixed your automobile
I hope it's better when we meet again baby

...but after googling, all I can find is a Van Morrison song that doesn't quite fit.

And rtha, it's so nice to see someone who knows The Neilds! They were great friends of mine (and my old band's) when we lived in Massachusetts. I was sorry to see them break up, but I'm happy folks still know about them.

posted by Specklet 24 August | 15:52

The Jimmy Eat World song "A Praise Chorus" quotes several songs.

posted by lalex 24 August | 15:52

Van Morrison's 'Jackie Wilson Said' quotes Jackie Wilson's 'Reet Petite (The Sweetest Girl in Town),' and 'Reet Petite,' written by Berry Gordy, takes its title, and maybe some lyrics, for all I know, from the Louis Jordan movie/song 'Reet, Petite and Gone.'

posted by box 24 August | 16:16

"Make Me Lose Control" by Eric Carmen mentions "Uptown" (Crystals) and "Stand By Me" (Ben E. King).

posted by JanetLand 24 August | 16:24

danf: Your lyrics seem apropos. I actually do things like this all the time in writing (songs or otherwise), which is why it interests me to see other examples. The band that I play with used to end one of our songs with this Spiritualized song and then after a few bars add a few of the lines from this Flaming Lips song all within the chord structure of our song. The doubly (and possibly even triply) ridiculous part is that both of those songs reference other songs, "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" and "So Far Away". The metaness of it all made a drummer's head explode, so we had to stop doing it.

Yeah, I'm a geek.

I'm missing the Nields reference, what are those lines quoting from? I'm a little slow today, sorry. I'll also try not to post in here again...

posted by sleepy_pete 24 August | 16:27

Duh, nevermind, I got it rtha. That's a really good one.

posted by sleepy_pete 24 August | 16:32

it occurs to me that Belle & Sebastian tend to do this a fair amount. tho being at my work machine isn't helping me to cite any of them.

as far as musical references, Midlake musically "quote" a few bars of the acoustic guitar riff from "Theme From M.A.S.H." on the beginning of "Roscoe" (the album version, not one of their many, many remixes).

and if you haven't heard that album (The Trials of Van Occupanther), I strongly recommend it.

posted by lonefrontranger 24 August | 17:19

Ooooh, Arctic Monkeys, in When the Sun Goes Down:

And i've seen him with girls of the night
And he told Roxanne to put on her red light

posted by richat 24 August | 17:57

And, Stiff Little Fingers certainly were referencing The Clash when they break into a chorus of "Capital Radio" in their song, "You Can't Say Crap on the Radio", which I mentioned in Miko's thread!

posted by richat 24 August | 18:06

And, I can't recall if one artist mentioning another counts...Bruce Cockburn references some indie rockers in "Last Night of the World":

I'm sipping Flor De Caa and lime juice, it's three a.m.
Blow a fruit fly off the rim of my glass
The radio's playing Superchunk and the friends of Dean Martinez

And...The Cowboy Junkies, on their first album did a lovely song called Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis), which featured a large part of the song Blue Moon, along with some new lyrics.

Great Canadian punkers The Forgotten Rebels did a "modern" (for 1981 anyway) version of "The Kids are Alright", with "The Punks Are Alright"

On his great debut record, John Wesley Harding's "July 13th, 1985" heard him singing a wee bit of Let it Be, while referring to Paul McCartney singing the same song at Live Aid...I'm kinda stretching on that one I think?

Okay, I think that's all I have, for now!

posted by richat 24 August | 18:58

During the rave-up ending to Chicago's "Saturday in the Park", the keyboard plays the main riff to Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction".

The ending of the Doors' "Touch Me" quotes the Ajax cleanser "Stronger than Dirt" melody.

Chuck Berry wrote in "You Can't Catch Me", 'Here come old flat-top, he was movin' up with me'. Lennon was sued and the case settled.

posted by mischief 24 August | 19:49

Drive-By Truckers, "Let There Be Rock" is an ode to 70s arena rock, replete with references. "Ronnie and Neil" is another song from the same album ("Southern Rock Opera") that dissects the Neil Young/Lynard Skynard tiff, and I'm pissed that matildaben beat me to the punch with the Built To Spill reference..... ;)

posted by BitterOldPunk 24 August | 23:57

I just wanted to (be a boring old fart who went to music school for too long) point out that, in the old days, incorporating another composer's theme in your symphony was considered to be the highest form of flattery in the world. Many famous symphonic works contain references to other famous melodies, and almost all of the 19th c ones contain nods to the famous folk tunes of the day.

Now, it's copyright infringement (or STEALING). What has happened to our culture?

posted by chuckdarwin 25 August | 05:46

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