Tip of the hat, a flip of the bird, songs that reference other musical acts

All v miserable, I prefer half man half biscuit.

Which reminds me, reference to Stevie Nicks in here somewhere.



Half Man Half Biscuit, Fuckin' 'Ell, it's Fred Titmus

About singer Valerie Carter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_(Steve_Winwood_song)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Carter

The Ride (The Ghost of Hank Williams)

This came out during the ongoing feud between Blur and Oasis.

George Harrison with All Those Years Ago

Originally, he put together a song for Ringo Starr. Ringo had some issues about it and then in December of 1980, John Lennon was killed. A slight reworking and Harrison took hold of the memorial tribute to John..

Creeque Alley by The Mamas and the Papas has numerous mentioned names.

John and Mitchy
Zal and Denny workin' for a penny
In the coffee house Sebastian sat - reference to John Sebastian
McGuin and McGuire couldn't get no hgher...
When Cass was a sophomore...

We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel namechecks heaps

[youtbe]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g[/youtube]


Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it



Note that the U2 mentioned here is a spy plane and not the Irish supergroup, and Berlin is the city not the group that hit big with a track used in Top Gun.

I'm sorry, I'll read that again:


We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel namechecks heaps




Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it



Note that the U2 mentioned here is a spy plane and not the Irish supergroup, and Berlin is the city not the group that hit big with a track used in Top Gun.

An oddity from the Broadway musical Hair is a song called Frank Mills. Penned by the show's lyricist, Galt MacDermot

Includes the line, "he was last seen with his friend, a drummer who resembles George Harrison of the Beatles"

Woody Guthrie

Bo Diddley

Country Joe and the Fish song about Janis Joplin

Janis
Into my life on waves of electrical sound
And flashing light she came,
Into my life with the twist of a dial
The wave of her hand — the warmth of her smile.

And even though I know that you and I
Could never find the kind of love we wanted together,
Alone I find myself missing you and I, you and I.

It's not very often that something special happens
And you happen to be that something special for me.
And walking on grass where we rolled and laughed in the moonlight
I find myself thinking of you and I, you and I, you.

Into my eye comes visions of patterns
Designs the image of her I see.
Into my mind the smell of her hair,
The sound of her voice — we once were there.

And even though I know that you and I
Could never find the kind of love we wanted together,
Alone, I find myself missing

You and I,
You and I,
You.

Mimi Farina
about Janis Joplin

In The Quiet Morning
In the quiet morning, there was much despair
And in the hours that followed, no one could repair
That poor girl, tossed by the tides of misfortune
Barely here to tell her tale, rolled in on a sea of disaster
Rolled out on a mainline rail

She once walked right at my side, I'm sure she walked by you
Her striding steps could not deny, torment from a child who knew

That in the quiet morning, there would be despair
And in the hours that followed, no one could repair
That poor girl, she cried out her song so loud
It was heard the whole world round, a symphony of violence
The great southwest unbound

La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la
La la la la, la la la

In the quiet morning, there was much despair
And in the hours that followed, no one could repair
That poor girl, tossed by the tides of misfortune
Barely here to tell her tale, rolled in on a sea of disaster
Rolled out on a mainline rail

La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la
La la la la, la la la

Kris Kristofferson
Also about Janis


Epitaph (Black and Blue)
Her close friends have gathered.
Lord, ain't it a shame
Grieving together
Sharing the blame.
But when she was dying
Lord, we let her down.
There's no use cryin'
It can't help her now.

The party's all over
Drink up and go home.
It's too late to love her
And leave her alone.

Just say she was someone
Lord, so far from home
Whose life was so lonesome
She died all alone
Who dreamed pretty dreams
That never came true
Lord, why was she born
So black and blue?
Oh, why was she born
So black and blue?

More songs about Janis here
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/collection/songs-about-janis-joplin

Looking For An Echo by Kenny Vance & the Planotones
"We'd sing songs by The Moonglows, The Harptones and The Dells..."

Spike Jones