Songs that get all meta and mention 'this song' in the lyrics

This actually gets on my wick a bit, like a 'will this do?' moment, inscribed in eternity. But there we are.

Anyway, Ambulance Blues: 'it's hard to say the meaning of THIS SONG'. Lazy Neil, lazy.

Does "Your Song" count?

also, "You're So Vain"

Elton John's "Your Song"
Badly Drawn Boy's "This Song" or whatever it's called
Barry Manilow's "I Write The Songs" in a roundabout fashion

I think Arthur Lee does this a few times?

Unnamed schoolboy's "I Know a Song That'll Get On Your Nerves"

Abba's "Thank You for the Music" also kinda

McCartney's Here Today.

Weird Al- "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long"

"Something Changed" by Pulp.

Steely Dan's Deacon Blues "I cried when I wrote....."

One more from Neil...

I'm singing this borrowed tune / I took from the Rolling Stones / Alone in this empty room / Too wasted to write my own

Matching Mole's 'Signed Curtain' is the ultimate example of this of course.

Randy Newman - "Rednecks"

U2- 40
U2- Sunday Bloody Sunday

I always think of Yellow by Coldpay being the worst example of this.

that's because it's a terrible dirge

they actually played this on my favorite local AM radio station the other day. because AM radio rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gf0N6FOSk0

it is the worst example of many things, i suppose
xp

Prince - 1999

Take the Skinheads Bowling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFsB96l0x8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcvWrxrNk4k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2wMe8s9mCc

best station:

http://www.wizzradio.com/

bowie, five years.
hallelujah, sorta ('it goes like this')

Baccara, 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie':

No sir
I don't feel very much like talking
No, neither walking
You wanna know if I can dance

Yes sir
Already told you in the first verse
And in the chorus
But I will give you one more chance

natasha bedingfield's timeless will-this-do classic 'these words' not only mangles the pronunciation of the world 'hyperbole' as 'hyperbowl', it even namechecks the chords she uses

Threw some chords together
The combination D-E-F
It's who I am, it's what I do
And I was gonna lay it down for you
I try to focus my attention
But I feel so A-D-D
I need some help, some inspiration
But it's not coming easily

"this is my fight song..."

Pavement - Gold Soundz

"And we're coming to the chorus now..."

Todd Rundgren - Chain Letter

"Now I'm in the middle and I just don't know
If I'll make it any further if the words don't flow
When you live in silence any sound is dear
But for those who don't, take heart because the end is near
This is the ending of my song
It has made me blind and deaf and weak but most of all
It shows you that I'm wrong"

Also:

Alice Cooper - School's Out

"...we can't even think of a word that rhymes!"

Spandau Ballet:
I bought a ticket to the world
But now I've come back again
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh, I want the truth to be saaaaaaid

NOFX:
We wrote this song, it's not too short, it's not too long
It's got back up vocs in just the right places
It's got a few oohs and ahhs
It takes a little pause
Just before the second chorus
Please play this song on the radio
Almost every line is sung in time
Almost every verse ends in a rhyme
The only problem we had was writing
Enough words
But that's okay, because the chorus is
Coming up again now
Please play this song on the radio

Daniel Cavanagh:
What I couldn't give
What I couldn't give away

Just this song, Just this song
Just this music, Just this music

You know I can't live
You know I can't live without

Just this song, Just this song

This song has nothing tricky about it
This song ain't black or white and as far as I know
Don't infringe on anyone's copyright, so

Pixies - Subbacultcha

'This is a song about something there
There is something about this song'

The Frank and Walters - this is not a song

xp and as long as we're talking George Harrison, "Only a Northern Song"

Shellac - Squirrel Song

'This is a sad fucking song'

Les Savy Fav - Meet Me In The Dollar Bin

"There is no incident, there is no incident, there's nothing incidental in this song.
There is no accident, there is no accident, there's nothing accidental in this song.
There's no coincidence, there's no coincidence, there's nothing coincidental in this song."

sisters of mercy
ballad of the absent mare

Surprised nobody's mentioned Tenacious D yet lol

Also, Shellac do this in maybe 40% of their songs

Half Man Half Biscuit - Lord Hereford's Knob ends with a nice little riff on this

Pulp - The Fear
Pink Floyd - Jugband Blues

Billy Bragg - A New England

Syd Barrett Here I Go
She don't rock 'n' roll, she don't like it
She don't do the stroll, well she don't do it right
Well, everything's wrong and my patience was gone
When I woke one morning
And remembered this song
O-oh-oh, kinda catchy, I hoped
That she would talk to me now
And even allow me to hold her hand
And forget that old band.

So now I've got all I need
She and I are in love, we've agreed
She likes this song and my others too
So now you see my world is...
'Cause of this tune!
What a boon this tune!
I tell you soon
We'll be lying in bed, happily wed,
And I won't think of that girl
Or what she said...

Thee Headcoats - Punk Rock Ist Nicht Tot

Suicide - Be Bop Kid

This song's about life

"Muzzle" - Smashing Pumpkins

"have you ever heard the words i'm singing in these songs?
it's for the girl i've loved all along
can a taste of love be so wrong?"

She and I are in love, we've agreed

lol the note he hits on "we've agreed" is one of the most bleakly funny things in pop music

"Flesh Canoe" - Animal Collective

"Cause what this song's about is me singing
I'm just wondering what to do with you myself and me
Naked in the mirror of the bathroom"

The original (2011) version of Car Seat Headrest's "Nervous Young Inhumans" ends with this monologue:

Earlier in the song I used the term "galvanistic," and galvanism is the concept, uh, the obsolete scientific theory that there is a kind of electricity flowing through our bloodstreams, and that was our life force. I used the term because I came across it in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", and that book is sort of an exploration of the theme of creating a character or making up a person. So I used the term "galvanistic" to allude to that book as a sort of symbol of how I, like, created you as a character, by pretending that I know a lot more about you than I actually do, and also to refer to the fact that I've fall—fallen in love with the characters you've created in, uh, your body of work. This is the part of the song where I start to regret writing it...

Microdisney - Bullwhip Road

I hate the world
I hate my life and this song
Now run along

Super Furry Animals - Gateway Song
Super Furry Animals - Runaway

Odd choice to put two songs that open with the line "this song" back to back on an album.

Moodymann- Freekie Motherfucker

You don't even like this song / you just dig the hook

Spin Doctors, "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" ("I hope them cigarettes are gonna make you cough / I hope you hear this song and it pissed you off")

I bet she was pissed off. We all were.

This one's not "this song," but even more meta -- the final lines of "Terrible Things," the last song on Beauty Pill's The Unsustainable Lifestyle:

Terrible things, terrible things, they are gonna happen
This record's over, so why not go outside and stop them?

along the same line, the end of "The All Golden" by Van Dyke Parks, the final song on side A of Song Cycle:

"Might as well allow for one more go round
That's all folks!
Them hayseeds go back to
the country..."

Wire's Map Ref. 41°N 93°W where he semi-sarcastically says "Chorus!" just before the chorus.

obvious example: Donny Hathaway - A Song For You

Wire's Map Ref. 41°N 93°W where he semi-sarcastically says "Chorus!" just before the chorus.

If this counts, then a bunch of "Take it to the bridge..." instances to thread.

She and I are in love, we've agreed
lol the note he hits on "we've agreed" is one of the most bleakly funny things in pop music

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, March 12, 2018 12:45 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! was listening to this song on the train this morning and i chuckled out loud at this line.

stupid mistake by the electric soft parade has the lines

I could be loving you now
I could be doing it with my eyes closed
You could be back on your feet
But that isn't how the song goes

and i have wondered whether that last line is extremely meta or is referring to another (metaphorical or specific?) song and so not meta at all. i like the former interpretation more anyhow.

Denim, "Internet Curtains"

We ain't been going very long
We've only written one good song
And here it is we will play
The best song that we've got it's called
Internet curtains

I know the intro's far too long
And the middle bit's all wrong
But even so it's still our song
So when the chorus comes please sing along
Internet curtains

And now we've got ourselves a hit
Because Chris Evans played it
Everyday on his show
I owe it all to a song called
Internet curtains

Justin Timberlake "Rock Your Body"
"Bet I'll have you naked by the end of this song"; Cue wardrobe malfunction

our song
it gives us a reason
our song
that good remedy
music has magic
that stuff of syncopation

I'm Too Sexy for this Thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88TgFOeON3k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPW6a-vjsbc

Manic Street Preachers - S.Y.M.M. (not their finest moment IMO...)

"I never ever wanted to write this song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw1D1NYVyuM

Violent Femmes - Prove My Love

'third verse, same as the first'

Built To Spill - 'Joyride'

This part of the song is called the second verse
Sounds just like the first but with different words
It only has three chords and they are A and E and D
They are A and E and D
Then it goes to D minor, D, uh, A, E, D

Sorry to share this:

https://youtu.be/YqnxDJk08vw

Lyrics here: http://www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=1514

Bruce Springsteen: Bobby Jean

Or some motel room, there'll be a radio playing
And you'll hear me sing this song

Great one

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights

And when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home.

Always loved this bit of self-awareness in These Immortal Souls' "So the Story Goes":

Everybody knows I've only got one song
And it's much too slow
And it's much too long
And this is how it goes

Ariana Grande's "Piano" doesn't say "this song," but the lyrics are largely about the song itself:

I could write a song with my new piano
I could sing about how love is a losing battle
Not hard, it's not hard

And I could sing about cupid and his shooting arrow
In the end, you'll find out that my heart was battered
Real hard, it's so hard

But I'd rather make a song they can play on the radio
That makes you wanna dance, don't it make you wanna dance?
But I'd rather make a song they can play on the radio
That makes you wanna grab your lover's hand

...And to get even more "meta" (and let my Arianator flag fly), I'd postulate that a song falling a few tracks later on the album -- "Almost Is Never Enough" (feat. Nathan Sykes) -- is to be taken as an example of the *other* kind of song referenced in "Piano": a slow, piano-based ballad about how love is a losing battle, etc.

Radiohead

This this is our new song
Just like the last one
A total waste of time
My iron lung

Number Three
They Might Be Giants

There's only two songs in me and I just wrote the third
Don't know where I got the inspiration or how I wrote the words
Spent my whole life just digging up my music's shallow grave
For the two songs in me and the third one I just made
A rich man once told me
"Hey life's a funny thing"
A poor man once told me
That he can't afford to speak
Now I'm in the middle like a bird without a beak 'cause
There's just two songs in me and I just wrote the third
Don't know where I got the inspiration or how I wrote the words
Spent my whole life just digging up my music's shallow grave
For the two songs in me and the third one I just made
So I went to the President
And I asked old what's-his-name
Has he ever gotten writer's block
Or something like the same
He just started talking
Like he was on TV
"If there's just two songs in ya, boy
Whaddaya want from me?"
So I bought myself some denim pants
And a silver guitar
But I politely told the ladies
"You'll still have to call me Sir
Because I have to keep my self-respect
I'll never be a star
Since there's just two songs in me
And this is Number Three"

https://youtu.be/UVXZBA6tJPA

just went through Nilsson Schmilsson, which has several songs about singing songs or recording songs but i dont think anyone of them actually say "this song" at any point

37 posts and no mention of the archetypal “this song”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwxXIPEW8aA

Elton John - This Song Has No Title

This is the song that doesn't end
Yes it goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was
and they'll continue singing it forever just because (repeat)

(from the 90s reboot of Lamb Chop - Shari Lewis, not the band)

Modest Mouse - Beach Side Property: "A message left on the forehead of God / Sent sealed and signed by the saints who sang / this song, this song .../ This song: / 'We're going union like they say...' "

-PiL, This is not a love song
-Neil, This Note's For You (immortalizing Spuds MacKenzie). i think Neil wins the meta award for enjoying doing this in his songs the most
-Fall, Mother-Sister: "What's this song about? -Er, nothing." Of course Mark gets meta a lot, e.g. NWRA where he complains about an imaginary cover of English Scheme as a love song with a grand piano, but i can't think of another song that references itself, exactly.

> Violent Femmes - Prove My Love

This is an slightly inferior copy of Ramones - Judy is a Punk, '2nd verse same as the first'

A cursory search turns up dozens and dozens of songs i don't know with "this song" as the full or partial title, including examples from George Harrison (terrible song), Isley Bros, Kid Cudi/Mary J Blige, Weird Al (Don't Download This Song), Backstreet Boys (Hey Mr DJ Keep Playin' This Song - pretty sure I have heard this), Grizzly Bear (I certainly have heard this but don't remember it), Monica, Meat Puppets, Fall Out Boy, System of a Down, Merle Haggard, NoFX, Black Crowes, Willie Nelson, etc.

Pay TV - “Refrain Refrain”:

“Refrain refrain refrain refrain
And we’re repeating it again again and again”

'Suffice To Say' by the Yachts is at, or near, the very top of this pile as far as I'm concerned.

The Damned - Love Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc0och2Q_zg

Sparks - When I'm With You

It's the break in the song
When I should say something special
But the pressure is on and I can't make up nothing special
Not when I'm with you

XTC - Mayor of Simpleton

"Well I don't know how to write a big hit song"

(note: "Mayor" was XTC's biggest hit in the U.S.!)

I agree that it's meta but I would question its inclusion in the "this song" tropespace.

Also I'm rethinking "Deacon Blues" rn. Basically because I was watching the "Classic Albums" documentary about Aja and it is posited that the speaker of the lyrics is a dreamy wannabe, and not an actual musician.

In that reading, the "this song" in the lyric "I cried when I wrote this song" is not Fagen literally saying that he cried when he wrote "Deacon Blues," even tongue-in-cheek. He has, rather, constructed a character whose fantasy is of being a super-hip saxophone player who takes one last drag as he approaches the bandstand, then presumes to blow that room away (rather like Paul Simon's character in "Late in the Evening").

The "this song" in that line is the impossibly sophisticated jazz number that the speaker of the song unleashes... in his fantasy of being a gifted musician. In reality he lives in his mom's basement and works at Radio Shack.

...or so that reading of "DB" would indicate. Not necessarily coming down 100% for that interpretation but I find it intriguing.

Anyway "Mayor of Simpleton" is again sung from the viewpoint of a created character not synonymous with Partridge (who clearly can).

Some time ago I saw a play called "What I Did Last Summer," with an adolescent protagonist coming of age and trying out different ways of being; the last line of the play is "and so I wrote this play." Now THAT is a "this song."

Sparks - When I'm With You

― mizzell

"this is the number one song in heaven"!

Monty Python:

I bet you they won't play this song on the radio
I bet you they won't play this new (bleep) song
It's not that it's (buzzer) or (horn) controversial
Just that (bell)-ing words are awfully strong

You can't say (klaxon) on the radio
Or (whip crack), or (arrow thud), or (croak)
You can't even say I'd like to (güiro) you someday
Unless you're a doctor with a really large (doing)

So I bet you they won't play this song on the radio
I bet you they don't (record rewind)-ing well program it
I bet you those (kiosk chime)-ing old program directors
Will think it's a load of horse (fart)

The Mountain Goats - "Cotton"

"Fire and Rain" y'all!

Just yesterday mornin', they let me know you were gone
Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

This is sort of related to the The Monty Python song:

Public Enemy - Bring the Noise

Radio stations I question their blackness
They call themselves black, but we'll see if they'll play this

even more specific: songs where the singer says what "this song's about"

The Yummy Fur - Roxy Girls "it's part 2 of Roxy Girls, where social commentary has all but dissolved" / "and this songs has not point at all"

Yes! And Father Ubu Says-- "Mark Gibbons and me fucking hate this song"

it's unclear, when robert pollard sings "i wrote a song once about her called 'the brides have hit glass'" in guided by voices' "the brides have hit glass," whether he's talking about *this* song called "the brides have hit glass" or some other song called "the brides have hit glass." the past tense construction suggests the latter. the fact that there's no record of a pre-existing gbv song with that title suggests the former. the fact that robert pollard by that point had probably written 2,642,791 songs that no one had ever heard suggests maybe the former after all. so maybe that one, but also maybe not that one.

oops, penultimate sentence should say "...maybe the latter after all." obviously.

This is a weeping song
A song in which to weep
While all the men and women sleep
This is a weeping song
But I won’t be weeping long

Eazy, good catch on Fire & Rain

it's unclear, when robert pollard sings "i wrote a song once about her called 'the brides have hit glass'" in guided by voices' "the brides have hit glass," whether he's talking about *this* song called "the brides have hit glass" or some other song called "the brides have hit glass." the past tense construction suggests the latter. the fact that there's no record of a pre-existing gbv song with that title suggests the former. the fact that robert pollard by that point had probably written 2,642,791 songs that no one had ever heard suggests maybe the former after all. so maybe that one, but also maybe not that one.

belle & sebastian "judy and the dream of horses" makes the same move, except that the singer/writer of the song "judy and the dream of horses" implores the title character judy, in the lyrics of the song called "judy and the dream of horses," to write a song called "judy and the dream of horses"

Also, on "Get me away from here, I'm dying" he sings "I could only make you cry with these words."

There's one on the new Camp Cope, 'The Omen'

So I wrote you this song
It probably isn't as good as all the other sad ones

Everclear:

This is a song about Susan
This is a song about the girl next door
This is a song about the everyday occurrences that make me feel like letting go
Yes I think we got a problem
So much for the afterglow

This is a song about Susan
This is a song about the way things are
This is a song about the scary things you see from the corner of your eye
Don't you wonder, why we never talk about the future
We never talk about the future
We never talk about the past anymore
We never ask ourselves the questions to the answers that nobody even wants to know
Guess the honeymoon is over; so much for the afterglow

also makes me think of this groaner from Pearl Jam:

Come to send, not condescend
Transcendental consequences
To transcend where we are
Who are we? Who we are
Trampled moss, on your souls
Changes all, you're a part
Seen it all, not at all
Can't defend the command

Take me a for a ride
Before we leave

Circumstance, clappin' hands
A driving wind's happenstance
Off the track, in the mud
That's the moss, in the aforementioned verse

Go-Betweens:

"Feel so sure about our love
I'll write a song about us breaking up"

lauryn hill "everything is everything"

i wrote these words for everyone who struggles in their youth

Now this is a song all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down

Van Morrison, "Wavelength"

This is a song about your wavelength
And my wavelength, baby

...and if that works then maybe we should look at folk songs that begin like "gather round and I will tell you of..."

Tom Lehrer: "Gather round while I sing you of Wernher Von Braun..."

Trad: "Oh have you heard tell of sweet Betsy from Pike..."

Beverly Hillbillies theme: "Tell you a little story bout a man named Jed..."

but getting back to the meta asides rather than the "o muse, help me sing of the tale of..." intro (lol xpost), i myself was once guilty of this in the concluding track of the first and only completed Doctor Casino album (written when i was idk 23 or 24 fwiw):

So the wind will sing in my ear like a bottle
If I tilt my head just so
And ease back on the throttle
Got music and groceries;
I'm open to belong
And nothing that I've given is gone
But if there's nothing wrong,
is there still need for singing these songs?
I'm a bicycle, I dodge obstacles, yeah yeah

This is such a stupid lazy songwriting trope.

Tell that to Bruce Fuckin' Springsteen!

Matching Mole's 'Signed Curtain' is the ultimate example of this of course.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, March 5, 2018 10:39 AM (one week ago) Bookmark

otm. on an album of beautiful songs this is one of the stand outs. it is very stream of consciousness.

There's also "O Caroline" on the same album.

"David's on piano, and I may play on a drum
And we'll try to make the music work, we'll try to have some fun"

Robert Wyatt had been doing it since Soft Machine, "Moon In June":

"Just before we go on to the next part of our song
Let's all make sure we've got the time"

The BBC session version even more so

Paul McCartney gets close in "Here Today" ("you were here today, for you were in my song"). Billy Joel MUST have done this but all I can think of besides "a song" in "Piano Man" (a stretch) is "Famous Last Words," which does everything but say "song."

Xp - the first three verses -

I can still remember
The last time we played on Top Gear
And though each little song
Was less than three minutes long
Mike squeezed a solo in... somehow
And although we like our longer tunes
It seemed polite to cut them down
To little bits - they might be hits
Who gives an... after all?
Tell me how would you feel
In the place of John Peel?
You just can't please
All of the musicians all the time

Playing now is lovely
Here in the BBC
We're free to play almost as long and as loud
As a jazz group, or an orchestra on Radio Three
There are dancehalls and theatres
With acoustics worse than here
Not forgetting the extra facilities
Such as the tea machine, just along the corridor
So to all our mates like Kevin,
Caravan, the old Pink Floyd
Allow me to recommend 'Top Gear'
Despite its extraordinary name
Yes, playing, playing now is lovely
Here in the BBC
We're free to play almost as long and as loud
As the foreign language classes... and the John Cage interview...
And the jazz groups... and the orchestras on Radio 3

Pop stars drink each others' wine
Plough each others' earth
Hoping for companionship
And then perhaps rebirth
Plant seeds in fresher plots of earth
Bound up in concepts and dreams
And fears of worse things to come
They never do
They stay the same
Music-making still
Performs a normal function
Background noise for people
Eating and talking and drinking and smoking
That's all right by us
Don't think that we're complaining
After all it's only leisure time, isn't it?

Pixies - Subbacultcha

'This is a song about something there
There is something about this song'

The Frank and Walters - this is not a song

― neilasimpson

Also Pixies - Tony’s Theme

This is a song about a superhero named Tony
It's called Tony's Theme

Another Soft Machine, "As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still",

"Here's a song for Clean Machine Kev in Majorca"

did no one mention The Who's "Gettin' In Tune" yet?

I'm singing this note 'cause it fits in well
With the chords I'm playing
I can't pretend there's any meaning here
Or in the things I'm saying
But I'm in tune
Right in tune
I'm in tune
And I'm gonna tune
Right in on you

Captain Beefheart, "Tropical Hot Dog Night"

I’m playin’ this song
For all the young girls to come out
to meet the monster tonight

leon russell's "a song for you" may be the platonic ideal of this

keith urban "used to the pain" (first line: "and so i wrote this song for you")

5 royales, shirelles, etc. "dedicated to the one i love" ("this is dedicated to the one i love...")

Well then how about "This one goes out to the one I love / This one goes out to the one I've left behind"?

And Martina McBride:

This one's for the girls
Who've ever had a broken heart
Who've wished upon a shooting star
You're beautiful the way you are

Grimes Butterfly

Don't know this song
Sweeter than a sugar cane

Uncle Tupelo - Life Worth Livin'

but getting back to the meta asides rather than the "o muse, help me sing of the tale of..." intro (lol xpost), i myself was once guilty of this in the concluding track of the first and only completed Doctor Casino album (written when i was idk 23 or 24 fwiw):

(...)

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 6:36 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is such a stupid lazy songwriting trope.

― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 6:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf i did try to couch my stupid lazy attempt with the implication that it was the work of an earnest but youthful amateur!

This is a song about a superhero named Tony
It's called Tony's Theme

I read this as more of a recorded intro to the song than as part of the song itself.

R.E.M. - Untitled ("This song is here...")
Freedy Johnston - No Violins ("Here's a song...")

sisters of mercy
ballad of the absent mare

― scotti pruitti (wins), Monday, March 5, 2018 5:29 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long

R.E.M. - "He piloted this song in a plane like that one" (though I'd always heard "I volunteered this song" or "If I'm to tell this song")

It's unintelligible at any speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn-f8PgLVjU

Has Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys been mentioned for “The Face of Death”?

They threw him out ‘cause he was wrong
And left him trapped inside this song

"We're Not Gonna Take It" goes

We've got the right to choose and
There ain't no way we'll lose it
This is our life, this is our song

The Mekons: Empire of the Senseless

This song promotes homosexuality
It's in a pretended family relationship with the others on this record
And on the charts and on the jukebox

Thee Headcoats - Punk Rock Ist Nicht Tot

― Colonel Poo, Monday, March 12, 2018 7:49 AM (one week ago)

I go verse chorus verse solo break chorus verse solo

^ thread adjacent

OMD - the beginning and the end

"This is where we reach the end"

Last song on the record

Die Antwoord's Enter the Ninja: "fuck, this is like the coolest song I ever heard in my whole life."

Weird to think that song made it into p4k's best songs of 2010 list

In the Cure's Antidote Megamix there's a bit from "A Forest" where Robert sings "suddenly I stop" and the guitar cuts out. Metaclever.

Songs that actually, like, stop when the singer says 'stop.'

Sparks - "I Predict"

And this song will fade out
I predict

“I Predict” possibly being the pinnacle of this practice. Good post.

Just remembered that I made an hour-long mix on this topic a few (actually 8!?) years ago, people might want to have a listen

Mp3 and tracklist are here - http://lastnightadjkilledmydog.libsyn.com/webpage/2010/10
And I just put it on mixcloud - https://www.mixcloud.com/centuries_of_sound/last-night-a-dj-killed-my-dog-026-this-is-the-title-of-the-self-referential-podcast/

I was going to post the tracklist, but it's a bit long

That recording of Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and Bud Powell on Jazz at Massey Hall where they play 'Salt Peanuts.'

Bird stumbles over the vocal bit one time and throws in, "It's the name of this song. . ." before the solo.

I just remembered the existence of the song "This is My Hit" by Canadian rapper, Kyprios, which fits here:

This is my hook, this is my chorus
This is my hit -- it's better than yours

It is not a very good song.

better than yours tho

Thomas Dybdahl

Songs from the rain
Songs that will cause you pain
Songs that alleviate
Songs that will seal your fate
Songs for the sunny days
Songs for that warm embrace
Songs that will keep you cool
Songs that will make you cruel
Songs for the wielding
Songs to help you relax
Songs that forever last
Songs that belong to the past
Songs that will make you scream
Songs from your childhood dreams
Songs that will leave you blue
Songs that remind me of you
Songs that will make you smile
Songs that will stay for a while
Songs that will tear you apart
Songs that will mend your heart
Songs that you can't let go
Songs that you already know
Songs that you once knew
Songs that just passed through
Songs that you overheard
Songs that just occurred
Songs for the nighttime
Songs for the waistline
Songs for the dancing shoes
Songs for the Sunday blues
Songs that will make you sweat
Songs that you won't forget
Songs that were once so true
Songs that betrayed you
Songs that you always hum
Songs that will leave you numb
Songs that you will regret
Songs on an old cassette
Songs that will move you
Songs that are brand new
Songs on the radio
Songs that will make you glow
Songs from your first kiss
Songs of pure bliss

And just before dawn at the paling of the sky,
The stranger returned and said "Now I must fly,
When two thousand years of your time has gone by,
This song will begin once again, to a baby's cry"

Lenny Cohen - Sisters of Mercy.

"And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song"

I posted that one right at the beginning of this thread. He also does it again in "ballad of the absent mare"

I searched and everything! Bah.

Dreams are for those who sleep
Life is for us to keep
And if you're wondering what this song is leading to,
I want to make it with you

Barry & the Bookbinders - 'This Song'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXwba5xApwo

I forgot one of my favorites:

"My slow descent
into alcoholism
it went
something like this song"

https://youtu.be/WtZDxzlGbN4

This songs just six words long

(Hey) all the blood that I will bleed
(Ho) I don't know where I belong
(Hey) I don't know where I went wrong
(Ho) but I can write a song (hey)

One of the most egregious examples.

Hiss Golden Messenger - O Little Light

A blue sky bends for me
No master, I am free
Riding 'round in the rain
With this song I'm singing

I was 21 years when I wrote this song, I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.

oh dammit how's life beat me to it

Brainstorm, take me away from the norm'
I've got to tell you something
This phenomenon, I had to put it in a song
And it goes like
Whoa, amber is the color of your energy
Whoa, shades of gold display naturally

and i'll know my song well before i start singing
and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall

If you wonder how long I'll be faithful
Well, just listen to how this song ends
I'm gonna love you
Forever and ever
Forever and ever, amen

As the moon beats yellow, the clouds they settle
to this our favourite song...

But I hate this room, and I hate this tune...

Lee Hazlewood - I'll Live Yesterdays

Seems we’re always doing something to hurt each other
But you know, you never really hurt me until the fourth verse of this song

Kanye West - Touch the Sky

I'm tryin' to right my wrongs
But it's funny them same wrongs helped me write this song

mother do you think they'll like this song?

Elton John welcomes you to his Christmas song, Step Into Christmas, in its first line.

GusGus goes extra meta in "Add This Song"

Add this song to your list
Play it til it no more exist

Through the pain of the snow
Is there nowhere to go
Like I'm stuck in the state
Of no state at all

As I wandered alone in the darkest night
Heard this song at the rave
And it saved my life

(i did add it to my list)

Back to the opening post, "It's hard to say the meaning of this song" in Ambulance Blues is the thesis statement for the entire On the Beach album!

Edward Bear, “Last Song”

It's the last song I'll ever write for you
It's the last time that I'll tell you
Just how much I really care
This is the last song I'll ever sing for you
You'll come looking for the light
And it won't be there
But I love you
Oh yes I do
Yes I do

Also on this similar thread: songs that are about themselves

John Prine, "Leave the Lights On"

This is just a long song, it ain't no poem
Leave the lights on till your baby gets home

Brinsley Schwarz, “Love Song”

This here is a love song
I gotta get back to my baby's heart again
This here is a love song
And I'm gonna sing it till I get back home

Which is also mentioned on this similar thread: Songs that are aware of themselves

Barenaked Ladies, "What A Good Boy"

I couldn't tell you
I was wrong
Chickened out grabbed a pen and a paper
Sat down and I wrote this song

Tom Waits, "Hold On"

Down by the Riverside motel
It's ten below and falling
By a ninety-nine cent store
She closed her eyes and started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Oh, your old hometown's so far away
But inside your head there's a record that's playing
A song called "Hold On"