SONGS WHERE/SONGS THAT/SONGS WITH/SONGS IN WHICH

SOME PEOPLE ARE AFRAID ILM IS TURNING INTO THE TVTROPES OF MUSIC, SO HERE'S A CATCH-ALL THREAD WHERE WE CAN DOCUMENT THE THEMATIC/SONIC/COMPOSITIONAL LINKAGES BETWEEN SONGS WITHOUT HAVING TO START A NEW THREAD FOR EACH AND EVERY TROPE THAT POPS INTO OUR HEADS DURING MOMENTS OF DESPERATE BOREDOM

songs where a woman corresponds with her husband under an assumed identity and arranges a liaison with him as a test of his marital fidelity:

Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song)
Kate Bush - Babooshka

"some people"

Songs that are not John Cage's 4' 33"

Songs in which Instrumentation is or is not used

Songs in which the vocalist audibly takes a drag on a cigarette between verses:

Sandy Denny - "No End"

this would be a good thread to collect all of the disparate 'songs where' threads, cause i can never find any of them.

songs where you can't find what you're looking for

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - U2

songs where you can't find what you're looking for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K89RsKaEO7I

songs written by a non-famous family member of the recording artist:

Grizzly Bear - Marla
Throwing Muses - Sinkhole

Songs by 90's-era American indie bands about 80's-era British female singers:

Unrest - "Cath Carroll"
June & the Exit Wounds - "Cathy Dennis"

Songs by 90's-era American indie bands about 80's-era British female singers

Black Tambourine - Throw Aggi Off the Bridge

(about Aggie and Stephen Pastel)

the plot thickens!

songs where the narrator is so miserable that even the sight of children playing fails to cheer his burdened heart:

Rolling Stones - As Tears Go By
Pearl Jam - Black
Screaming Trees - Winter Song

Lol

young girl: hahaha wheeee I love playing in the puddles
Mark Lanegan, grunger: HOW CAN YOU BE SO CAREFREE WHEN MY SOUL IS LITERALLY DYING 😢😢😢

songs that in off whacking with which trailer

lol i have been bumping a lot of these

songs where the narrator is so miserable that even the sight of children playing fails to cheer his burdened heart

How could you leave off The Chi-lites, Have You Seen Her

and Chicago, Make Me Smile

Songs in which, it is not I who is mad, it's you normals!

Elton John - Madman Across the Water
Bonzo Dog Band - My Pink Half of the Drainpipe
Supertramp - Asylum

Songs where the singer is bored of music:

Cat Power - Colors and the Kids

songs where a singer expresses disdain for being put on a pedestal as artist

ionnalee- samaritan

songs where a singer expresses disdain for being put on a pedestal as artist

London Calling
Don't Look Back in Anger

?

much better to have a catch-all thread, good job

songs where a singer expresses disdain for being put on a pedestal as artist

Eminem - Marshall Mathers

songs where a singer expresses disdain for being put on a pedestal as artist

Ani DiFranco - Little Plastic Castle

People talk about my image
Like i come in two dimensions
Like lipstick is a sign of my decling mind
Like what i happen to be wearing
The day that someone takes a picture
Is my new statement for all womankind

And i wish they could see us now
In leather bras and rubber shorts
Like some ridiculous new team uniform
For some ridiculous new sport
Quick someone call the girl police
And file a report

songs where you can't find what you're looking for

"Where Is My Mind"

songs where a singer expresses disdain for being put on a pedestal as artist

Neil Young - On The Beach

^ arguable, but i think he touches on the need for an audience and how frustrating that is - possibly more ambivalent??

songs where the strength of the protagonist's relationship is evaluated based upon their awareness of their lover's potato preferences:

Gershwin - Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
Sia - Sweet Potatoes

Songs in which the Beatles wish you a Happy Birthday

Songs in which the singer reads off a phone number:

“867-5309/Jenny” — Tommy Tutone
“Group Sex” — Circle Jerks
“The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry” — Fiery Furnaces

^Brenda Lee - Bigelow 6-200

Transylvania 6-5000

Oh snap!

Songs in which the boys are back in town:

Thin Lizzy - The Boys are Back in Town

roxy music - remake/remodel ... "CPL 593H!"

scraping foetus off the wheel - DI-1-9026

isaac hayes - good love ... "call good love 69-9-69"

squeeze - "853-5937"

are there any phone-number songs yet that have modern 8, 10, or 11 digit numbers?

City Boy – 5705

roxy music - remake/remodel ... "CPL 593H!"

Not a phone number, it was the registration number of Bryan Ferry's car.

songs written by a non-famous family member of the recording artist:

Grizzly Bear - Marla
Throwing Muses - Sinkhole

― how to diss a peer completely (unregistered), Monday, 12 February 2018 02:46 (five months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lyn Paul - The Waiting Game (Doreen Belcher)

I know. I do.

"Maybe Baby" had some lines written by Buddy Holly's mom.

George Harrison's "Piggies" had one line he couldn't fill, needed to rhyme with "lacking". His mum suggested "What they need's a damn good whacking" which is the "WHOA" line in the song.

Songs where the singer is bored of music:

Isn’t this every Cat Power song?

POLL: Songs Written By The Artist's Mom

Harry Nilsson, "Little Cowboy"
Harry Nilsson, "Marchin' Down Broadway"

are there any phone-number songs yet that have modern 8, 10, or 11 digit numbers?

Jeremih - 773 LOVE

This doesn't count but Hoyt Axton's mom wrote "Heartbreak Hotel."

Feel daft forgetting that one

Pink Floyd notoriously funded their lavish touring light shows with bread advertising

Doors - Touch Me

(Stronger Than Dirt)

I thought of that Doors one but I don’t think it’s a sample, it’s just the band mimicking the commercial, correct me if I’m wrong

The Avalanches - The Noisy Eater

Hotbox - Too Spicy

Songs that open with flushing toilets

The Style Council - Life at a Top People's Health Farm
Peatbog Faeries - Get Your Frets Off

Xhol Caravan, "Electric Fun Fair"

songs that taught you words you didn't know before

Slayer - "Angel of Death" ('abacinate')
Local H - "Bound for the Floor" ('copacetic' - stfu I was in high school)

Please suggest songs where an artist re-uses the musical accompaniment from a previous song of theirs to make a new song without having to write new music.

Prime example: Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey," recycled for "Why Must I Always Explain."

I do not mean ye olde folke tunes that use the same music.

And I do not mean answer songs or followups meant to cash in a la Chubby Checker or Lesley Gore.

More conscious self-borrowing by cataloged artists in the modern era of recording, releasing, publishing etc.

Gary Numan's 'Moral' from Dance is a reworking of 'Metal' from The Pleasure Principle.

neil young's "train of love" and "western hero," both from sleeps with angels - literally the same song with different lyrics

The Buggles' "I Am a Camera" is a version 2.0 of "Into the Lens," which they'd recorded during their time with Yes.

"Run Rudolph Run" by Chuck Berry is blatantly just a different lyric draped over his "Little Queenie," which he recorded in the same session.

"Dance to the Medley" by Sly and the Family Stone consists of four rewrites of "Dance to the Music". Maybe "Keep On Dancin'" from Fresh also fits here.

U2's "Elvis Presley and America" is set to a slowed down backing track of "A Sort of Homecoming"

I'm guessing the various bits of semi-recycling (the identical "FV"/"BKS" chords, the backwards "All the Young Dudes" of "Move On") on Lodger don't quite count? Nor Blur's "I Got Law"/Gorillaz' "Tomorrow Comes Today" seeing as the former is essentially a demo for the latter?

I guess a lot of b-sides with titles of their own are actually instrumentals, remixes, dubs or alternate renditions of the a-sides, like "3'38" on the flipside of "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" by the Pop Group.

"Don't Cry" and "Don't Cry" is probably not what you're talking about

The middle segment of "Bitter Suite" on Marillion's Misplaced Childhood reuses the backing of the previous track "Lavender", though I guess that's more a prog-style reprise situation than lazy recycle.

Albums with the suffix -ize in the title:

Def Leppard - Adrenalize
Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer
Wet Leg - Moisturizer

Jesus Jones - Liquidizer

Great call! Can't believe I forgot that.

Getting Mandela effect feelings that there is a late period ZZ Top -izer album

Rhythmeenizer

System of a Down - Mezmerize/Hypnotize

KISS - Animalize

The Sea and Cake don't have many with that suffix ("Civilise" all I can think of) but Prekop uses it in his lyrics constantly

The Police - Rehumanize Yourself

The Police - Rehumanize Yourself

― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, 16 July 2025 23:00 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

A great entry for a possible 'early songs to say the C word' list (cf. the Stones, Ian Dury, Marianne Faithfull and the Beat, the latter presumably Sting's inspiration)

Audio messages on albums that relate to the playout

Grape Jam - "Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot" (Wow) - has a spoken intro by Arthur Godfrey telling listeners to lift the needle into the 78rpm band to hear the song proper
Tom Petty - "Hello, CD listeners" (Full Moon Fever) - CD-only mid-album pregap where he says he's replicating the pause that vinyl/cassette listeners have to take to switch sides
Scissor Sisters - "Message from Ms. Matronic" (Scissor Sisters) - 30-second track saying either start the album again or continuing listening for UK bonus tracks

Surely loads of 'turn over for side two' type things although none come to mind rn

The Muppet Alphabet Album (1971) does the thing of providing instructions for turning the record over. This prompts Big Bird to ask, "but if they turn the record over, won't we all fall off?", to groans from the assembled Muppets.

Producer David Rubinson does the "explanation" on Wow before Godfrey does the preface to the song.

The first Tragically Hip album doesn't have an explicit "message" but does have LP surface noise marking the end of side 1 and the start of side 2 on the CD.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT3nSbz9wvi-RCw2c5eJQOlx5zau6H329cP5Sj1pegidA&s=10

ELO's Mr Blue Sky has a vocoded message at the end saying "please turn me over", as it was the last track on side 3 of Out of the Blue.

Songs where the singer ironically requests a simple funeral:

Tom Paxton - "Forest Lawn"
Steve Martin - "King Tut"

Songs where the narrator insists they're trying their best

Godsmack-Whatever

The Esquires - Get On Up

Songs that sample TV adverts

Gorillaz - Superfast Jellyfish
Pink Floyd - Keep Talking
Pink Floyd - Talkin' Hawkin'
The Clash - Inoculated City
Felix - Don't You Want Me ('96 Pugilist Mix)
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - Top of the Pops
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Television, Drug of the Nation (I think)
U2 - Zooropa (apparently)

I'll leave my own ancient music out of this

I thought I'd mentioned this before but it must have been on another thread, "Sweet Smiling Children" by Johnny Rivers. 1967, folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYtUC6jWBrE

Songs that sample TV adverts

Joni Mitchell - The Reoccurring Dream
Colourbox - Hot Doggie

Songs where the narrator insists they're trying their best

Kool & the Gang, "Joanna"

Songs where the guys are just goofin' around on a piano (not their primary instrument) and decide "let's put that on the album! why not?"

De La Soul - Johnny's Dead AKA Vincent Mason (Live from the BK Lounge)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljMEvoanOZA

24-7 Spyz - Spyz on Piano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GigbNT8EZvE

Does the Stone Roses' piano-led "The Foz" count or does piano have to be the only instrument?

That works! Could be piano or any instrument that the players aren't skilled on.

King Missile, “Philip Glass”

If stand-up comedy/monologues count as an "instrument", then:

Having Fun with Elvis On Stage

There is a story that on Elvis Costello's "Long Honeymoon," it took three people to play the accordion

UK No. 1 singles I have seen played live,

Lonnie Donegan - (all of them probably; I was two)
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Fire
The Scaffold - Lily the Pink
Don McLean - Vincent
Steve Harley - Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
The Blockheads - Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick
Boney M - (again probably all of them; I wasn't paying much attention)
Bob Geldof - Rat Trap, I Don't Like Mondays
Adam Ant - Stand and Deliver, Prince Charming, Goody Two Shoes
UB40 - Red Red Wine, I Got You Babe(?), (I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You
Midge Ure - If I Was
Eddi Reader - Perfect
Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
Blur - Country House, Beetlebum
The Chemical Brothers - Block Rockin' Beats
Busted (McBusted) - You Said No, Crashed the Wedding, Thunderbirds Are Go
McFly - 5 Colours in Her Hair, Obviously, All About You, Please Please, Don't Stop Me Now, Star Girl
Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
Matt Cardle - When We Collide (!)

Songs that make lyrical (not musical) reference to songs by other artists.

e.g. Taylor Swift, "Guilty As Sin?": "drowning in the Blue Nile, he sent me Downtown Lights"

surely there's a whole thread for that somewhere?

I was wondering about that, but I didn't know how/couldn't be bothered to search for it.

well, here's a start anyway

Songs that quote (and credit) other songs