Best songs about Hollywood / being a movie star

Drive My Car, too, sort of.

And there's the line in the Youngbloods' Damn! remix where Ludacris goes "Now please don't get twisted, I ain't Hollywood yet / I just jumped in that movie to get a big ass check!"

Jenny From the Block and the Way I Am are great too.

Really?!

How about "Movie Star" by the 6ths - does Sarah Cracknell sing it? I forget. Great song though.

It's just depressing that the Joke weren't more discriminating in their choice of films to contribute their work to. I mean, have you seen "Showgirls"????

No.

There's a poster from the "Love Like Blood" 12" on the wall behind Ferris Bueller in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" during the "never had ONE lesson" scene (Matthew Broderick parping on a clarinet).

Somebody told me their name is invoked in "School of Rock," but I haven't seen it (and highly doubt it).

Which part of "Eighties" could you hear?

The song "Eighties" (by some studio hacks, I assume) was also used as the theme of that TV show.

It was a cover that was used as the theme, not the origial, I assure you.

Nice

let's get incredible
--
this one goes out to all shady transactors, the actors, the hangers-on
blasting transistors, the tvs, the fisters, the 1st time french kissers
and the bags that you grabbed like a crab dude
and the rags you stuffed into your stab wounds
this one goes out to all the white druggie ravers, hey saviour, your soup is on
at the table with the breaking out blondes
there's a gaggle of gutted out swans
we groped on the green golf course lawn
and we sped through the 7th straight dawn
and we woke up in 7th street

first we got rushed and then we got crushed
these tiger-striped toughs are much bigger than us
first we got sliced and then we got swarmed
these sabre-toothed thugs are so heavily armed

this one goes out to all the heavyweight hangers-on, your whole fucking entourage
there's pricks in the peakskills, there's dust in these drum fills and this mouth's got mic skills
ask the brothels and hostels that housed us, ask the club kids as they crowded around us
this one goes out to all the white druggie ravers that keep puttin records on
cause they keep putting records out, cause the old ones keep wearin out
and i think the same thing that's eating you up on the inside
is the same guy that's eatin you out

(so that's when i said let's get incredible)
dude looks like jesus but sleeveless, says he's into Rush and reckless chemistry
met him in memphis, got him up to galilee, says it's easy to see
these kids want something new to get their eyes rollin back into their dreams
they want a cellophane celebration, a revolution rushing into dancefloor distribution

(from amhearst/hampton to boston, from trenton and princeton to camden)
hennepin and 7th to stinson, franklin and portland to clinton

I'm trying to find tracks that are about seedy Hollywood/FAILED movie star never-weres/depressing fame stories.

Can anybody think of anything?

Things along the lines of Alides Hidding's disco jam "Hollywood Seven":

"She came in one night from Omaha, worn out
'cause she never could sleep on trains,
Took a bus to Hollywood
Lookin' for a room in the pourin' rain
Hair so blonde her eyes so brown
She thought she'd take this town and turn it upside down

I was livin' in a hotel just off Sunset
She moved in across the hall
She said she'd be a movie star
And waited every mornin' for the call
I asked her in for a drink but she hardly had the time
Her call might come tomorrow, she had to know her lines

Hollywood Seven, rooms to rent, till your name goes up in lights
Hollywood Seven, you can dream your dreams for seven bucks a night

Now the months went by without a job
The money that she saved was nearly spent
But she started bringin' strangers home
Had to find a way to pay the rent
She'd sit and drink my coffee with nothin' much to say
Just busy rehearsin' in her mind the scene she'd never play

I found her there one mornin'
When she didn't come for coffee when I called
She brought the wrong one home this time
There were crazy lipstick squalls across the wall
Now she's goin' back to Omaha but not the way she planned
There will be no crowd to cheer her on, no welcome home, no band

Hollywood Seven, rooms to rent, till your name goes up in lights
Hollywood Seven, you can dream your dreams for seven bucks a night"

Nick Lowe - Marie Provost

Dory Previn - Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign (based on Peg Entwistle)

I forget the name of the song, but the hidden track on Lyle Lovett's The Road To Ensenada is about him meeting future ex-wife Julia Roberts at the wrap party for The Player.

Isn't there a song on the latest Bright Eyes record about Winona Ryder?

"Picture Show" — John Prine

Nick Lowe - Marie Provost
OMFG - I had no idea that was a real person/story. And it's my favorite Nick Lowe song!

Yeah, that makes the song even better, doesn't it? Great to imagine Lowe thumbing through Hollywood Babylon thinking, now this would make a good pop song.

Grateful Dead - "West L.A. Fadeaway" (supposed to be about John Belushi)
Rufus Wainwright - Matinee Idol