"Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov": the best bizarre cultural refences in pop songs

At this point ideas for ILM threads are like potential premises for Simpsons episodes: everything has probably been done before, so forgive me if this has been covered in some older topic.

I'm thinking about songs that have a really obscure, high-brow or otherwise just odd cultural reference in them. They don't have to be well-known "pop" songs, but what's the fun in going over obvious artists for this thread, like rappers and indie dudes who always go on about pop culture, or Lloyd Cole? (although maybe we can have a cash prize for the person who finds the best bizarre reference Lloyd Cole ever made)

Thread is inspired by Smokey Robinson singing about someone acting like Pagliacci in "Tears of a Clown," so there's that

But also, what about in the 98 Degrees song "The Hardest Thing," where we get: 'Like Dr. Zhivago/All my love I'll be sending/And you will never know cuz/There can be no happy ending.' I'm sure the Radio Disney audience could relate.

Let's name more examples like these, though if the rapper or smirking indie dude quoting Family Guy quoting Ben Jonson is especially funny go ahead and post it here.

Roxy to thread:

Thus even Zarathustra--another time loser - could believe in you

Lolita and Guernica do the strand

Bowie to thread:

Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow

"The lady with the skin so white,
like something out of Blake or Burne-Jones
always blocked out the light
and shadowed all you owned."

~ Peter Hammill

Divine Comedy - "Booklovers"

when snow patrol sang about sufjan stevens

when the flaming lips sang about jack white

when spoon sang about har mar D:

Paw had songs about characters from Andrew Vachss novels, then Andrew Vachss mentioned their singer in one of his novels.

i always wondered if the "ready for the house" lyric in gbv's "unleashed! the large hearted boy" was a janked reference...

jandek not janked obv

Bowie to thread:

Lennon/Lenin's on sale again

"Sigmund Freud, Analyze This" in that Bond theme

"True like the Tractatus" and "I've got a reason girl, it's Immanuel Kant" don't belong in this thread cos there's nothing bizarre about Green dropping philosophy references.

likewise Howard Devoto dropping "I could have been Raskolnikov, but Mother Nature ripped me off" in Magazine's "Philadelphia", a more fevered application of Roxy's approach?

I'm pretty sure the Manics are exempt for the reasons Noodle gave for Scritti Politti.

Obvious, but immortal nonetheless: "Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat." (And unusual--the PSB are usually so rough-and-tumble and working class; I believe there was a Joe the Plumber reference on their last album.) Let me sneak in a great film reference that applies too: the Monica Vitti joke in The Squid and the Whale.

Prefab Sprout to thread!

I find Neil Tennant's rough-hewn cockney enunciations get a bit wearing after a while.

Also sometimes difficult to decipher - for years I wondered what "for in a secret life, I was a Rantigel" meant.

"I stole the Renoir and TV set, don't wanna be around when this gets out"

Or was it "sold"? Whichever.

Jonathan Richman to thread!

"Did you ever hear about Wordsworth and Coleridge, baby? ... They were smokin' up in Kendal by the lakeside" -- Van Morrison, "Summertime in England"

And nobody gives a fuck no more, no one goes to the book store
ever since the influence of Moore's Law
But I stay in the lab, like Niels Bohr
his son Aage, Edward Lorenz, and Leo Szilard

- Canibus: "Poet Laureate II"

I know the point of the lyric is to prove how learned Canibus is, but those are still pretty obscure references for a rap tune.

the whole of Ian Dury And The Blockheads' "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards"

of dylan's many name-drops and references, i think alicia keys is the most unexpected and funniest. he even did a little homework, or at least checked her wikipedia page for the hell's kitchen detail.

Camper van Beethoven to thread

Squeeze: "A Harold Robbins paperback"

"Garry Shandling Garry Shandling"

The Butthole Surfers drop odd lines in pretty much every song, but this one was even surprising.

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother fuck him and John Wayne ...

!

Eh? Elvis and John Wayne are hardly bizarre references in American popular music.

Poem Rocket w/the catchy chorus:

"COBRA: Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam...Karel Appel!"

Bonus points for using it in a really great song.

John Wayne...hardly bizarre references

The Lex to thread!