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Self-Referential Songs
I was just watching a video of the Supremes performing “Back in My Arms Again”, and I noticed for the first time, thanks to the camerawork and the staged reactions, that one of the verses Diana Ross sang was about her groupmates:
“How can Mary tell me what to do when she lost her love so true?
And Flo, she don’t know, ’cause the boy she loves is a Romeo.”
How many other songs can you think of where the lyrics make some sort of reference to the group itself? (The name of the group, the names of members, lyrics from one of their other songs, events in the group’s shared history, etc.)
I can think of one really fruitful example, but I’ll leave the honors to Jacki.
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14 Replies
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Perhaps not exactly what you’re looking for, but, The Beatles took a song they didn’t write and let Ringo add a couple lines. In “Honey Don’t” Ringo says, “Ah, Rock on, George, for me” and “Ah, rock on, George for Ringo one time”.
Taylor Swift “Look What You Made Me Do”. “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead!” referring to the fact that she’s not the naïve nice girl she used to be.
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Pink Floyd, “Have a Cigar”.
“The band is just fantastic
That is really what I think
Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?” -
If you’ve seen the Pink Floyd documentary about Wish You Were Here album it is dedicated to their founding member Syd Barret and his mental illness due to drugs. Songs “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, and “Wish You Were Here” refer specifically to Syd Barret. A really tragic and emotional tribute.
Wikipedia:
Wish You Were Here is Floyd’s second album with a conceptual theme written entirely by Roger Waters. It reflects his feeling that the camaraderie that had served the band was, by then, largely absent.[6] The album begins with a long instrumental preamble and segues into the lyrics for “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, a tribute to Syd Barrett, whose mental breakdown had forced him to leave the group seven years earlier.[7] Barrett is fondly recalled with lines such as “Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun” and “You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon”.[8]
The lyrics of the next song, “Wish You Were Here”, relate both to Barrett’s condition and to the dichotomy of Waters’ character, with greed and ambition battling with compassion and idealism.[10]
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
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Thanks to MLT I am now aware of Glass Onion, which contains references to several other Beatles songs.
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Also thanks to MLT, I don’t think I’ll ever hear “Two of Us” again (sung by anyone) without picturing the twins growing up together.
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Creeque Alley,…..?, and there’s a couple of solo Cass Elliot songs written specifically for her : ” Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore” , ” I’m Coming to the Best Part of My Life” and then there are 2 of Glass Tiger songs, “My Town,” ” My Song”…..perhaps a few others from them but these 2 GT ones stand out….That’scall for now that come to mind for me… oh wait…”cass singing…” You Gotta Make Your Own Kind of Music”…and bith Denny Doherty’s solo albums in tgec70s offers a few autobiographical-ish songs on each album…. ok, 3:30AM, niw finally tired to go to sleep,,,GoodNightMorning…..
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Ricky Nelson’s “Garden Party” was pretty much autobiographical, including a reference to “Hello Mary Lou”.
At one point in “Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In”, the guy says, “I want you to sing along with the Fifth Dimension.”
There’s also the phenomenon of “sequel songs”, where an artist or group follows up a hit single with a similar-sounding song that continues the story. For example, there’s Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” / “Let’s Twist Again”, Dee Dee Sharp’s “Mashed Potato Time” / “Gravy (for My Mashed Potatoes)”, Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” / “Judy’s Turn to Cry”, and the Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk” / “I’ve Got Sand in My Shoes”.
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In country music, this rings true from old school classics to today’s idea of ” new country” ( I’m fan of old school country), and Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams, come to mind first and foremost as examples on songwriting about their own lives, others have done so too, but these two in particular standout, at least for me they do…
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Not quite sure how far to stretch this but the song Help! reflected what John was feeling at the time about himself…..maybe Nowhere Man.  But, there were so many songs the Beatles did that reflected things they were going through at the time.
There is a song by Poco called Living in the Band which went through which state in the US came from. Mike.
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Mike, you can evolve this topic in any direction you like, but my original idea was to find songs with references to specific people, places, songs, and events associated with the group.
I just now discovered another example. In the beginning of the Shangri Las song Leader of the Pack, there is the spoken line “Betty, is that Jimmy’s ring you’re wearing?” The lead vocal in the released version is sung by Mary Weiss, but it turns out in the original demo it was done by her sister Betty.
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“The walrus was Paul”
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In the movie Echoes in the Canyon, Mamas and the Papas Michelle Phillips said her husband John wrote this song about her.
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Tom (Art) catch your plane on time..
One of MLTs’ favourite Simon and Garfunkle songs mentioned on the What’s On The Table episode. Lisa said Simon wrote this this song about Art, when he went to New York to film a movie. At the time they use to be Tom and Jerry.
Such a beautiful song. I like this video, as it shows the movie “To Sir With Love”, one of my fave movies, playing at the time in theaters.
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