Meta songs

[eruthros]

On the drive home, m_shell and I spent some time trying to come up with a list of meta songs. Because we were talking about weird themes for playlists -- things like "songs about kittens!" And then we'd try to come up with songs for the themes. (Meta songs: easier said than done. Even taking meta to mean self-referential, genre-referential, music industry-referential, and then including context-dependent stuff as well.)

And we came up with the following, but would appreciate input on more of same. Especially on the genre-referential songs. I have all of these as mp3s, so if you're interested in anything let me know in the comments.

Self-referential songs (as far as I'm concerned, the most boring category, and there are tons of songs we didn't think of, since it's a fairly common wink-at-the-audience deal):

• The Beatles - Only a Northern Song ("if you're listening to this song / you may think the chords are going wrong / but they're not / I just wrote it like that")


• Weird Al Yankovic - (This Song Is Just) Six Words Long ("I gotta fill time / three minutes worth of time / oh, how will I fill so much time / I'll throw in a solo, a solo, a solo / a solo, a solo here")


• Built to Spill - Joyride ("this part of the song is called the second verse / sounds just like the first verse but with different words / it only has three chords and they are A, E, and D / they are A and E and D / then it goes to D minor, D, A, E, D")


• Leonard Cohen, originally, and then every vocal artist EVER - Hallelujah ("well it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth / the minor fall and the major lift")


• Leon Russell - A Song For You ("But we're alone now and I'm singing this song for you.")


• Natasha Bedingfield - These Words ("these words are my own / threw some chords together / the combination D-E-F")


• James Taylor - Song For You ("this is a song for you / far away from me")


• Sloan - G Turns to D ("these songs are all about you / and I'm telling everyone I'm doing fine without you ... G will turn to D / you will turn to me / and you'll say / you have done me wrong / I wrote these songs about it")


• Herman's Hermits - Henry The Eighth I Am ("second verse, same as the first")

Genre-referential songs:

• Da Vinci's Notebook - Title of the Song ("Vain hope that my sins are forgivable / appeal for one more opportunity / drop to my knees to elicit crowd response / prayers to my chosen deity / modulation and I hold a high note / title of the song")


• The Vestibules - The Grunge Song ("This is the part of the song / that's really quiet / we play very soft / it sounds like a ballad / and this is the part / where we play real hard / it's much louder than at the beginning")


• Tom Lehrer - Folk Song Army ("and it don't matter if you get a couple extra syllables into a line / it sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English / and it don't even hafta rhyme")


• Sondheim - Agony and Agony, Reprise (only as a set, but it's clearly a commentary on melodramatic love songs - "Agony, that can cut like a knife / ah well, back to my wife")


• Sondheim - Little Things You Do Together ("It's the little things you share together / Swear together / Wear together / That make perfect relationships. / The concerts you enjoy together / Neighbors you annoy together / Children you destroy together / That keep marriage intact ... It's things like using force together / Shouting till you're hoarse together / Getting a divorce together / That make perfect relationships.")


• Beautiful South - Song For Whoever (I don't know what the intent of the song is, but lines like "Oh Shirley, oh Deborah, oh Julie, oh Jane / I wrote so many songs about you / I forget your name" read to me as a commentary on love songs)


• ETA from m_shell: Three Dog Night - An Old Fashioned Love Song (You'll swear you've heard it before /As it slowly rambles on and on./No need in bringing 'em back/'Cause they've never really gone./ Just an old fashioned love song/One I'm sure they wrote for you and me/Just an old fashioned love song/Coming down in three part harmony.)

Meta songs that require context:

• Sondheim - Unworthy of Your Love (this could be a sorta standard love song if you didn't know that John Hinkley and Squeaky Fromme were the voices in the duet)


• Tom Lehrer - The Old Dope Peddler (dependent on knowing that there's a genre of sentimental songs about quaint figures. Like all the Tom Lehrer songs in this category, if you happen to have the live version, he makes the meta explicit in the intros.)


• Tom Lehrer - I Wanna Go Back to Dixie (dependent on awareness of the Let's Go Back South genre and of the 60s in the South)


• Tom Lehrer - The Irish Ballad (um, Irish ballads)


• Tom Lehrer - In My Hometown (hometown songs a la "Penny Lane")

Dubious:
Undertones - More Songs About Chocolate and Girls (this might be meta, but it makes almost no sense, so it's hard to say. I mean: "here's more songs about chocolate and girls / it's not so easy but it will be heard / a lot less time but a lot more care / so here's more songs about chocolate and girls.")

We also recall at least two b-sides in which the song basically says "no one will ever play this song because it is a b-side." Also a Three Dog Night (?) song about love song tropes, but I can't remember what it's called.

Comments

[ryca.livejournal.com]

Cher - This Is A Song For The Lonely
Elton John - Your Song
Paul McCartney? - Silly Love Songs

[ryca.livejournal.com]

Barenaked Ladies - It's All Been Done ("and if I put my fingers here/ and if I say I love you dear/ and if I play the same three chords/ will you just yawn and say Aaahhhh")

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

Not to mention BNL's Box Set (http://www.lyricstime.com/barenaked-ladies-box-set-lyrics.html).

("I never thought I'd be regretful of all my past success
but some stupid number one hit single has go me in this mess.
You can put it on every compilation - that's alright.
You can hear it on the oldies radio station every night.
And if you want it again, you got it-
it's right here in my box set....")

[m-shell.livejournal.com]

Also a Three Dog Night (?) song about love song tropes, but I can't remember what it's called.

That would be "An Old Fashioned Love Song" (http://www.sing365.com/music/Lyric.nsf/Old-Fashioned-Love-Song-lyrics-Three-Dog-Night/F7B2D4E4218D7A9B48256CB50024C66D), and it is indeed by Three Dog Night (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Dog_Night), from the 1971 album Harmony (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_%28album%29).
(You'll swear you've heard it before /As it slowly rambles on and on./No need in bringing 'em back/'Cause they've never really gone./
Just an old fashioned love song/One I'm sure they wrote for you and me/Just an old fashioned love song/Coming down in three part harmony.)