Songs About Other Songs

Music criticism, but with a chorus.

Entries
10
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A towering wall of vinyl records in a dim apartment, a pair of DJ headphones and a turntable on a crate.

    10. Losing My Edge

    LCD Soundsystem · 2002

    James Murphy, briefly cool as a DJ, panics about younger kids with better record collections and lists every influential band he claims he saw first. His own label partner admitted the beat borrows from Killing Joke. So it's a song about songs, built on a song.

  2. A cluttered songwriter's desk with a typewriter, a stack of torn-out love letters and a single wobbly pink blancmange on a plate.

    09. Song for Whoever

    The Beautiful South · 1989

    A cynical songwriter romances women strictly to get material for love songs, and recites the names like a catalog. It was the band's debut single and their highest-charting, No. 2 in the UK. The video has record executives picking a blancmange over pop stars.

  3. A 1961 jukebox glowing in a soda shop, a stack of doo-wop 45s and a milkshake with two straws on the counter.

    08. Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)

    Barry Mann · 1961

    Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin wrote a doo-wop song wondering who wrote all the nonsense syllables in doo-wop, with nods to Blue Moon and Rama Lama Ding Dong. It hit No. 7 in the US and No. 1 in Canada. Nobody has ever been credited for the bomp.

  4. A pair of acoustic guitars leaning against a cracked stone wall, a faint red glow and smoke rising from a crack in the floor.

    07. Tribute

    Tenacious D · 2002

    A demon demands the greatest song in the world, Jack Black and Kyle Gass play it, and this is not that song. It's a tribute. Black was inspired by trying and failing to top Metallica's One. Kyle opened TV performances with Stairway to Heaven, just to raise the stakes.

  5. A bass guitar on a stand in a funky 1969 studio, colorful shag rug, a stack of the band's earlier vinyl singles beside it.

    06. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

    Sly and the Family Stone · 1969

    Sly name-checks the band's earlier hits inside a No. 1 song about getting to be himself again, with Larry Graham widely credited with inventing slap bass on the track. A greatest-hits album that fits in four minutes, and spelled better than most.

  6. A wooden courtroom with sheet music entered as evidence on the witness stand, a gavel resting on a piano.

    05. This Song

    George Harrison · 1976

    After a week in court over whether My Sweet Lord copied He's So Fine, Harrison wrote a song about writing a song that hopefully infringes on nothing. Eric Idle does voices; the video is a mock trial. It peaked at No. 25. The lawyers were not consulted.

  7. A translucent onion made of glass on a white table, refracting tiny images of strawberries, a walrus tusk and a fishing hat.

    04. Glass Onion

    The Beatles · 1968

    Lennon got tired of fans decoding Beatles lyrics, so he wrote a song stuffed with callbacks to Strawberry Fields, I Am the Walrus, Lady Madonna, The Fool on the Hill and Fixing a Hole, plus a fake clue about the walrus. Fans decoded that too. It's two minutes and 17 seconds.

  8. A dusty Southern porch with a rocking chair, a Gibson guitar and a weathered vinyl record leaning against the railing.

    03. Sweet Home Alabama

    Lynyrd Skynyrd · 1974

    An answer to Neil Young's Southern Man and Alabama, naming him in the lyrics. It became the band's highest-charting single, No. 8. In his 2012 memoir, Young conceded his own words had been accusatory and condescending. Rare case of the reply winning the argument.

  9. A Chevy parked by a dry levee at dusk, an old 45 record and a slice of apple pie on its hood.

    02. American Pie

    Don McLean · 1971

    Eight and a half minutes about the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, then the rest of rock history, in code. McLean kept a dignified silence about the meaning for decades, until the manuscript sold for $1.2 million. Silence turned out to be negotiable.

  10. A cocktail napkin with scribbled notes on a small nightclub table, a candle and an empty stage with one stool and an acoustic guitar.

    01. Killing Me Softly with His Song

    Roberta Flack · 1973

    Lori Lieberman watched Don McLean sing Empty Chairs at the Troubadour and scribbled notes on a napkin, which became this. Her version didn't chart. Roberta Flack found it on an airplane and won Record of the Year. McLean got a song about his song. Not a bad trade.

Honorable mentions

  • A gleaming brass horn section of trumpets and saxophones on stands, a tuxedo bow tie draped over a grand piano.

    Sir Duke

    Stevie Wonder · 1977

    A No. 1 tribute to Duke Ellington that also salutes Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Satchmo and Ella. It's about musicians, not songs, which keeps it off the main list. That horn line would get it into most other lists by itself.

Dishonorable mentions

  • Two nearly identical sheets of music side by side on a courtroom table under a desk lamp, a cowbell between them.

    Blurred Lines

    Robin Thicke · 2013

    Twelve weeks at No. 1 in 2013, and in 2015 a jury decided it was, legally speaking, about Marvin Gaye's Got to Give It Up. The appeal trimmed the bill to $5.3 million. Thicke testified Pharrell wrote most of it. Not the defense he thought it was.

Every list.
On tap.

No newsletter. Point your AI at our public MCP server, or follow the RSS feed. New lists show up in both.

Get the MCP RSS