TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

I have been mulling this over a while - is there any other band as self referential as Fairport, from Come All Ye on Liege and Lief, Angel Delight, Hungarian Rhapsody through to Our Bus Rolls On, Festival Bell, Summer by the Cherwell.

What are folks thoughts on this?

DW

Bo Diddley ?  ;D :

Bo Diddley
Go Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley in the Spotlight
Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger
Bo Diddley Is a Lover
Bo Diddley's a Twister
Bo Diddley & Company
Surfin' with Bo Diddley

and many more...

Zappa?

Road Ladies, Punky's Whips, Stevie's Spanking, etc.

The Who - Pete Townshend writes very personal lyrics and references his and the band's history:

You Better You Bet: "I got your body right now on my mind/But I drunk myself blind/To the sound of old T-Rex/To the sound of old T-Rex/Oh, and Who's Next?"
The Punk and the Godfather: "I'm the new president/And I grew and I bent/Don't you know, don't it show?/I'm the punk with the stutter/My, my, my, my, my g-g-generation"
How Many Friends: "When I first signed a contract/It was more than a handshake then/I know it still is/But there's a plain fact/We talk so much s**t behind each other's backs/I get the willies"
New Song: "My fingers kill me as I play my guitar/'Cause I've been chewing down at my nails/My hairline ain't exactly superstar/But there's one thing that never fails/This never fails/I write the same old song with a few new lines/And everybody wants to cheer it/I write the same old song you heard a good few times/Admit you really want to hear it"
Who Are You: "I woke up in a Soho doorway/A policeman knew my name/He said "You can go sleep at home tonight/If you can get up and walk away"/I staggered back to the underground/And the breeze blew back my hair/I remember throwing punches around/And preaching from my chair"
Long Live Rock: "People walk in sideways pretending that they're leaving/We put on our makeup and work out all the lead-ins/Jackie's (Curblshley) in the alley selling tickets made in Hong Kong/Promoter's in the pay box wondering where the band's gone/Back in the pub the governor stops the clock/Rock is dead they say/Long live rock"

True, except it's "Jack is in the alley" (just double-checked the lyric sheet on my 1974 copy of Odds and Sods to make extra sure!). Not clear why the tour manager's wife would sell fake tickets .... (Curbishley first managed tours in 1971, but wasn't the band's manager until 1976).

I guess a case could be made for certain lyrics on Endless Wire being somewhat self-referential ("people died where I performed"), even though that's part of a story about a fictitious band. And there's similarly self-referential stuff on Who (the whole of 'All This Music Must Fade' and 'I Don't Want to Get Wise').

By the way, I saw Roger Daltrey live on his recent solo tour. Man, he and his band would be great for Cropredy!

Who was in the band...did it include Simon T?

It did, along with Katie Jacoby, Ben Townshend (Simon's son), Jody Linscott, Billy Nicholls, and a wealth of other people I can't recall the names of I'm afraid! I was at the Liverpool gig: it's worth looking at the version of Young Man Blues on YouTube from that gig to see how stunning it was. His voice is unbelievable for a 78-year-old!

Off the top of my head, self referential songs:

Fire and Rain - James Taylor
At Seventeen - Janis Ian
A New England - Billy Bragg*
Oh Carole - Neil Sedaka
Oh Neil - Carole King
Alice's Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie
Our House - Graham Nash*
River - Joni Mitchell*
Hurt - Trent Reznor
Golden Brown - Stranglers

*All these writers have written numerous songs about themselves, their lovers, their lives.

Those are autobiographical songs. The list of those would be endless. I thought what David was looking for were songs by bands about bands.

Mott the Hoople did Ballad of Mott and Saturday Gigs, for example.

Jules

Ah, ok. It's late.

Hmmm. Didn't the Clash do a song about being the Clash?

Also, what about Rumours by Fleetwood Mac? The whole album is about... Fleetwood Mac.

They did at least two: Clash City Rockers, and the woeful We Are The Clash (which Sparks covered, hilariously... they vastly improved it too).

Jules

Hey, Hey We’re the Monkees ….

Cocaine can do that...  ;) ::) ;D

What do we think about the FC songs about themselves / Cropredy - does The Crowd stand alongside Angel Delight or Summer by the Cherwell alongside Hungarian Rhapsody?

I don't think Summer By the Cherwell should stand anywhere....just let it rest (in peace!)

Jason Derulo!!  ;D

In the heavy metal arena, there's Manowar, who sing many songs about themselves.

Well, nobody else was going to.

Jules

Looking up self-referential on yourdictionary.com is says -

"The definition of self-referential is to say or write something about yourself."

In that case Ian McNabb should get a mention. Dan O might be better qualified to list the songs Ian has written about himself or the Icicle Works but "I Never Saw My Hometown Till I Went Around the World" comes to mind along with "Fire Inside My Soul".

 ;D

I stand corrected on Long Live Rock: "[Irish] Jack is in the alley selling tickets made in Hong Kong..."

Point remains that it's a self-reference to the band's experiences.

Here's Irish Jack saying the song is referencing him: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/cork-man-who-inspired-the-who-there-s-no-quadrophenia-pension-life-s-not-like-that-1.1413768

How about Queen with Let Me Entertain You, Was It All Worth It?, Death On Two Legs.

An autobiographical piece to get Crazy Horse to record with him.....

Off the top of my head:
We’re the wainwrights - Loudon Wainwright and family
Wacky Women - Sparks (“Hello, everybody, this is Russel”)
Disco King - Wonderstuff (“I’m just two legs of the groove machine”)

Al Stewart.
Many of his songs are autobiographical, but he gives himself a mention on “ You Should Have Listened To Al”

Possibly my favourite 10CC song 'Old Wild Men' .. they wrote it in their 20's imagining what they would be like performing in their 50's.

Also 'Uncle John's Band' by the Grateful Dead.  Uncle John was thought to be Jerry Garcia.
 

Much more obviously self-referential is Truckin' which details a series of events in the band's life on the road.

Jules

Minutemen - 'History Lesson Pt.II' is one which springs to mind.

Our band could be your life
Real names be proof
Me and Mike Watt played for years
Punk rock changed our lives

We learned punk rock in Hollywood
Drove up from Pedro
We were ******g corn dogs
We'd go drink and pogo

Mr. Narrator
This is Bob Dylan to me
My story could be his songs
I'm his soldier child

Our band is scientist rock
But I was E. Bloom and Richard Hell
Joe Strummer, and John Doe
Me and Mike Watt, playing guitar

And their 'Tour Spiel' too come to think of it...!

We - The Roches

Does Lynrd Skynrd’s “Workin’ for MCA” count? Certainly “What’s Your Name?”. Different times… ;D

Not to mention "That Smell" (a warning to the whole band after Gary Rossington crashed his car while drunk and high) and "Gimme Back My Bullets" (referencing not literal bullets, but the band's failure to score a follow-up Billboard hit after "Sweet Home Alabama").

I was going to mention Mike Watt, but thought it would be under most people's radar. He is the king of self reference. He did a whole concept album combining his dad's navy career with the history of Minutemen, his old band. Once wrote a song with the opening line "what could be romantic to Mike Watt?".

Jules

Isn't every song by Craig David about Craig David, to the extent of him repeatedly singing the words "Craig David"?

Rotflmao  ;D

My favourite would have to be Creeque Alley by Mamas & the Papas which details not just them but the whole Californian scene ... can't see anyone beating that one ;D

Haha! Yeah, that line is from 'One Reporter's Opinion' and I read recently that D.Boon didn't like the song as it mentioned Mike's name in it...!!

Link to the interview here: https://larecord.com/interviews/2009/08/03/the-minutemen-mike-watt-interview-double-nickels-on-the-dime-the-glory-hole-of-man - enjoy mate!

Thanks.

d. boon wanted to use songs to put across politics and talk about injustice, but watt was always more inward looking, more into exploring personal politics. Of course, there was room for both.

Jules

John Lennon's Mother is one of the most harrowing personal songs. The whole Plastic Ono Band album is his story at the time.

Again, though, there's a distinction between the autobiographical song, which would be probably more than half of the songs ever written, and the self-referential song, which would be more typically refer to an artist's public life rather than their private life.  The best example I can think of would be band songs about the band.

Jules

Sweet - Brian Connolly shouting at the beginning of Ballroom Blitz and the others answering "Are you ready, Steve? aha. Andy? yeah! Mick? ok. Alright fellas, let's go!" That's the only self-referential bit I'm aware of from them, but very silly and great fun

Thanks Jules, I didn't really take in fully what the thread title meant. I stand corrected!

It's just my take on it. I didn't mean to come over all professorial, like.

Jules

Yes!

The Ballad of John and Yoko, anyone?

Re Fairport, The Crowd. Not written by them but about the festival.

Can I offer you a song that is about itself?
Signed Curtain by Rober Wyatt...

This is the first verse
This is the first verse
This is the first verse, the first, the first
And this is the first verse, verse, first verse
And this is the first verse, verse
This is the first verse

And this is the chorus
Or perhaps it's a bridge
Or just another part of the song that I'm singing

I discovered Al Stewart's Love Chronicles at the same time as Faitrport's History album and it was unlike anything else I had heard at the time. It covered almost a whole side of an album and used the word F***ing which was a little shocking at the time. I can still listen fondly to this and remember the hours I spent trying to play along on my first acoustic guitar, one of the reasons I learned to play I guess.

Wasn't it the first "pop" record to drop the F bomb?

Jules

Said to be,  yes.

So the Fish Cheer doesn't count?

Would The Fugs count?
“Supergirl” from 1965 with “i want a girl that can f*** (fug?) like an angel”

That rather self-obsessed (IMHO) singer/talker/woffler Denise Chaila one whinging about people who can't spell her name. How would they know if they've never heard of her?