It’s a ‘songs that reference other bands in their titles’ theme this week and there’s really not much more to say than that. Enjoy!

First Word

I’ve had the idea in my head for a while to do a theme about songs that reference other bands in their titles and here it is. It’s presented in a sandwich format with a wholesome filling comprising pairs of linked songs and the freshly-baked wholemeal bread on either side made up of two other songs. Sorry if that makes no sense to you, but it’s the way my mind works.

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The Beatles and The Stones – House of Love (1990)

If you’re going to write about other bands then you might as well go for the big boys like House of Love writer Guy Chadwick did on this atmospheric single lifted from the band’s second self-titled LP in 1990. Known for their psychedelic guitar sounds, The House of Love were originally signed to Alan McGee’s influential Creation label where they released debut single Shine On in 1987. But, after one album, they made an ill-judged move up to a major label and signed with Fontana, a decision that caused them to eventually split up due to drug-fuelled musical and personal differences.

I have playlisted the single mix but the longer album version of the tune opens with snatches of Neil Armstong’s 1969 moonwalk dialogue and radio news reporting of the violence at anti-Vietnam war protests at the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Sq in 1968. This gives the impression the song is some kind of paean to the end of the 60s. The chorus lyric seems to back this up: “The Beatles and the Stones/Sucked the marrow out of bone/Put the V in Vietnam/The Beatles and the Stones/Made it good to be alone”

However, the lyrics in the verses are impenetrably vague so who knows what the song is about. It got them the second of their two top forty hits at No 36, the first being a Fontana re-recording of their Creation debut which crept up to No 20 in 1990. I really like the guitar sounds they get on The Beatles and The Stones, the woozy string section in the middle and the way they creep back in at the end.

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Velvet Underground – Jonathan Richman (1992)

The first part of the opening pairing is Jonathan Richman’s unabashed love letter to his 60s heroes the Velvet Underground. As a youngster, Richman was obsessed with the band, hanging around with them when they came to Boston and moving to New York to sleep on their manager’s couch. And you can hear all that teenage infatuation in this typically sparse but amazing song which takes three and a half minutes to nail their look, their sound and what they meant to him.

Recorded for his 1992 LP I, Jonathan, the lo-fi song chugs along like a twisted version of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues, driven by handclaps and Richman’s voice. The evocative lyric is full of descriptive power in conveying how the avant-garde, experimental approach of Lou Reed and his cohorts’ musicianship was so different from other bands in the late 60s. “A spooky tone on a Fender bass/Played less notes and left more space“. And there’s a great little bridge section where he sings “Well, you could look at that band and at first sight/Say that certain rules about modern music wouldn’t apply tonight”.

Richman’s most celebrated song is the seminal Roadrunner which I rave about in WIS 19May23 and is seen as a two-chord homage to the Velvet’s Sister Ray. In the middle of Velvet Underground, he has the audacity to slow the beat down for a few bars and insert his own little cover of Sister Ray complete with his best Low Reed drawl on the lyric. But the song is really carried by the imagery of his own lyric which I will illustrate by quoting the terrific penultimate verse and chorus in full:

Both guitars got the fuzz tone on
The drummer’s standing upright pounding along
A howl, a tone, a feedback whine
Biker boys meet the college kind
How in the world were they making that sound?
Velvet Underground

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Jonathan, Jonathan – The Rockingbirds (1992)

And talking of unabashed love letters to your teenage heroes, the second part of this pairing is just that, except Jonathan Richman is on the receiving end this time. The Rockingbirds were a UK country-rock band that formed in London in 1990. With a sound slightly out of touch with the times, they battled away trying to get on in the music business for five years or so before giving up. I bought their self-titled debut LP in 1992 on the strength of their Gradually Learning single but found it contained their previous single Jonathan, Jonathan which I had missed from earlier that year.

The single was packaged in a sleeve with a clever parody of the graphic on the sleeve of The Modern Lovers, the debut LP by the band Richman formed in 1970. The Rockingbirds song was written their singer and main songwriter Alan Tyler and produced by Clive Langer. It is structured around the start and finish of Richman’s Roadrunner – there is a 1-2-3-4-5-6 count into a two-chord opening and those same two chords follow the classic “That’s right! – Again! – Bye bye!” Roadrunner finale.

The song’s melody is enhanced by some great harmonies while Tyler’s biographical lyric of Richman’s career tells of his early love of the Velvet Underground and draws a clever parallel between them through the perceived lack of musicality of both artists: “Well the people would say they cannot play/They said you couldn’t sing/And they tried to make some kind of fool out of you/But all along you were the king”. And if that line didn’t tell you that Tyler was a complete fan-boy of Richman’s, then my favourite couplet from the song will leave you in no doubt:

I’ve loved you now for a good few years, though we’ve never really met
I shook your hand at the Hammersmith Odeon that’s something I won’t forget

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Joy Division Oven Gloves – Half Man Half Biscuit (2005)

The second pairing this week allows me to finally put some Half Man Half Biscuit on the blog – after two years, it’s about time the great Birkenhead band got an outing. Formed in 1984 and championed by John Peel, I think it is fair to say that HMHB are not for everybody but I really enjoy their fiercely intelligent but sardonic songs packed full of knowing British pop culture references. They are most definitely not a ‘comedy band’ – one critic described the lyrics of their writer and singer Nigel Blackwell as being “full of truth and wit and clever wordplay; wry and dry, but never cynical, every song makes me smile”. Even their LP titles are witty from their 1985 debut Back In The DHSS to their most recent 2022 release The Voltarol Years, including Trouble Over Bridgewater and CSI:Ambleside along the way.

The track I am playlisting comes from their tenth album, Achtung Bono, and uses the venerated Joy Division to satirise band merchandising and consumerism in general. In terms of Blackwell’s writing, it is far from his most incisive work. However, even veering towards silliness, it still makes its point. I am pretty sure that merch stalls I have seen at recent gigs with band tea towels (The Bluebells had a cracker) have only evolved this way after this tune was written. Although an image of the titular oven gloves appears on the back sleeve of the HMHB album, it looks like a one-off mock-up to me. Ironically, if you put it into Google now, you have scores to choose from!

So, once again, it’s all about the words. The high point is where Blackwell brilliantly adopts the “Dance dance dance dance” line that Ian Curtis sings on Joy Division’s debut single Transmission, replacing his reference to the radio with the oven gloves. All the words hit home but I particularly love the alliteration in the line: I”ve been to a post-punk postcard fair/In me Joy Division oven gloves”. And listen out for the fantastic classical history reference to Gordon Burns, former host of Granada TV’s The Krypton Factor. HMHB – totally unique in every way.

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New Order T-Shirt – The National (2023)

Musically, about as far away from Half Man Half Biscuit as you can get, gloomy art-rockers The National referenced the band that Joy Division became on a track from their ninth studio album First Two Pages of Frankenstein in 2023. The LP was apparently named to reflect the blank and desolate wastelands that open Mary Shelley’s classic noir novel and famously the recording sessions had Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens as guest vocalists. However, none of them feature on this song which relates to a more usual item of merch available from the post-Ian Curtis musicians.

The National’s singer and lyric writer Matt Berringer was going through a period of depression and writer’s block over this period and themes of alienation and detachment dominate the collection of songs that finally made it on to tape. It turns out that Berringer is a big New Order fan and this track about his t-shirt is more a song of longing. It is built on a melancholy musical loop and the lyric reminisces about a former partner and their relationship – the opening verse describes their time in New York over the period of 9/11 and the second an incident when Berringer caused the evacuation of Honolulu Airport due to an alarm clock in his luggage closely resembling an explosive device. The chorus contains the killer lyric as Berringer tries to hold on to everything he can from the relationship:

I keep what I can of you
Split second glimpses and snapshots and sounds
You in my New Order t-shirt
Holding a cat and a glass of beer

Fun Fact – when the track was released as a single, the two bands collaborated over a joint so-called ‘limited edition’ T-shirt, which still seems to be available here. Don’t believe all you read at the merch stall!

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Daft Punk Is Playing At My House – LCD Soundsystem (2005)

The final slice of bread in the bottom of the sandwich (keep up, will you) allows American electronic-dance/art-rock/post-punk band LCD Soundsystem to make a second appearance on the blog. And yes, they are hard to define! Daft Punk Is Playing At My House was released as a single from their acclaimed eponymous debut album in 2005 and gave them a top thirty hit in the UK singles chart, while it topped the UK dance chart.

As befits a song about a dance act, the lyrics are probably secondary to the sound on this one. LCD frontman James Murphy is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of pop music history and an obsession with sound recording. This track blasts out the speakers at you with a couple of strangled vocal yelps over an enormous synth riff and a stomping drum and bass track that thunders the thing along. The bass line in particular sounds like it comes from deep within the earth’s crust.

A look at the lyrics does offer the amusement of Murphy imagining the scenes when, after “seven years and fifteen days” of waiting, the influential French electronic duo finally play at his house. There’s a “bus and a trailer” outside and “all the furniture is in the garage” to allow “every kid for miles” to line up to get into where Murphy has “got everybody’s PA” set up. It’s all gloriously nonsensical but it builds to a huge bass-driven, looping hook chorus with some great backing vocals declaring You got to set ’em up (ooh, ooh, yeah)/You got to set ’em up (ooh, ooh, yeah). Really – what’s not to like?

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Last Word

Well, that was a bit of fun and hopefully the sandwich analogy makes more sense now. Then again, maybe not…

The song titles and band names are at risk of merging into one as the six tracks listed here tumble into the Master Playlist. When I remember to do so, of course. Many thanks to those who nudge me when I forget!

WeekInSoundMaster

AR

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