Songs that are aware of themselves

And does Pixies' Tony's Theme count? It's got that neat 'this is a song about a superhero called Tony. it's called Tony's Theme'-intro.

Billy Bragg – New England
I was 21 years when I wrote this song, I’m 22 now but won’t be for long

!!!

This Song will be here when you're old
This Song will heat you when you're cold
Believe you when I don't
This Song will heal from your soul

This Song will help you find a place to live
And teach you not to take but give
This Song will help you on your dying doubts
This Song song will send your lover flowers
Rest by this Song and the peace it brings
Beautiful song it has wings

certainly in the running, but robin you clearly have yet to avail yrself of the wonderless wonder that is "escapology" the album, all of which makes "strong" sound like "who knows where the time goes."

I always hear "Deacon Blues" as a sort of joke on that.

"This song will hold you in its arms
This song will fill you with its charms"

Judy Is Punk - Ramones

There was time in winter
There was parsley on my plate
I couldn't leave The Restaurant
So I left the middle 8

It's kinda clever.

In this kind of song
Middle bits are so predictable
But you came along
You were not at all predictable

"Michelle" by The Beatles is arguable.

Aaah yes, "It's short and sweet and to the point...."(?). Good call Jody ("Can't say that I blame you...."), I'm going to have to dig that one out and blow the dust off it when I get home now!

lyrics:

"there's only two songs in me, and I just wrote the third
don't know where I got the inspiration or how I wrote the words
spent my whole life just digging up my music's shallow grave
for the two songs in me and the third one I just made"

go little record go
it is named by
some guy named joe
and the words
are the letters of the words
said
electrically played
for outer space and those of they who paid
this song is twice ocurred
and now its time to go
away on holiday.

Soft Machine - "Moon in June"
"Just before we go on to the next part of our song
Let's all make sure we've got the time"

Also: King Crimson "Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With"

And are we going to count all of the songs that start out with someone saying "This one is for all the [ladies/guys/whathaveyou]"?

This is a love song to John and Leisha's mother /
This isn't easy I might not write another

He says at the start that he's listening to a familiar song on the radio, and then later on that he's 'hiding in his music' so the big swelling notes that follow are like the dream he has when he 'closes his eyes and he drifts away.' And it's 'More Than a feeling' because it's a feeling manifested in the actuality of the song. And if you think it's pretentious that he says 'hide in my music' well you have to suspend that idea.

have no doubt, Marcello: "Feel" is rivalling "Strong" in my mental chamber of horrors. hearing the album might reduce me to a floating skull off Chesil Beach.

Shame on us.

Well I can't tell you anything
You don't already know
I keep on trying
I should just let it go

I keep on singing
Your eyes, they just roll
It sounds like someone else's song
From a long time ago

You already know the story
And the chords are just the same
You already know I love you
And I sound like what's his name

But you can't stop me
I want you to know
I know it sounds like someone else's song
From a long time ago

(played like faux-Hank Williams on the record, and like Led Zepplin live)

Also,

Steve Goodman/David Allan Coe, "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" (extended ambiguity about whether it's a song to a rejecting lover or to a rejecting public, then spoken-word interlude about how Goodman told Coe it was the perfect country song, and Coe said it couldn't be the perfect country song if it didn't say anything about getting drunk, or mama, or prison, or trucks, or trains, followed by Goodman's response -- a final verse involving all of the foregoing).

Bright Eyes, "Take It Easy, Love Nothing" (If you stay too long inside my memory / I will put you in a song tied to a melody / And I'll keep you there so you can't bother me)

Shari Lewis, "The Song That Never Ends" (This is the song that ne-ver ends / Yes it goes on and on my friends / Some people started singing it not knowing what it was / And they'll continue singing it forever just because / This is the song that ne-ver ends . . . )

"borrowed tune" ("i'm singing this borrowed tune/i took from the rolling stones..."

The Drugs - Pop Song ("This is our number one pop song choor-us/we're hoping that it makes a million dollars for us")

I believe Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" is actually about trying to write a song, no?

Maybe I'm waaay offbase...

And, of course, Weird Al to thread, cf. "This song is just six words long."

Also Squirrel song ("This is a sad fucking song! We'll be lucky if I don't bust out crying") and Song Against Itself, both by Shellac.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B21qhoKbmNE

well, i wrote this song
with a vamp in the middle
and i knew when i wrote it
that i'd written it for the fiddle

Songs that get all meta and mention 'this song' in the lyrics

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

And this is the second verse
It could be the last verse
This is the second verse, second verse, second verse
It could be the last verse, last verse
And this is the second verse
But it's probably the last one

And this is the chorus
Or perhaps it's a bridge
Or just another key change
Never mind, it doesn't hurt
It only means that I lost faith in this song
'Cause it won't help me reach you

Yes sir, already told you in the first verse and in the chorus,
But I will give you one more chance...

songs that are about themselves

There's something about THIS song ... Songs that reference themselves.

Now hear this Robert Zimmerman, I wrote a song for you...

another from john hartford:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBZFebgYU_I

Love a tune that boasts about repeating the first verse, eg:

Violent Femmes - Prove My Love / The Ramones - Judy is a Punk / Herman’s Hermits - I’m Henry the VII I am

^otm

You criticize our method of how we make records
You said it wasn't art, so now we're gonna rip you apart
Stop, check it out my man
This is the music of a hip-hop band
Jazz, well you can call it that
But this jazz retains a new format
Point, where you misjudged us
Speculated, created a fuss
You've made the same mistake politicians have
Talkin' all that jazz

#onethread

Radio stations I question their blackness, they call themselves black, but we'll see if they'll play this

Smudge - I Don’t Want To Be Grant McLennan