Songs directly addressed to someone non-famous (a friend or lover or half-brother, perhaps) who is named in the song but not in the title

"Now, Andy did you hear about this one?
Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Andy are you goofing on Elvis, hey, baby?
Are we losing touch?"

Non-famous!

forgot that bit

Smooth Criminal still counts tho

Yes, that's a good one.

It just struck me this morning what an odd authorial choice this is for a songwriter to make, addressing a song to someone specific but whose relationship to the singer is oblique or unspecified. It seems like a fairly rare phenomenon but I look forward to y'all proving me wrong.

And I mean also the thing where the direct address is almost an afterthought and not part of the title. I'm overexplaining, and I apologize profusely.

these feel like a cheat but...

Beautiful South – Song For Whoever

Paul Simon - 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover

10,000 Maniacs - Gun Shy

Famous blue raincoat by Leonard cohen

Not sure if that counts, it's addressed to his brother but he mentions jane often

I stand by my initial choice of "Come out, Virginia, don't let me wait / You Catholic girls start much too late," as direct address.

Another one you may want to look at is "Thunder Road." "The screen door slams / Mary's dress waves... Don't run back inside / Darling you know just what I'm here for."

Sure, there is a gap between the non-title named character and the direct-address sections; does that disqualify it? If so you are definitely looking for a weirdly narrow category.

*Starts to type "Empty Garden"
*looks at "non-famous" in thread title
* gets more covfefe

The Who, "Baba O'Riley" ("Sally, take my hand...")

Grateful Dead, "Loser" ("Last fair deal in the country, sweet Susie")

I am definitely looking for a weirdly narrow category, YMP. It's what I do.

Alrighty then. Rock on witcho bad self, OL.

iirc half of springsteen's songs are addressed to mary

Actually if we're going Springsteen, "Born to Run" is a better example ("Wendy, let me in, I wanna be your friend, I wanna guard your dreams and visions" etc.)

usually if a song is directed towards somebody, it's enough to get their name into the song title. right? "alison," "maggie may," "4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy)," "Mandy," etc.

in these examples, the lyricist probably just could've penciled in "baby," but chose a name instead

Also Pixies' "Gigantic"

Disco 2000 by Pulp seems to meet all the criteria but feels against the spirit… maybe because the name is so foregrounded?

in these examples, the lyricist probably just could've penciled in "baby," but chose a name instead

was thinking earlier about the way Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" moves backwards and forwards between using the title word as a generic endearment and an actual name

which rules it out of this thread but made me think

I suspect "So Like Candy" does the same thing, NV.

"Death at One's Elbow" by the Smiths

The Kings, "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide"

Outkast, "Roses" is a confusing one since the opening "Caroline" turns out to be third-person but then we shift into direct address for most of the lyric.

If only T. Swift had dropped a specific music writer's name into "Mean" we'd be getting somewhere.

Oh, per my original post and the mention of 'Caroline' I just remembered that Charlotte Hatherley also does this in 'Paragon'.

Actually if we're going Springsteen, "Born to Run" is a better example

or "meeting across the river" ("hey eddie...")

not a second-person address, but seems to fit here:

the kinks "rock and roll fantasy" ("dan is a fan and he lives for our music / it's the only thing that gets him by / he's watched us grow and he's seen all our shows / he's seen us low and he's seen us high")

billy joel "sleeping with the television on" ("i've been watching you waltz all night, diane...")

So many Steely Dan songs. But those are like 90% fictional characters.

Fictional characters are total fair game.

Todd Rundgren - We Gotta Get You A Woman

“Leroy boy, is that you?”

"Get Back" - Jojo and Loretta are both given direct instructions.

Interpol - "Evil"

"Rosemary / Heaven restores you in life" and "Sandy, why can't we look the other way?"

Kid Creole:

Oh Annie - I'm not your daddy
See if I was in your blood then you wouldn't be so ugly

argh named in the title... sorry.

probably a ton of Madness songs fit this as they always sang about characters.
without even thinking, off their debut album, In The Middle of the Night : "Nice Man George, newsagent on the corner. Dirty old George ... "

a whole bunch of Spoon songs do this ("Black Like Me," "Eddie's Ragga," "They Want My Soul" off the top of my head)

"Eddie's Ragga" (which never mentions anyone named Eddie) takes the unusual step of invoking some's full name:

You can break my legs, you can kick me downstairs
But there ain't no getting over Joanie Hale-Maier

"Venus in Furs" by VU

this thread made me realize that 8 out of 11 songs on "music for big pink" are either entirely in the second person or have at least a verse / chorus in the second person.

the only one that might belong here is "the weight" for the "take a load of, fanny" lyric

Seasons in the Sun, but only in the last verse ("Goodbye Michelle...").

Maybe Fire and Rain (Suzanne directly addressed in 1st verse).

Bobby Conn "Angels" largely concerns someone named "Richard" who has a bad trip at a party. it's in third person but the chorus is pretty much addressed to them.

"Ballad of a Thin Man"

good one

Mr. Marks in McCartney's "Temporary Secretary." I feel like Paul has soooo many of these but I'm spacing beyond that one and "Get Back" which was already mentioned.

how about Laurie Anderson "O Superman"? is the military industrial complex a person? feel like 'o judge' counts. at the very least there's always mom (hi mom!)

"Stacy's Mom" is just outside the ring, as the song is addressed to Stacy, not the mom, but her name is there nonetheless.

The Cure - 'The Drowning Man': "Oh Fushia, you leave me breathing like the drowning man".

Laura Nyro - "Wedding Bell Blues" is addressed to Bill

Mansion - Stripper Vicar

“Dear Mavis, I'm compelled to write this letter...”

lol autocorrect, that should be Mansun obv

This is a song for Karen!

Don't Look Back In Anger?

or does that not count because it just mentions a random name?

"This bottle, of Stephen's" - from Weezer's 'Say It Ain't So' (Rivers' Cuomo's stepfather)

yeah I think that's the same, doesn't really count because it's not addressed to Stephen?

Kurt Cobain's father in 'Serve the Servants.' Although his name isn't mentioned: "I tried hard to have a father but instead I had a dad / I just want you to know that I don't hate you anymore / There is nothing I could say that I haven't thought before."

on that note see "Grandma take me home" in Nirvana's "Silver".

Future of the Left "Arming Eritrea" is directed, angrily, to someone named "Rick." I remember it getting hyped on ILM and me being totally baffled as it seemed to be the whiny screechings of a teenaged lout, grounded by his stepdad.