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

oops, penultimate sentence should say "...maybe the latter after all." obviously.

This is a weeping song
A song in which to weep
While all the men and women sleep
This is a weeping song
But I won’t be weeping long

Eazy, good catch on Fire & Rain

it's unclear, when robert pollard sings "i wrote a song once about her called 'the brides have hit glass'" in guided by voices' "the brides have hit glass," whether he's talking about *this* song called "the brides have hit glass" or some other song called "the brides have hit glass." the past tense construction suggests the latter. the fact that there's no record of a pre-existing gbv song with that title suggests the former. the fact that robert pollard by that point had probably written 2,642,791 songs that no one had ever heard suggests maybe the former after all. so maybe that one, but also maybe not that one.

belle & sebastian "judy and the dream of horses" makes the same move, except that the singer/writer of the song "judy and the dream of horses" implores the title character judy, in the lyrics of the song called "judy and the dream of horses," to write a song called "judy and the dream of horses"

Also, on "Get me away from here, I'm dying" he sings "I could only make you cry with these words."

There's one on the new Camp Cope, 'The Omen'

So I wrote you this song
It probably isn't as good as all the other sad ones

Everclear:

This is a song about Susan
This is a song about the girl next door
This is a song about the everyday occurrences that make me feel like letting go
Yes I think we got a problem
So much for the afterglow

This is a song about Susan
This is a song about the way things are
This is a song about the scary things you see from the corner of your eye
Don't you wonder, why we never talk about the future
We never talk about the future
We never talk about the past anymore
We never ask ourselves the questions to the answers that nobody even wants to know
Guess the honeymoon is over; so much for the afterglow

also makes me think of this groaner from Pearl Jam:

Come to send, not condescend
Transcendental consequences
To transcend where we are
Who are we? Who we are
Trampled moss, on your souls
Changes all, you're a part
Seen it all, not at all
Can't defend the command

Take me a for a ride
Before we leave

Circumstance, clappin' hands
A driving wind's happenstance
Off the track, in the mud
That's the moss, in the aforementioned verse

Go-Betweens:

"Feel so sure about our love
I'll write a song about us breaking up"

lauryn hill "everything is everything"

i wrote these words for everyone who struggles in their youth

Now this is a song all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down

Van Morrison, "Wavelength"

This is a song about your wavelength
And my wavelength, baby

...and if that works then maybe we should look at folk songs that begin like "gather round and I will tell you of..."

Tom Lehrer: "Gather round while I sing you of Wernher Von Braun..."

Trad: "Oh have you heard tell of sweet Betsy from Pike..."

Beverly Hillbillies theme: "Tell you a little story bout a man named Jed..."

but getting back to the meta asides rather than the "o muse, help me sing of the tale of..." intro (lol xpost), i myself was once guilty of this in the concluding track of the first and only completed Doctor Casino album (written when i was idk 23 or 24 fwiw):

So the wind will sing in my ear like a bottle
If I tilt my head just so
And ease back on the throttle
Got music and groceries;
I'm open to belong
And nothing that I've given is gone
But if there's nothing wrong,
is there still need for singing these songs?
I'm a bicycle, I dodge obstacles, yeah yeah

This is such a stupid lazy songwriting trope.

Tell that to Bruce Fuckin' Springsteen!

Matching Mole's 'Signed Curtain' is the ultimate example of this of course.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, March 5, 2018 10:39 AM (one week ago) Bookmark

otm. on an album of beautiful songs this is one of the stand outs. it is very stream of consciousness.

There's also "O Caroline" on the same album.

"David's on piano, and I may play on a drum
And we'll try to make the music work, we'll try to have some fun"

Robert Wyatt had been doing it since 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"

The BBC session version even more so

Paul McCartney gets close in "Here Today" ("you were here today, for you were in my song"). Billy Joel MUST have done this but all I can think of besides "a song" in "Piano Man" (a stretch) is "Famous Last Words," which does everything but say "song."

Xp - the first three verses -

I can still remember
The last time we played on Top Gear
And though each little song
Was less than three minutes long
Mike squeezed a solo in... somehow
And although we like our longer tunes
It seemed polite to cut them down
To little bits - they might be hits
Who gives an... after all?
Tell me how would you feel
In the place of John Peel?
You just can't please
All of the musicians all the time

Playing now is lovely
Here in the BBC
We're free to play almost as long and as loud
As a jazz group, or an orchestra on Radio Three
There are dancehalls and theatres
With acoustics worse than here
Not forgetting the extra facilities
Such as the tea machine, just along the corridor
So to all our mates like Kevin,
Caravan, the old Pink Floyd
Allow me to recommend 'Top Gear'
Despite its extraordinary name
Yes, playing, playing now is lovely
Here in the BBC
We're free to play almost as long and as loud
As the foreign language classes... and the John Cage interview...
And the jazz groups... and the orchestras on Radio 3

Pop stars drink each others' wine
Plough each others' earth
Hoping for companionship
And then perhaps rebirth
Plant seeds in fresher plots of earth
Bound up in concepts and dreams
And fears of worse things to come
They never do
They stay the same
Music-making still
Performs a normal function
Background noise for people
Eating and talking and drinking and smoking
That's all right by us
Don't think that we're complaining
After all it's only leisure time, isn't it?

Pixies - Subbacultcha

'This is a song about something there
There is something about this song'

The Frank and Walters - this is not a song

― neilasimpson

Also Pixies - Tony’s Theme

This is a song about a superhero named Tony
It's called Tony's Theme

Another Soft Machine, "As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still",

"Here's a song for Clean Machine Kev in Majorca"

did no one mention The Who's "Gettin' In Tune" yet?

I'm singing this note 'cause it fits in well
With the chords I'm playing
I can't pretend there's any meaning here
Or in the things I'm saying
But I'm in tune
Right in tune
I'm in tune
And I'm gonna tune
Right in on you

Captain Beefheart, "Tropical Hot Dog Night"

I’m playin’ this song
For all the young girls to come out
to meet the monster tonight

leon russell's "a song for you" may be the platonic ideal of this

keith urban "used to the pain" (first line: "and so i wrote this song for you")

5 royales, shirelles, etc. "dedicated to the one i love" ("this is dedicated to the one i love...")

Well then how about "This one goes out to the one I love / This one goes out to the one I've left behind"?

And Martina McBride:

This one's for the girls
Who've ever had a broken heart
Who've wished upon a shooting star
You're beautiful the way you are

Grimes Butterfly

Don't know this song
Sweeter than a sugar cane

Uncle Tupelo - Life Worth Livin'

but getting back to the meta asides rather than the "o muse, help me sing of the tale of..." intro (lol xpost), i myself was once guilty of this in the concluding track of the first and only completed Doctor Casino album (written when i was idk 23 or 24 fwiw):

(...)

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 6:36 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is such a stupid lazy songwriting trope.

― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, March 13, 2018 6:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf i did try to couch my stupid lazy attempt with the implication that it was the work of an earnest but youthful amateur!

This is a song about a superhero named Tony
It's called Tony's Theme

I read this as more of a recorded intro to the song than as part of the song itself.

R.E.M. - Untitled ("This song is here...")
Freedy Johnston - No Violins ("Here's a song...")

sisters of mercy
ballad of the absent mare

― scotti pruitti (wins), Monday, March 5, 2018 5:29 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long

R.E.M. - "He piloted this song in a plane like that one" (though I'd always heard "I volunteered this song" or "If I'm to tell this song")

It's unintelligible at any speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn-f8PgLVjU

Has Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys been mentioned for “The Face of Death”?

They threw him out ‘cause he was wrong
And left him trapped inside this song

"We're Not Gonna Take It" goes

We've got the right to choose and
There ain't no way we'll lose it
This is our life, this is our song

The Mekons: Empire of the Senseless

This song promotes homosexuality
It's in a pretended family relationship with the others on this record
And on the charts and on the jukebox

Thee Headcoats - Punk Rock Ist Nicht Tot

― Colonel Poo, Monday, March 12, 2018 7:49 AM (one week ago)

I go verse chorus verse solo break chorus verse solo

^ thread adjacent

OMD - the beginning and the end

"This is where we reach the end"

Last song on the record

Die Antwoord's Enter the Ninja: "fuck, this is like the coolest song I ever heard in my whole life."

Weird to think that song made it into p4k's best songs of 2010 list

In the Cure's Antidote Megamix there's a bit from "A Forest" where Robert sings "suddenly I stop" and the guitar cuts out. Metaclever.

Songs that actually, like, stop when the singer says 'stop.'

Sparks - "I Predict"

And this song will fade out
I predict

“I Predict” possibly being the pinnacle of this practice. Good post.