SONGS WHERE/SONGS THAT/SONGS WITH/SONGS IN WHICH

xxp
"River Phoenix" (Japanther)
"Stanley Kubrick" (Mogwai)

"Woody Allen" (Unrest)

"Pablo Picasso" (The Modern Lovers)!

"Willie Nelson" by Miles Davis (plus numerous songs named after boxers)

Psychokiller (2): 1186 monthly listeners on Spotify
Psycho Killer: 0 monthly listeners
The Psychokillers: 3 monthly listeners

not counting Psychokiller (1): 220 monthly listeners, they’re a TH cover band

Slippery People (1, first release 2020): 19 monthly listeners
Slippery People (2, first release 2021): 52 monthly listeners

Listening Wind (first release 2021): 8,795 monthly listeners

(I’m not making them up, I swear!)

also, in my Release Radar this week:

Kaydy Cain ft. Kabasaki • Serena Williams

"Matthew Modine" by Pony Up!

Yo La Tengo - Tom Courtenay

Negativland - Michael Jackson

Cocoa Tea - Barack Obama

"Johnny Carson" by the Beach Boys.

Mogwai - “Nick Drake”

Mark Knopfler - Song for Sonny Liston

Warren Zevon - Boom Boom Mancini

Bob Dylan - Hurricane

Phil Ochs - Davey Moore

Tom Russell - Muhammad Ali

Miles Davis - Sugar Ray

Faithless - Muhammad Ali

^the first three are disqualified—no extra words or nicknames allowed!—though I just realized “Magic Johnson” isn’t actually his real name, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7iVsdRbhnc

After a shower, have decided that “professional names” are acceptable, when that is how the person is generally known (e.g., Buddy Holly, Winona Ryder). Nicknames like Debbie and Pete were accepted from the jump. Still on the fence about Magic Johnson.

did anybody ever call him Earvin Johnson?

Surely “Magic Johnson” is the only name by which almost anyone knows Magic Johnson

I’m afraid his official Twitter account is heavily dispositive here

(and fwiw, I have heard him called Earvin and always knew that was his name... I had to look up Buddy Holly‘s name, had no clue what that was)

All John Cale:

Archimedes
Brahms
Charlemagne
Dr. Mudd
Graham Greene
Hemingway
Jack the Ripper
John Milton
Magritte
Pablo Picasso (Jonathan Richman cover)

OK, Hemingway and Magritte don't count, although you could make an argument for people who are one-name famous.

You could include "Mr. Wilson" in that longer list as well.

Some of those so flagrantly disregard the rules, it’s a scandal (“Jack the Ripper”??)

morrisp not playing around

I AM CHECKING TWITTER ACCOUNTS

Lol

muddying the waters (hey!) here even more, but I don’t have Twitter, so...

Lil Nas X • Montero (Call Me By Your Name)

Frank Sinatra - Miss Kittin & The Hacker

He was prescient

lol

Some of those so flagrantly disregard the rules, it’s a scandal (“Jack the Ripper”??)

Do you know his real name?

(At least I double checked whether Helen of Troy was fictional before I included her.)

Big Bopper’s real name was Chantilly Lace right?

is The Avalanches “Frankie Sinatra” against the rules?
(Frankie sure seems to be a popular subject)

Mecano - Eungenio Salvador Dalí

The Dandy Warhols - Nietzsche

Azealia Banks - Anna Wintour
Cass McCombs - Bradley Manning
MGMT - Brian Eno
Charlie Puth - Marvin Gaye
Jay Z - Tom Ford

These are popular ones that haven’t been mentioned:

MIKA - Grace Kelly
Miike Snow - Genghis Khan
Boney M - Ma Baker
Boney M - Rasputin

"Bo Diddley" - Bo Diddley
"Marshall Mathers" - Eminem

does "Pretty Boy Floyd" by Woody Guthrie count?

^it’s not in the spirit of what I had in mind, but I’ll cry uncle and say the more the merrier at this point

(what I liked what the prosaic nature of titles that are simply “real” names, or close enough)

lol @ sic

Negativland - Michael Jackson

Cocoa Tea - Barack Obama

i like how all of these can be read either way and you can imagine that michael jackson had a song called "negativland" and barack obama has one called "cocoa tea."

Hey, that reminds me of another one:

“Michael Stipe” (P, that Johnny Depp band)

(remember 1995 – when there was a band called P, and a song by a different band called “Friends of P.”? good times, man)

here’s an honorable mention that I’ll use my discretion to allow:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2228742698_10.jpg

this is legit one of my favorite genres of song (though my rules are even stricter than morrisp's). not mentioned yet, i don't think:

king missile - martin scorsese
migos - forest whitaker
b bragg & wilco - ingrid bergman
uncle tupelo - d. boon
joey ramone - maria bartiromo
sr-71 - axl rose
king stitt - lee van cleef
(that broadway show) - alexander hamilton
drive-by truckers - steve mcqueen
they might be giants - james k. polk
nick lowe - marie provost
pernice bros - jacqueline susann
the baseball project - harvey haddix
the posies - grant hart
redd kross - linda blair
jonathan richman - vincent van gogh
jonathan richman - salvador dali
jonathan richman - walter johnson
warren zevon - bill lee
the clash - janie jones
spank rock - rick rubin
vic chesnutt - lucinda williams
the band - bessie smith
fred eaglesmith - johnny cash
lydia loveless - steve earle
neil young - pocahontas
belle & sebastian - seymour stein
vic chesnutt - woodrow wilson
mina - brigitte bardot
big dipper - robert pollard
dominique leone - nellie mckay
young fresh fellows - amy grant
blue oyster cult - joan crawford
sun kil moon - glen tipton
neil sedaka - betty grable
big audio dynamite - esquerita
annie - ralph macchio
van dyke parks - bing crosby
van dyke parks - jack palance
todd rundgren - wolfman jack
beastie boys - johnny ryall
the kinks - david watts
mountain goats - duke ellington
blossom dearie - dusty springfield
mighty sparrow - martin luther king
lead belly - howard hughes
kraftwerk - franz schubert
teenage fanclub - gene clark
warpaint - billie holiday

^^awesome!

(I should’ve thought of “seymour stein”)