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

! Really?

if true that is definitely the most disproportionately butthurt of all the examples.

Springsteen - "Bobby Jean" and "No Surrender" are both partly about Steve van Zandt leaving the band, though I don't think either of them is entirely about that.

Elvis Costello's "How to Be Dumb" and a stray line in "Hurry Down Doomsday" are both apparently directed at Bruce Thomas.

That probably doesn't fit the criteria here but it's what I thought of. One could bring up various Lennon/McCartney solo swipes at each other as well.

Grateful Dead "He's Gone" is about percussionist Mickey Hart's father embezzling money from the band and absconding, which precipitated Hart leaving the Dead, though he returned a few years later. Sort of a corollary to the category

Songs in which the artist refers (by name) to a manager or other non-performing member of their “team”:

R.E.M. - Little America (“Jefferson” (Holt), the band’s manager at the time)

Billie Eilish - I Didn’t Change My Number (“Laura” (Ramsay), her assistant)

Ramones - Danny Says (manager Danny Fields)

lots and lots of rap songs

eminem's manager paul rosenberg is a recurring character in his catalog, for example. list grows even bigger if we're talking about label execs

I believe that the main character in the Who's never-completed Lifehouse, Bobby, was named for their soundperson Bob Pridden (that's him in the photo on the back of Odds & Sods). But no Who songs have the name "Bobby" in them.

Always wondered what inspired this as it's something Blur did a lot more than Oasis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FRAeFyBX1w

Ray Davies shading various managers in the Kinks' "The Moneygoround."

Songs whose title(s) were the title of the band's preceding album, rather than the album they appeared on:

Marmoset - Record in Red

Songs in which the artist refers (by name) to a manager or other non-performing member of their “team”:

Spoon - Laffitte Don't Fail Me Now, &
Spoon - The Agony of Laffitte

I thought that was about an A&R guy.

The Ballad of John and Yoko (Peter Brown)

John Fogerty "Zanz Kant Danz"

(Saul Zaentz)

would bet that The Beta Band Rap does this more than any other song ever recorded

Zaentz was also a label guy (and not quite what I had in mind with the query, though this is def a category in itself).

My fav Boyz II Men song is an interlude called "Khalil", which is about their manager that had recently been killed in a shooting.

Very moving piece of music

Khalil Roundtree

??
There's an mma fighter called Khalil Rountree, but he's still alive, and never managed boyziimen afaik...

I thought that was about an A&R guy.

I was including it as other non-performing member of their “team”

While traveling the country, their tour manager Khalil Rountree was murdered in Chicago, and the group's future performances of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" were dedicated to him. As a result of this unfortunate experience, the song helped advance their success.

Holy heck!
It's his son....
Khalil Rountree Jr...
So strange....

Dante is a scrub

R.E.M. - Little America (“Jefferson” (Holt), the band’s manager at the time)

(Having become persona non grata, "Jefferson" changed to "Washington" on the Live at the Olympia album.)

“Hamilton” would work well today.

Songs in which the artist refers (by name) to a manager or other non-performing member of their “team”

Enya - Orinoco Flow (Rob Dickins)
Beastie Boys - Intergalactic (Mario C)

And ofc Blur now have an an album named after Smoggy

Funkadelic, "Cholly (Funk Gettin' Ready to Roll)" (Cholly Bassoline, George Clinton's manager)

Always sounded like a made up name to me but he appears to be real:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cholly-bassoline-b0987885

Songs in which the artist refers (by name) to a manager or other non-performing member of their “team”

BA Robertson - Bang Bang

“Life was in a ruin, she loved Johnny Fruin”; John Fruin was the head of WEA Records in 1979. Very inclusive reference from BA.

Same thinking as Enya!

I never knew the lyrics of “Orinoco Flow” (beyond the chorus), but flabbergasted that it name-checks a guy named “Rob Dickins”!

Songs in which different verses are an octave apart. Either with the same singer or different singers.

(Correct me if I am wrong, which happens frequently.)

Bill Withers starts Lean on Me low, with "some times in our lives, we all have pain" etc. The other verses are up from there, e.g., "if there is a load" etc.

So Blink-182 starts I Miss You low, with "Hello there, the angel from my nightmare" etc. The other verse is up from there "Where are you" etc.

Note: NOT a key change, just the same melody an octave up.

i know this happens a lot but can't for the life of me think of any examples rn

it definitely makes sense from an arrangement standpoint, in terms of adding variation without really doing anything new

I believe Geddy Lee does this on the last pre-chorus of "Freewill" by Rush.

Songs which have amazing intros and slowly drop in quality until the end is either mediocre or actually bad.

Obvious example of this = Love Is The Drug. Maybe also Pyjamarma.

Xp Probably some male/female duets work this way also, but I am having trouble thinking of which. "Up Where We Belong"?

Idk if this counts but Another One Bites the Dust has a similar idea ?

Cat Stevens’ Father and Son

Not an answer but the q makes me think of “1999”

Peter Hammill does the octave jump on the chorus of "Lemmings" and probably in other songs. Bowie does it twice in the opening verse(s) of "Sweet Thing".

Pop songs that make hooks out of pauses

The Beach Boys - The Little Girl I Once Knew
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
Garbage - Supervixen
Madonna - Don't Tell Me

Funny how a song you haven't heard in maybe 30 years can sometime be the first to pop into your head after a prompt like this:

The Colorblind James Experience - A Different Bob

Maybe the whole thing is too stop-start to count, but:
Television - Prove It

Antici

pation

The Breeders – Cannonball

English Beat - Rankin Fullstop