Our Song Could Be Your Band
An embarrassingly “lite” post for today—and what’s more, I’m going to try to make you, Dear Reader, do the work.
It’s in the form of one of those analogy tests. Look at these two examples and, having sussed out the pattern, suggest other examples of your own?
Talking Heads, “Radio Head” (from True Stories) = Radiohead
Queen, “Radio Ga Ga” (The Works) = Lady Gaga
R.E.M., Automatic for the People + U2, Achtung Baby = Automatic Baby (a one-off hybrid of Stipe, Mills, Mullen, and Clayton)
OK, now you try it. Bands that nicked their names from other bands’ song or album titles? Put it in the Comments!
Death Cab For Cutie – Bonzo Dog Band Doo Dah Band
Machine Head – Deep Purple (OK, it’s an album and not a song)
Motorhead – Hawkwind
Powderfinger – Neil Young
How about books that became or inspired band’s names?
Maybe books can be a topic for another day when life overwhelms blogging & I need something quick: Hamburger Helper for the Web.
Obviously the Rolling Stones; others off the top of my head include Some Girls (a Juliana Hatfield project named after the Stones’ song); Bright Eyes (possibly from “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? I suppose I could Wikipedia that), and The Be Good Tanyas, who got their name from an Obo Martin song.
Not sure how to parse John Wesley Harding/”John Wesley Harding.” Fotheringay was Sandy Denny’s group named after a Sandy Denny song, so is that cheating?
I love the idea that Bright Eyes is from “Total Eclipse”! Nice job on this, Bill.
and today was . . . Beef Wellington?
No no no! Today was Pop Tarts.
Pop Tarts – great name for a “girl band”
Wait – someone else thought so too:
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:abfrxqrjldje
A fun little twist on this is Radio Birdman being inspired by the misheard lyrics “Radio, burnin’” from a Stooges tune.
They then titled their first album “Radios Appear” which was a (correctly heard) line from Blue Oyster Cult’s “Dominance and Submission.”
Ooh, la-la! Tres recherche, RJ! Thx.
By coincidence, I was backfilling my music collection with some old first wave punk about two weeks ago. Give RB a listen some time. They’re on eMusic and MySpace.
I can think of a few examples offhand, all from the punk and hardcore worlds:
Saetia, an influential hardcore band, are named after Miles Davis’ “Saeta”.
Off Minor, another hardcore band, are named after a Thelonious Monk song.
Cap’n Jazz, a punk band from the mid-90s (that I will be seeing in LA before classes start), inspired a band that I’m not really familiar with to name themselves after “Scary Kids Scaring Kids”.
I’ve been told that the 5Cs’ own spawn, We Are Scientists!, were apparently not thinking of the identically-named Cap’n Jazz Song which predates them.
At The Drive-In, another older punk band, named themselves after a Poison lyric (which kind of counts, right?).
There are also several bands named after Misfits songs and many specifically straight-edge bands named after Minor Threat songs and lyrics.
I almost didn’t post this, thinking most other readers might not be interested. I realized, however, that in most of these cases the players of the “taken” songs are both recognizable and not punk bands at all, which is pretty interesting in itself.