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March 28, 2024, 09:40:06 AM

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Album/Song Titles That Are Too Subtle For You

Started by lazyhour, March 28, 2021, 02:23:10 PM

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lazyhour

Or if you prefer, times when bands have released songs or albums whose titles cleverly refer to a pre-existing song or album, but uncultured teenage you had no idea.

It's only just occurred to me that Marilyn Manson's album "Antichrist Superstar" is a play on the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar". How I could not have seen that before now?

It was many years before I discovered that Carter USM's "The Only Living Boy In New Cross" was a Paul Simon spoof.

What you got?

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

* Purple Mountains fans decide  not to enter thread as a mark of respect*

daf



Ex-Beatle Thunder-stick pulls a fast one on this 1965 album -

QuoteThe music is 1965 era beat rock, similar to that of the early Beatles in which their drummer Pete Best was suddenly fired and the rest is history in the Beatles replacing BEST with Ringo Starr...***This album, by the way, was pulled into court by Beatles management back in '65 for using the title "Best Of The Beatles" alleging the album did not contain Best Of Beatles music ... but in reality it was actually a clever play on words in (Pete) Best Of The Beatles...

"Time" magazine (1966) : "The record jacket reads Best of the Beatles, and it was a hot seller in the 1965 Christmas rush—or at least it was before it was brought up at a New York State Bureau of Consumer Frauds' hearing. Despite the billing, the album does not contain a collection of the best of the Beatles' hits—or even a single song by the Beatles.."

lazyhour

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on March 28, 2021, 02:34:51 PM
* Purple Mountains fans decide  not to enter thread as a mark of respect*

What? Fuck, is the name a reference to something??

wosl

To expand the theme a bit: the alternate reading of Joy Division's Closer didn't strike me until Paul Morley, I think it was, said on a documentary that he initially took it to be pronounced in order to indicate that something was shutting.  Once the Joys as they were affectionately known had morphed into New Order, I wouldn't have known that In A Lonely Place was taken from a film (and novel), or that Cries And Whispers came from a Bergman film (Thieves Like Us I did cotton on to at the time).  Also: it took an embarrassingly long time to realise that Deceit works as a pun on This Heat's name.

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: lazyhour on March 28, 2021, 02:55:53 PM
What? Fuck, is the name a reference to something??

QuoteThe project's name is a mondegreen of the lyric "Purple mountain majesties" from "America the Beautiful".

Not sure why ljamc posted what he did though.

lankyguy95

There's quite a few with Purple Mountains, I think. It took me a while to connect Nights That Won't Happen with Nights In White Satin.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain


lazyhour

Ah yes, of course. Berman expressed frustration in an interview that people had taken the song title at face value and pronounced that it was a very dark, melodramatic lyric. I think he said he expected people to instantly see it as an amusing inversion of the 60s hit.

lankyguy95

Alas subsequently it only comes across darker and sadder.

gib

Today i learned that No Sleep till Brooklyn is a play on the title of a Motörhead album

willbo

I've always been curious about the title of Black Sabbath's A National Acrobat (with the lyrics being generally about reincarnation and consciousness)


Melody Maker's review of Tricky's 'Pre-Millennium Tension' mentioned the track 'My Evil Is Strong' followed by geddit?..(the music press used to be fond of doing that to highlight every tiny, terrible pun).

Well, no....I didn't geddit then and I still don't geddit 25 years later.  Anyone?

jobotic

For Those About To Suck Cock (We Salute You)

No that's not at all subtle is it? But it only occurred to meet recently that Pansy Division is a play on Panzer Divison. Which is fucking brilliant.

I was aware of Hairway to Steven before I was Stairway to Heaven.

Quote from: xxxx xxx x xxx on March 28, 2021, 08:48:53 PM
Melody Maker's review of Tricky's 'Pre-Millennium Tension' mentioned the track 'My Evil Is Strong' followed by geddit?..(the music press used to be fond of doing that to highlight every tiny, terrible pun).

Well, no....I didn't geddit then and I still don't geddit 25 years later.  Anyone?

I'm guessing it's a rather weak pun on the phrase 'my will is strong'.

Although you have to pronounce 'evil' with the emphasis on the 'vill' sound for it to make it work.

sutin

I found out last year that A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing by Sparks is not something to do with birds but some stupid nerd music shit i've never heard of that i've already forgotten.

Echo Valley 2-6809

Possibly helps if you know Focus are Dutch, but I didn't get it for ages.



sutin

I also found out years later that the album title and artwork of Tales From The Punchbowl by Primus is a reference to an album by fucking Yes.

chveik

Quote from: jobotic on March 28, 2021, 09:01:32 PM
I was aware of Hairway to Steven before I was Stairway to Heaven.

wow you must have been of the cool kids!

sutin

I definitely heard Hairway To Steven before Stairway To Heaven, but knew the song title from Wayne's World (which I think my dad had to explain to me).

jobotic

Quote from: chveik on March 29, 2021, 12:30:48 AM
wow you must have been of the cool kids!

Sure was!

Or rather I knew one who got me into Butthole Surfers type stuff and I had parents with no interest in Led Zeppelin so hadn't been exposed to them.

Echo Valley 2-6809

Quote from: sutin on March 29, 2021, 12:18:17 AM
I also found out years later that the album title and artwork of Tales From The Punchbowl by Primus is a reference to an album by fucking Yes.

Haven't heard that before. I suppose it's prog but "Tales from..." is fairly common.

Jockice

The sleeve and title of Animal Magnetism by Scorpions was always a bit too subtle for me.

buzby

Quote from: wosl on March 28, 2021, 03:26:43 PM
To expand the theme a bit: the alternate reading of Joy Division's Closer didn't strike me until Paul Morley, I think it was, said on a documentary that he initially took it to be pronounced in order to indicate that something was shutting.  Once the Joys as they were affectionately known had morphed into New Order, I wouldn't have known that In A Lonely Place was taken from a film (and novel), or that Cries And Whispers came from a Bergman film (Thieves Like Us I did cotton on to at the time).
Just remember to get the right song for Cries and Whispers - it was confuesd with Mesh for years thanks to a typesetting error on the EGG 12" sleeve that then got carried forward onto Substance.

A lot of those film titles used by Joy Division & early New Order for song titles came from a poster that they found backstage at the Kant Kino gig in Berlin in January 1980. I believe they used to have it on the wall at their rehearsal studio in Cheetham Hill. There was also The Sound Of Music and Cross Of Iron (the working title for Decades). Ian also referenced a lot of books too - The concentration camp memoir House Of Dolls gets referenced on early Warsaw track No Love Lost and was also the source for when they needed to look for a new name. Dead Souls, Colony and Atrocity Exhibition are also book titles. Deborah Curtis has said that Ian never read these books for relaxation in her presence, he purposely read them for inspiration when coming up with lyrical ideas.

There was also Age of Consent, Clockwork Orange reference Ultraviolence and Murder which samples both 2001 and Caligula for it's dialogue in the PC&L era. Later on there was also Vanishing Point (which in it's lyrics also references Whistle Down The Wind).

My favourite song title story of theirs is Fine Time, which came from a reminder Steve had written for himself to go and pay a parking fine in Bath while they were recording Technique at Real World.

Quote from: sutin on March 29, 2021, 12:15:54 AM
I found out last year that A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing by Sparks is not something to do with birds but some stupid nerd music shit i've never heard of that i've already forgotten.
Speakers. A Woofer outputs low and midrange frequencies. a Tweeter outputs high frequencies.

After 20 years of listening to it, I only discovered last week that Super Furry Animals's Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D. is a play on conceptual art piece Violin Tuned D.E.A.D.. Fancy that.

Pauline Walnuts

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on March 29, 2021, 11:11:10 AM
After 20 years of listening to it, I only discovered last week that Super Furry Animals's Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D. is a play on conceptual art piece Violin Tuned D.E.A.D.. Fancy that.

Or it could feature a bass tuned B E A D. :QuizzicalFaceEmoji:

Quote from: willbo on March 28, 2021, 08:23:15 PM
I've always been curious about the title of Black Sabbath's A National Acrobat (with the lyrics being generally about reincarnation and consciousness)

And Spiral Architect, another name to conjure with.

Pauline Walnuts


idunnosomename

Quote from: OnlyRegisteredSoICanRead on March 29, 2021, 12:01:07 PM

And Spiral Architect, another name to conjure with.

Butler got surprisingly sophisticated and inspired on Bloody didn't he. long way from Iron Man. I suspect the titles are chosen after the lyrics were through-written (unlike the former where Ozzy says SOUNDS LIKE A BIG IRON MAN so Butler writes lyrics about AN IRON MAN). So "A National Acrobat" is like, someone who moves from body to body over a large span? And Spiral Architect is just about life being what you make it?

Brundle-Fly

Courtesy of CaB's sirhenry, I learned back in December on the majestic 'Alternative History Of "Pop" Music' thread that one of my favourite Brian Eno tracks, 'King's Lead Hat' is an anagram of Talking Heads. That went straight over my head.


"Apparently written on the plane back from the States, having seen the Talking Heads the night before (at CBGB's?). It was then quickly recorded and slapped on the album Before and After... at the very last minute 'cos it was so good. Brian Eno then went back and formed a Mutual Appreciation Society ("like a couple of public schoolboys" - T. Weymouth) with David Byrne, put together 'My Life In The Bush of Ghosts and buggered up the group dynamic of Talking Heads forever."

daf

Quote from: Echo Valley 2-6809 on March 29, 2021, 12:17:28 AM
Possibly helps if you know Focus are Dutch, but I didn't get it for ages.



You fascinate me strangley - what's the hidden meaning here?

I'm getting
Spoiler alert
Iorn Cross
[close]
from the image - but not the link with the title (is
Spoiler alert
mother 'cross' because she has to do the iorning
[close]
?)