Acts referencing their older songs.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Does We've Got A Bigger Problem Now by the Dead Kennedys count here, being a re-working with a more recent political bete noire of California Uber Alles?

[madhair60]

hello, the Fall Out Boy song What A Catch, Donnie references songs from all their previous albums

bye

[The Culture Bunker]

Basically, Copeland and Summers were his muse.

Can imagine there being an element of him thinking "I need to write something half-decent, or one of those wankers will say another one of their songs should be used instead and dig into my royalties!"

[buzby]

One of those that sticks out in my mind is A-ha making the opening shots of the video for The Sun Always Shines on TV a sequel to the one that everyone and their gran had seen. Yet that song's obviously even better and I don't reckon anyone was dying to know what happened to comic book Morten Harket in real life after it, so I still have no idea why that actually happened (??)

The videos for the first 3 singles from the Hunting High And Low album were conceived by the producers to be released as an accompanying 'video album'. Take On Me runs into the start of The Sun Always Shines On TV, which the runs into Train Of Thought, where the band und up back in the 'comic' world. Unfortunately they were never released in this form - a US Laserdisc version of the album was released, but it did not include the video for The Sun Always Shines On TV (whixh had been a relative flop in the US charts, peaking at #20).

It should be noted that the animation style used in Take On Me was copied from Michael Patterson's 1981 student film 'Commuter'. He was brought in to co-direct the video for Train Of Thought, which reused sequences from Commuter along with new animation cuts of the band.

One band I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned so far is The KLF, who in their Stadium House era recycled entire songs from their back catalogue (from the Pure Trance era and the floowing aborted version of The White Room soundtrack album), which were then peppered with sampled backing vocal clips by Chike, P.P. Arnold and Katie Kissoon taken from tracks on the 1987, Shag Times (the pre-Pure Trance singles compilation) and the aborted White Room albums.

[curiousoranges]

Quite a few acts have a song on their first album/a demo that's also the name they decided on for the actual band. Babyshambles and Black Sabbath are songs.

[surreal]

I think there might have been a few other bits in early Queen where they did things like that but I can't think of any right now.

Main one from Queen that springs to mind is the last track on Jazz ("More of that Jazz") has a quick mashup of several of the previous tracks on it.  Not sure if that counts.  They also had a track called "Sheer Heart Attack" 3 albums later than the album of the same name.

  (around 3:16)

[mr. logic]

Still D.R.E- written by Jay-Z- has lots of examples of this, which makes sense given the purpose and point of the song.

Rap does this really well in general. It's great fun, rap.

[Critcho]

Another Jay Z one - 'Moment Of Clarity' references all of his albums up to that point, and laments being a big old sell out. Eminem did a direct sequel to Stan at one point, 'Bad Guy' I think it was called?

Zappa did this too many times to list, as part of his 'conceptual continuity' shared universe thing.

also "fuck it all and fuck it all regrets" on St Anger's title track which is from Damage Inc but whatever don't want to dwell on that

Also the following line "I hit the lights on these dark sets", which references Hit The Lights.

Their last album namedropped Broken Beat & Scarred at one point. Some might suggest a band's late period record referencing one of their other late period records is a little self indulgent!

A track on their previous album had the line "Kthulu awakens" which indirectly references at least two earlier songs.

[Brundle-Fly]

There's a really nasty version of that as a bonus track on the otherwise brilliant Slender Sherbert CD...

I've got that album but don't remember that. It's an iffy enough track to begin with but that sounds wantonly unpleasant.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Dexy's reference everything but the kitchen sink on their 12-minute-plus epic "This Is What She's Like", but in particular there are distinct echoes of the "Come on Eileen" melody and horn riff in the section starting just before the 8-minute mark.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Their masterpiece I reckon

[Crabwalk]

There's this bit in 'Show Biz Kids' by Steely Dan:

'They got the shapely bodies,
They got the Steely Dan T-Shirts'

and the guitar riff from 'Reelin in the Years' is played.

Treat yourself to this performance of the song from The Midnight Special, if you've not seen it

[4000Foals]

HMHB get a bit self-mocking on the outro of Lord Hereford's Knob.

Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
(All of our songs sound the same)
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
(I'm keeping two chevrons apart)
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
(You're the reason why paradise lost)
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob

"do that one about the Zuider Zee" Bladderack Allowance references Moody Chops.

[Kankurette]

Still D.R.E- written by Jay-Z- has lots of examples of this, which makes sense given the purpose and point of the song.

Rap does this really well in general. It's great fun, rap.

Also Forgot About Dre.

[Oh, Nobody]

Can't believe I forgot Gay Bar Part 2 by Electric Six, references multiple previous songs as well as "Play the one we know" type fair-weather fans.

[oustropique]

Can't believe I forgot Gay Bar Part 2 by Electric Six, references multiple previous songs as well as "Play the one we know" type fair-weather fans.

Electric Six love this kind of thing.

Off the top of my head:

'Lenny Kravitz' (I Will Exterminate..., 2007) has the line 'I don't have anything else to put in you'.

"Nightwaves" (How Dare You, 2017) predates the recurrence of the word 'nightwaves' on their 2016 album, 'Fresh Blood for Tired Vampyres'.

Dance-A-Thon 2005 (Senor Smoke, 2005) contains a lyric from Improper Dancing (Fire, 2003).

A-la this:

Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
(All of our songs sound the same)

The Intergalactic Version (Heartbeats and Brainwaves, 2011) has the lyric 'we write the same songs over and over again' sung repeatedly.

[Norton Canes]

Adam and the Ants' Prince Charming album ends with a Hawaiian-style instrumental reprise of Los Rancheros from Kings of the Wild Frontier.

Hopefully that nagging feeling you've all had that something's missing from this thread has now gone.

[chabrol]

Springsteen does it a lot, but usually in quite subtle ways (the threading of references to The River into the gorgeous Valentine's Day, for example). An exception is The Promise, which is very deliberately a sequel song to Thunder Road, to the point where the repetition of the previous song's title is pretty much what passes as the chorus. It was a Darkness on the Edge of Town outtake, unreleased officially until the late 90s but a fan favourite through bootlegs, and in keeping with that album, it's a pretty remarkable statement in that it systematically strips every ounce of hope and optimism and escapism from the original and leaves its characters penniless, bitter, broken and futureless.

Yer man getting a bit emotional at the piano: