We all know plenty of songs that reference another song by name, for example the famous line in Sweet Home Alabama, “I hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern Man don’t need him around anyhow.” Or how about when Snow Patrol sings, “Put Sufjan Stevens on and we’ll play your favorite song. Chicago bursts to life and your sweet smile remembers you.” But then there are the tunes that just go crazy and mention a ton of tunes over the course of a couple minutes and those are the songs that are included in this week’s Friday Mix Tape.
First up is Heart Songs by Weezer, an interesting ode to a slew of songs that influenced and stayed with Rivers Cuomo. Interestingly, it seems Rivers confuses Debbie Gibson and Tiffany in the process. Built To Spill has a similar onslaught of song references in their tune You Were Right. When Bob Dylan wrote Tweeter and The Monkey Man for The Travelling Wilbury’s, he snuck a number of Bruce Springsteen song titles into the lyrics of the New Jersey transsexual-drug-dealing tale. In Waltz #2 by Elliot Smith, singing karaoke to Cathy’s Clown and You’re No Good both get mentioned. And finally, Jimmy Eat World’s A Praise Chorus gets bonus points for slipping in some They Might Be Giants in addition to a number of other tunes.
