3 Famous Songs That Mention Other Classic Songs

Some of music’s biggest songs are reworked versions of older ones. It’s an old practice and even Johann Sebastian Bach adopted existing Lutheran hymns into his own compositions. Bob Dylan borrowed a melody from the African American spiritual “No More Auction Block For Me” to write “Blowin’ In The Wind”. John Lennon once explained how “I’m A Loser” came about during his “Dylan period.” Lennon’s song appeared on Beatles For Sale (1964) but the Dylan influence further materialized on Help! the following year.

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Still, some compositional building blocks are more obvious than others. This list examines three songs that directly mention other classic songs. Also, see the famous titles referenced below repurposed as new hooks.

“D’You Know What I Mean?” by Oasis

Noel Gallagher has a long history of writing songs that mention or pull from other songs. There’s the T. Rex riff from “Bang A Gong (Get It On)” that forms “Cigarettes & Alcohol” and John Lennon’s “Imagine” reworked in “Don’t Look Back In Anger” as examples. But on the epic opener to the third Oasis album, Be Here Now, Gallagher, yet again, borrows from The Beatles (and Dylan):

“The blood on the tracks and they must be mine
Fool on the hill and I feel fine.”

“Slide Show” by Travis

On the closing track to The Man Who, Travis’s singer Fran Healy lists his generation’s defining songs. He names Manic Street Preachers’ “A Design For Life”, Beck’s “Devils Haircut”, and “Wonderwall” by Oasis. But Healy wasn’t finished. He opened the album with “Writing To Reach You”, which mentions “Wonderwall” while also borrowing its chord progression.

“’Cause there is no design for life
There’s no devil’s haircut in my mind
There is not a wonderwall to climb
Or step around.”

“Not Strong Enough” by boygenius

Phoebe Bridgers, one of the boys in the indie rock supergroup boygenius told Rolling Stone that “self-hatred is a god complex sometimes, where you think you’re the most f*cked-up person who’s ever lived.”

In “Not Strong Enough”, Bridgers—with her bandmates Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus—describes not being sure or stable enough for a relationship: “I’m not strong enough to be your man.” This gender flip quotes Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough” followed by a verse that name-checks The Cure’s goth classic “Boys Don’t Cry”.

“Drag racing through the canyon
Singing ‘Boys Don’t Cry’.”

Photo by Val Wilmer/Redferns