A cool reference is an artist's way of communicating with like-minded folks; cultural cache, exchanged between artists and their kindred spirits. It's an exchange that makes all parties involved-the referenced, the referencer, and the person who gets the referenced-that much cooler. It's like a cool vortex, coolness swirling in all directions. Now you too can be part of the vortex, at least for the vortexes surrounding the songs below. The lyrics decoded below don't just make the songs cooler, and the references cooler, but knowing such trivial knowledge will also make you cooler at most Tuesday Trivia venues.
The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy"
When I first pitched this list, I did so with the title above and this example: "When Biggie spat, 'Remember Rappin' Duke? Duh-ha, duh-ha,' Big Poppa was actually talking about the Shawn Brown song '
Rappin' Duke.'"
That was it; that was the whole pitch. Looking back now, I can see that I was really just grasping at straws, hoping my editor would bite on something even remotely related to "Rappin' Duke," an early rap song, laid down from the perspective of John Wayne about why he's the baddest rapper around. A song that makes such phenomenal usage of words "Aretha Franklin" transcends mere '80s awesomeness and embarks upon a universal cool. But I can see now that this list is also about the first song many of us ever heard from Biggie: "Juicy," the debut single from Big Poppa's debut album, "Ready to Die." As soon as Biggie referenced "Rappin' Duke," he earned immediate cool-cred, and I, along with the rest of the world, was instantly hooked. Now, all these years later, I can see that the coolness of "Rappin' Duke" is miraculously quantified by Biggie referencing it. That's the power of a good reference.
"Remember Rappin' Duke? Duh-ha, duh-ha / You never thought that hip hop would take it this far"
Queen - "Bohemian Rhapsody"
Alright, raise your hand if you thought this whole line was just "Gobbledygook, gobbledygook, will you do the fandango?" And then it goes on to say, "Gobbledygook, no!" Apparently that's not the case, though. Little did I know, but Scaramouche is the traditional clown character found in the Italian theater form known as commedia dell'arte; a fandango is a lively Spanish couples' dance with guitars and castanets; and Bisimilla is Arabic for "in the name of God" and kicks off nearly every chapter in the Quran. So technically, one of the most widely sung lyrics around, especially by people in a 1976 AMC Pacer, is actually a line asking an Italian clown to do a Spanish couples' dance while playing the hand cymbals. And an Arabian really has a problem with that. See, don't you feel cooler for knowing as much?
"Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?"
"Bismillah! No, we will not let you go"
Warren Zevon - "Werewolves of London"
Zevon's classic track from his 1978 "Excitable Boy" album (co-produced by Jackson Browne, who sang a song called "
Rosie" about everyone's best friend, Rosie Palm) is notable for many reasons, not the least of which is that it features some of the most reserved and classy howling ever put to wax. It also features drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie from Fleetwood Mac, whose surnames amalgamate to form the name of that great band. (Another bonus reference! And their album "Tusk" is named after Mick's giant dong. Triple bonus reference!) Zevon's lyrics are full of hip London references, but the one below is so choice, it takes the cool cake for sure. Lon Chaney was a silent film actor who made a living playing grotesque creatures like "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Lon's son, Lon Chaney Jr., was gifted with his dad's horrific looks, which enabled him to carry on playing movie monsters for many years, including the part of "The Wolf Man," which made him extra well-suited to appear in this song. Interesting though that he'd be drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's, a popular restaurant chain that blew up during the '50s Tiki craze (when's that coming back?), because Victor Bergeron, the founder of the chain, claimed to have invented the Mai Tai, not the Colada.
"I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen / Doing the werewolves of London / I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's / His hair was perfect"
Kanye West and Jay Z (feat. Frank Ocean) - "No Church in the Wild"
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Besides being a great song for imagining how much better Kanye's sex life is than yours ("Coke on her black skin made it stripe like a zebra / I call that jungle fever / You will not control the threesome / Just roll the weed up until I get me some"), "No Church In the Wild" is also a pretty darn good Socratic conversation starter. If you think that Jay Z is just spouting off the first thing that comes to his mind when he raps, then you at least have to credit the man for having some deep thoughts at the forefront of his brain. Take the line below, for example, which references the
Euthyphro dilemmaone, a question posed by Socrates, one of Western philosophy's foundational thinkers. Socrates' dilemma is a theistic conundrum that still plagues the overeducated to this day: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" Which is deep indeed, but takes on an even deeper meaning when you consider the two guys responsible for this song have serious god complexes of their own. So the real question the song poses is this: "Is what is morally good commanded by Hova and Yeezus because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by Hova and Yeezus?"
"Is pious pious 'cause God loves pious? Socrates asked whose bias do y'all seek."
Boomtown Rats - "I Don't Like Mondays"
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If you've ever thought this was the perfect anthem for your shitty Monday, then it turns out you're an awful person. Because a good person wouldn't have a theme song about a homicidal 16-year-old girl who shoots up schools. But that's what inspired this one back in the late '70s, when lead Rat, future Pink (in the movie version of "Pink Floyd The Wall") and Live Aid hero, Bob Geldof, was giving a radio interview. A telex machine (like an early fax machine) went off next to him, so Geldof, ever the impromptu performance artist, read the story over the air. And it happened to be about Brenda Ann Spencer, who shot up the school yard across from her home in San Diego, killing two adults and injuring eight kids and a cop. Why? Without a hint of remorse, she told a reporter, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day," and then compared shooting kids to shooting ducks in a pond. Whoa, she's hates Mondays much worse than Garfield.
"Tell me why / I don't like Mondays / I wanna shoot the whole day down"
Deep Purple - "Smoke on the Water"
Another song I've heard a thousand times but never realized was actually about something other than smoking weed and drinking vodka. In actuality, this over-played ditty is about the fire that happened at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland, the original site of the famous Montreux Jazz Festival. The long haired Purple people were recording in a "mobile" studio that was part of the Casino complex. Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention were playing
a show at the casino when some genius decided to shoot off a flare gun inside the theater, which set the place ablaze like Lindsay Lohan's crotch, which eventually burnt down much of the casino complex and spread flames along the waters of Lake Geneva, which literally created smoke on the water. Like Frank Zappa concerts weren't weird enough.
"We all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline / To make records with a mobile - We didn't have much time / Frank Zappa & the Mothers were at the best place around / But some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground / Smoke on the water, fire in the sky"
Beastie Boys - "Hey Ladies"
If there is a band or artist that drops more and better references than the Boys, then they have been shielded from my ever-watchful eyes. Just studying the liner notes to "Paul's Boutique" will probably give you a better education than most liberal arts degrees these days. (Actually, there's probably a few liberal arts degrees that offer classes in Beastie Boys lyrics.) While you can pretty much pluck a prime reference from any of their songs, the lyrics below are a good example of the depths of arcane knowledge the Boys explore, while still being catchy as hell and getting most people to rap the wrong thing. I've been dopely rapping the beginning rhyme from this hit forever now, and not once did I ever come close to saying Sadaharu Oh, the name of the Japanese baseball legend who owns the world lifetime record for most home runs with 868.
"Heyyyyyyy ladies in the place I'm callin' out to ya / There never was a city kid truer and bluer / There's more to me than you'll ever know / And I've got more hits than Sadaharu Oh"
The Beatles - "Ticket to Ride"
Since every church-going goody-two-shoes and their mother knows this song, you might think it's just your average wholesome heartbreak song. Heck, the Carpenters covered it. But actually, the ticket referred to here, according to John Lennon, is the clean bill of health, good-to-go card that prostitutes had to carry in order to work in Hamburg, where the Beatles sharpened their musical chops, and apparently some other chops as well. Isn't it just great to think about stadiums full of impressionable teens screaming their heads off while John and Paul remember the hooker that got away?
"She's got a ticket to ride / But she don't care"
The Clash - "Charlie Don't Surf"
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Per usual, The Clash had politics on their mind when they wrote this song about the famous scene in "Apocalypse Now" where crazy-ass Lieutenant Colonel William "Bill" Kilgore, played with gusto by Robert Duvall, decides to use his 1st Battalion, 9th Air Cavalry Regiment to make a point about a point break, simply because "Charlie don't surf." If you've watched any Vietnam War movies, you know Charlie refers to the Viet Cong, who indeed seem to have better sense than to surf in war zones. But if you haven't seen "Apocalypse Now," then you've missed arguably the craziest Vietnam War movie ever, which most disturbingly captures the inanity of war. No scene better reflects that than the one referenced here, where the smell of napalm in the morning reminds Duvall of victory, and reminds me to stay the fuck out of the army.
"Charlie don't surf and we think he should / Charlie don't surf and you know that it isn't no good / Charlie don't surf for his hamburger Momma / Charlie's going to be a napalm star"
Fall Out Boy
Obscure references don't need to be relegated simply to lyrics. Many a great band is named after something that makes no sense to most. Now, I'm not even close to being sold on Fall Out Boy being great, but I just realized they definitely have a great namesake, which must make them at least kind of cool. And yes, I have a lot of respect for fanboys of "The Simpsons," so I can understand if you want to say, "duh, everyone knows that" this band is named after Fallout Boy, the sometimes Milhouse-redolent sidekick of "Simpsons" superhero, Radioactive Man. But I don't have nearly as much respect for Fall Out Boy fans' "Simpsons" knowledge. Or just for Fall Out Boy fans in general, really. Besides, I've been entertained countless times by "The Simpsons." I spent more time with them during college than I ever did in class, but I still didn't put two and two together about the name of the band. Yet now that I have, I'm willing to give Fall Out Boy another shot, because their name is so great. Which yet again displays the power of a good reference.
