Shout-Out/Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


See also Song of Song Titles.

  • Part IV from Brahms' Symphony No. 1 in C minor contains a very obvious shout out to Beethoven's Ode to Joy -- written into the Symphony when Robert Schumann named Brahms "the second Beethoven". After the Symphony was finished (it only took Brahms 14 years to write it) Hans von Buhlow dubbed it "Beethoven's Tenth".
    • When told the two symphonies bore a certain similarity, he replied, "Any ass can see that."
  • In Canadian electropop singer Lights's song "Ice" she pays a brief lyrical homage to Vanilla Ice ("...I'll let a little light melt the Ice Ice Baby!").
  • The band Fightstar did an entire concept album about Neon Genesis Evangelion, and it's actually not bad.
    • Not to mention a song entitled "Shinji Ikari"!
    • And the song Lost Like Tears In Rain which is sung from Shinji's POV. It even ends with the line "It's Neon Genesis"!
  • Speaking of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the entirety of A Thousand Angels by Rachel Macwhirter is basically a shout out to it.
  • Arthur Conley's Sweet Soul Music (itself a retool of Sam Cooke's Yeah Man) does several shout outs, where he says Spotlight on and names the singer and some part of the lyrics they've used or their style. He mention Lou Rawls, James Brown, Wilson "Wicked" Pickett, and, on Otis Redding's segment, has the horn section play the chorus from Redding's Sad Song (Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa) at a faster tempo.
    • For your listening pleasure.
    • Tower of Power are into this to an obnoxious level, including a Shout-Out to this very song in "Soul With a Capital S". "Diggin' on James Brown" is another example.
  • Peter, Paul and Mary's I Dig Rock-And-Roll Music directly references by name, The Mamas And The Papas and California Dreaming and indirectly references their drug habits (John Phillips would, years later, admit he gave drugs to his daughter McKenzie), by mentioning how he could really get on the scene that the Mamas and the Papas were into, but he couldn't flat out admit what it was because "if I really say it, the radio won't play it."
  • Dr. Hook's On the Cover of Rolling Stone is a dream about what this rock group will do if they end up being pictured there.
  • According to the band themselves, the line, "They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast" from The Eagles' Hotel California is a Shout-Out to Steely Dan.
  • Another band that seems fond of these is Blind Guardian. Naming an album "A Night at the Opera" after the Queen album is a bit obvious for a Shout Out, but the song "Welcome to Dying" ends with "I spread my wings and fly away" repeated four times which, given that they covered Queen's "Spread Your Wings" and are huge Queen fans, is probably a Shout Out.
    • The Queen album itself is named after a Marx Brothers movie.
    • "Blood Tears" includes the following lines of Metallica's "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)":

"Welcome to where time stands still
No one leaves and no one ever will"

    • Another probable Shout-Out include the chorus of "The Script for My Requiem," which mentions "jester's tears" (Marillion's first album is called "Script for a Jester's Tear")
    • These lines in "And Then There Was Silence" references Dream Theater's first album, which is called "When Dream and Day Unite":

"The vision's so clear
When day and dream unite, the end is near"

    • And, of course, there're all the references to literature and mythology here. (There are way too many) There's a list on Blind Guardian's page.
  • On the subject of Dream Theater, the third movement of the song Octavarium is nothing but a gigantic list of well-placed shoutouts. The Other Wiki has a nice list right here.
  • Weezer have a few songs full of these:
    • "I look just like Buddy Holly, oh, oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore..."
    • "In The Garage" references the X-Men, Kiss, and Dungeons And Dragons, while "El Scorcho" mentions Green Day, Cio Cio San from the opera Madame Butterfly, and professional wrestlers Johnny Grunge and New Jack.
    • "Heart Songs" is essentially an earnest Narm filled List Song of Rivers Cuomo's musical influences (the fact that one of these is 'Never Gonna Give You Up' doesn't help).
    • "Jamie", "Susanne", and "Mykel And Carli" are tributes to the band's lawyer, an A & R assistant at their record label, and the former leaders of their fan club, respectively.
    • And, of course, "Pork and Beans" -- while the song itself is mostly Take Thats to the mainstream (Timbaland is even mentioned by name), the video is filled with Shout Outs to Youtube memes, with a lot of Internet celebrities personally appearing in original footage.
  • The Hold Steady have a lovely shout out to Bruce Springsteen's famous line, "Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run." in their song Charlemagne in Sweatpants with the line "Tramps like us, and we like tramps."
    • The Hold Steady have numerous shout outs to the likes of Dillinger Four, Jack Kerouac, Youth of Today, Seven Seconds, John Cassavetes, John Berryman and more.
    • The Hold Steady have shout outs to their own songs: "Stay Positive" alone references "Hornets! Hornets!", "Positive Jam", "Massive Nights", "Sweet Payne", and "Most People are DJs". And that's just one song.
    • The Hold Steady are a band composed of Shout Outs - poets, bands both obscure and well-known, previous events in the ongoing story of Holly, the Bible and earlier song lines and titles. There's now have a whole wiki devoted to explaining references.
    • "Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer I think he might have been our only decent teacher"
  • Okkervil River's song "Plus Ones" from their album The Stage Names is a Song of Song Titles, and the same album's closer, "John Allyn Smith Sails", fuses a story about the suicide of poet John Berryman with a cover of the song "Sloop John B".
  • The first verse of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World" seems to be from the perspective of the other man in "Antigonish" (the one who wasn't there).
    • Also, the Bowie album Diamond Dogs is riddled with Shout Outs to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Examples include the tracks "We Are The Dead," "1984" (of course), "Big Brother," and possibly "Rebel Rebel," which is sometimes thought to refer to the character Julia in the novel. Why all the shout outs? Well, Bowie originally wanted to make a musical based on Nineteen Eighty Four, but couldn't get the rights from Mrs. Orwell, so he incorporated what he had written so far into a concept album.
    • Bowie loves shout outs -- there's one right in the title of his first hit, "Space Oddity".
  • "Jaw Knee Music" by NOFX is just a big collection of Shout Outs to classic punk bands, including the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Stiff Little Fingers and many others.
  • The album Prayer for the Weekend is filled with Shout Outs: "The Worrying Kind" has the line "just a mortal with potential of a superman," "New Pollution" actually shifts into a lyrical and musical parody of "Amazing Journey" from Tommy at the start of the chorus, and the title track is one long Shout-Out to Alice Cooper. Beyond that, a line from "Little Dysfunk You" is "always quoting Morrisey, but did you ever do it with a boy?"
  • In The Smashing Pumpkins' song "If There Is A God", the singer ponders that if there were a God, He'd like "his loud guitars and his spiders from Mars".
  • What would happen if some radio executive somewhere decided that it would be a good idea to form a bubblegum pop band aimed solely at teenaged female nerds? They might end up with something like "Yuri the Only One," a pop song whose lyrics are entirely composed of video game and anime references. A sample of the lyrics:

You're my angel out of Tokyo-3,
Cel-shaded face in an AMV,
Just like Ranma, you're the better half of me.

  • The Aquabats love cramming shout-outs into their songs however they can. Examples include:
    • "Idiot Box!" includes references to Casper the Friendly Ghost, Scooby Doo, Mr. Magoo, Mickey Mouse, and and an off-hand allusion to Marc Antony's monologue in Julius Caesar.
    • "Tarantula!" contains two references to Indiana Jones: a girl by the name of Marianne (Marion), who is the daughter of one Professor Jones.
    • "Radiation Song!" contains several references to The Road Warrior, as well as several direct quotes from the film.
    • The bridge from "Fashion Zombies!" is a parody of Vincent Price's monologue from the end of Michale Jackson's "Thriller"; the first three lines of both are even the same.
  • "Sphinxes" from Leonard Bernstein's "Divertimento for Orchestra" is an unadorned representation of the principal theme which recurs throughout the work, much like the movement of the same name (intended not to be played) from Schumann's "Carnaval".
  • The parade theme adopted by My Chemical Romance during their performances of The Black Parade was an allusion to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
  • The song "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies has several 90's pop culture Shout Outs, including X Files and Sailor Moon.
  • The Konami Code was paid homage to by the band The Ataris by the song entitled just what the code was: Up, Up, Down, Down, etc...
    • It also appears in "Anyone Else But You" by indie darlings The Moldy Peaches -- "Up up down down left right left right B A start/just because we use cheats doesn't mean we're not smart."
    • Eventually, it even became the name of a band in its own right.
    • The band "The Gothsicles" produced an album, titled NESferatu, that has a song (and several remixes) about the Konami Code and its giving you "thirty guys" in Contra.
    • Deftones are apparently Contra fans as they have an original instrumental titled U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start in their 2006 album, Saturday Night Wrist.
    • Schoolyard Heroes have an entire song about the code. 95% of the lyrics are the code repeated over and over.
    • "30 Lives" by The Motion Sick, featured in Dance Dance Revolution X.
  • "99 Red Balloons" by Nena references Star Trek:

"Everyone's a superhero, everyone's a Captain Kirk"

    • Actually, if you look at the German lyrics, it means that everyone thinks they are Captain Kirk - that they live in deluded states, really. Which is why they think 99 balloons are a nuclear threat.

Hielten sich fuer Captain Kirk

        • Completely different verses in each, but it was still important enough to keep.
  • "Alive" by Superchick has a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  • Reel Big Fish have references to their other songs in the song "Alternative, Baby".
  • Tori Amos has given shout outs to Neil Gaiman in many of her songs:
    • "If you need me, me and neil'll be hangin' out with the DREAM KING / Neil says hi by the way," in "Tear in Your Hand"
    • "Get me Neil on the line. No, I can't hold. Have him read 'Snow Glass Apples' where nothing is what it seems," in "Carbon" refers to Gaiman's short story, "Snow, Glass, Apples"
    • "Seems i keep getting this story twisted so where's Neil when you need him," in "Space Dog"
    • "and if there is a way to find you, I will find you. but will you find me if Neil makes me a tree," in "Horses" refers to a deal between Tori and Gaiman during his writing of Stardust
    • "Got a sister named Desire...Teach me about them old worlds big brother," in "A Sister Named Desire"
    • "Where are the Velvets?" in "Hotel" refer to characters from Neverwhere
    • "Wednesday...so we go from year to year with secrets we've been keeping..." in "Wednesday," referring to the character in American Gods
    • "Neil is thrilled he can claim he's mammalian/'But the bad news,' he said, 'Girl, you're a dandelion.'" in "Not Dying Today"
    • She also includes him in the album credits of From the Choirgirl Hotel, Scarlet's Walk, Strange Little Girls, Under the Pink, and To Venus and Back.
    • Also, a shoutout to Nine Inch Nails in "Precious Things": "With their nine inch nails and little fascist panties..."
  • Two Covered Up versions with Shout Outs to the performer itself: Seal's "Fly Like an Eagle" goes into the chorus of his song "Crazy", and Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman" goes "I gotta go! I gotta get away! Baby I gotta go! I wanna fly away!".
  • Limp Bizkit's "Take a Look Around" has "Follow me into a solo, remember that, kid? So what you gonna do?"
  • "American Pie" has many. Especulation, sometimes really wrong, on what is referenced is common.
  • "On the Radio" by Regina Spektor: "On the radio/We heard November Rain/The solo's real long/But it's a pretty song" and "And on the radio/You hear November Rain/That solo's awful long/But it's a good refrain"
  • The third movement of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia is a veritable potpourri of shout outs and quotations.
    • The form of the movement is based on the third movement of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony.
    • The orchestra plays snatches of Claude Debussy's La Mer, Maurice Ravel's La Valse, Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, as well as quotations from Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Johannes Brahms, Henri Pousseur, Paul Hindemith and others
    • An octet of singers and narrators intone (there's no other description) texts from Beckett, Joyce and others
  • The Beatles:
    • "I Am The Walrus" includes a line mentioning "Lucy in the sky".
    • Also, the end of "All You Need is Love" references "She Loves You" and "Yesterday"
    • On George Harrison's "Savoy Truffle": "We all know Ob-La-Di-Bla-Da, but can you tell me where you are?".
    • Glass Onion: "Here's another clue for you all, The Walrus Was Paul"
  • Eric B. and Rakim's "Microphone Fiend" is one of the most quoted songs in hip-hop. A lot of subsequent tracks have included the line "kick a hole in the speaker/pull the plug/and then jet" as a shout-out.
    • Really every rap song in existence has references to multiple things that the artist decides to put into the song.
  • Bad Religion's 2002 album, The Process of Belief has a line about "Milo went to college, but you knew about that," a Shout-Out to The Descendents' album, Milo Goes to College.
  • In Catherine Wheel's 1995 song "Hole", the first lyrics of the chorus are "Always the pretty songs for us to sing along and get fucked up", which bears a similarity to the chorus of "In Bloom" by Nirvana. (Probably the most common interpretation of this song is that it's about the death of Kurt Cobain.)
    • From the same album, "Receive" includes the lyrics "Grow my hair long and strange / I'll be a walking mountain range", which is similar to lyrics from "I Shall Be Free No. 10" by Bob Dylan.
    • Then, from their next album, "Phantom of the American Mother" includes the lyrics "Now there's a sinking look in your eyes / Like black holes in the sky", which references "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd. (Catherine Wheel also recorded a cover of the title track of the album that song was from, Wish You Were Here.)
    • Also, one of the songs on their second album is titled "Fripp"…
  • The first lyrics from "Movin' On Up" by Primal Scream are "I was blind, now I can see / You made a believer out of me", which are very similar to the lyrics in the bridge of "Yoo Doo Right" by Can, a band that Primal Scream have mentioned in interviews as an influence on them.
  • Deep Purple's song "The Mule" includes these lyrics:

No one sees the things you do
 Because I stand in front of you
But you drive me all the time
Put the evil in my mind
[...]
Just another slave for the mule

The short story series Foundation includes an antagonist called "The Mule", who has Mind Control powers, and operates in secrecy so that no one knows his real name or his appearance.
  • OverClocked Remix: Sixto Sounds & zircon's Flash Man remix Nuclear Flash includes a short riff from the old Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon. Hear it here (section in question is at ~1:56).
  • "Taxi Driver" by Gym Class Heroes namedrops several bands within only two minutes. The list that's linked probably isn't even complete.
  • Orange Goblin included a pretty major shout out to Black Sabbath in their song "Nuclear Guru". They borrowed the final verse of Sabbath's "Into the Void" for their song's final verse.

Mama said she's come to take us home
Leave this broken planet all alone
Find a world where love is there to stay
Peace and happiness in every day
It's gonna be okay

  • The video for Feist's "1234" might be a shout-out to the "Bonjour!" song from Beauty and The Beast: The singer wears a spangly blue outfit while everyone else wears plain clothes in yellows, reds, greens, and purples (some wear blue jeans, but they don't sparkle).
  • Vision Divine to Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" on their instrumental Nemesis.
  • John Williams' theme to Close Encounters of the Third Kind plays "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Disney's Pinocchio quite clearly at one point.
    • Which is played as a message to the aliens at the end of the film.
  • "Wind Up" by Foo Fighters namedrops "Manimal" by hardcore punk band The Germs in the chorus ("Want a song that's indelible, like 'Manimal'"). Somewhat interestingly former Germs member Pat Smear was playing with the Foo Fighters at the time.
    • "Times Like These" has "I'm a new day rising" (an album by Husker Du)
  • Tone-Loc's Funky Cold Medina tells how "Just like Mick Jagger, I can't get no satisfaction."
  • Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke has a lot of references to 1940s musicians: Music knows it is and always will Be one of the things that life just won't quit But here are some of music's pioneers That time will not allow us to forget For there's [Count] Basie,[Glenn] Miller, [Louis] "Satchmo" [Armstrong] And the king of all Sir Duke [Ellington] And with a voice like Ella [Fitzgerald] 's ringing out There's no way the band can lose
  • Pinback's "AFK" includes the line "I miss you, but not in a Slint way". This is most likely a reference to the Slint song "Good Morning, Captain", which ends on a very creepy note with Brian McMahan shrieking "I MISS YOU!"
  • Five Iron Frenzy's cover of "Sweet Talkin' Woman" ends with Reese Roper shouting "E.L.O., I have all your albums! Yes!"
  • The Clash's version of "Police And Thieves" starts with Joe Strummer ad-libbing "Going through a tight wind!", which is a lyric from "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones. It's possibly the earliest musical shout out the Ramones ever got, as the Clash song only came out a year after the first Ramones album.
  • The Antlers have a song titled Sylvia. Here are a few lines from the chorus; you get three chances to guess who it's a shout out to, but you'll only need one.

Sylvia, get your head out of the oven
Go back to screaming and cursing
Remind me again how everyone betrayed you

  • One verse of "Rip It Up" by Orange Juice ends in the line "...and my favorite song is entitled boredom", which is a shout out to the Buzzcocks song "Boredom". The lyric is immediately followed by a musical quote of that song's distinctive two note guitar solo.
  • Bon Jovi, "It's My Life": "My heart is like an open highway, like Frankie said, 'I did it my way!'". When Paul Anka, lyricist of "My Way", covered the song, it was changed to "He did it My Way".
  • A Skylit Drive's first album Wires... and the Concept of Breathing contains various ShoutOuts to the Final Fantasy franchise.
  • Jimmy Eat World's song A Praise Chorus contains a shout out to 'Crimson and Clover' by Tommy James and the Shondells, 'Our House (in the middle of the street)' by Madness, 'Why Did We Ever Meet' and 'All of My Everything' by Promise Ring, "Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants, and "Kickstart my Heart by Motley Crue - all in one verse:

Crimson and clover, over and over\

Our house in the middle of the street - why did we ever meet? Started my rock n' roll fantasy Don't, don't, don't let's start Why did we ever part? Kickstart my rock n' rolling heart

This is the last verse and seems to be the "praise chorus" that the title refers to.

  • Bob Dylan. A lot. Wiki Magic, away!
  • Numerous shout outs in Doctor Steel's body of work. His song The Dr. Steel Show mentions and contains the tune of Bali Ha'i, referencing his secret island base. It also contains part of the tune of H.R. Pufnstuf (which also takes place on a mystical island). Spaceboy samples Also Sprach Zarathustra. The end of his song, Lullabye-bye, contains the beginning of the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This. The opening lines of his song, Ode to Revenge, are a very twisted version of Nat King Cole's Nature Boy. The song "Land of the Lost", itself an Homage to the Sid and Marty Krofft show, has a literal shout out, with a sample of Rita Moreno's "HEY YOU GUYS!" from The Electric Company.
  • In the 1995 John Taylor album track "Anon" (from his solo album Feelings Are Good and Other Lies), he sings, "As for Little Buddha/I like Keanu Reeves." Keanu dated John's ex-wife Amanda de Cadenet shortly after the two divorced.
  • The iconic Ian Dury and the Blockheads single "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" is a veritable list of shout outs to the things Ian found delightful, from Elvis Presley and Smokey Robinson to Steven Biko, Woody Allen, Italian crooner Adriano Celentano, and the Marx Brothers.
  • In "Stronger", Britney Spears calls back to "Baby One More Time": My loneliness ain't killing me no more!
    • Also in "Inside Out" she has "You're the only one who drives me crazy" and "Hit me one more time it's so amazing" mentioned of cause her privous hit singles (You Drive Me) Crazy! and "Baby One More Time"
  • Apoptygma Berzerk - Incompatible: "I ate the red pill, no turning back".
  • Frank Turner loves employing this trope in many of his songs, but most obvious of all is in "Substitute". The first chorus references Shakespeare ("If music was the food of love...") and in the second references The Beatles ("If love is really all that we need...").
  • A live atmosphere example: Disturbed like to reference Silence of the Lambs, playing clips from it before certain songs. The most prominent example of this is the show entrance, which has the lead singer strapped down to a hand truck in a straight jacket, wheeled out on-stage by one of the road crew, dressed in a white coat.
  • A song that deserves a mention is "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" by Reunion. In addition to being a Song of Song Titles, but it drops tons of references from 50s, 60s and 70s pop culture. (Although the reference to Jack The Ripper isn't a Shout-Out. Hopefully.) If you're interested in what I mean by "tons", see the list at the end of this article at The Other Wiki or, perhaps better still, watch this video.
    • Incidentally, McDonald's used the music from "Life Is a Rock" for their "Menu Song" in the late 80s. (Mmm, McDLT.)
  • The Air instrumental "Mike Mills" is named after the director responsible for many of their music videos (not to be confused with the REM bassist of the same name).
  • Max Tundra's "Gondry" is all about how cool director Michel Gondry's music videos are (and how much he'd like Gondry to direct a video for him, despite the fact that it'd probably be too expensive). There's yet to be a Michel Gondry directed Max Tundra video, but Gondry did in fact hear the song - The booklet included with Director's Series, Vol. 3 - The Work of Director Michel Gondry includes a letter he sent to Max Tundra about it, complete with an outline of what kinds of videos he could shoot for different listed budgets.
  • "Stuart" by The Dead Milkmen mentions "That Johnny Wurster kid that delivers papers in the neighborhood". The character in the song is named after Jon Wurster, a friend of the band best known for drumming for Superchunk.
    • In a much more overt shout out, they have an album called The King in Yellow.
    • "Punk Rock Girl" mentions Mojo Nixon ("We asked for Mojo Nixon, they said 'he don't work here' / we said if you don't got Mojo Nixon, then your store could use some fixin'!")
  • In the middle of Soul Coughing's "Casiotone Nation", M. Doughty throws in quotes from the title theme from Yor, the Hunter from the Future ("Yor, Yor, he's the man, he's the man") and Fugazi's "Waiting Room" ("everybody's movin', everybody's movin', everybody's movinmovinmovinmovin'!").
  • The Cardigans' "Heartbreaker" has an intro that sounds a lot like "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath, and at the end of the song that same part is reprised, with Nina Persson saying "Oh no, please God help me" in the same way Ozzy did in that song. As unlikely as it might seem, given how low they generally are on the Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness, the band are all fans of Ozzy-era Black Sabbath, and have also done covers of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Iron Man".
  • One section of Richard Strauss's symphonic poem "Ein Heldenleben" quotes themes from most of his earlier major works, including his obscure first opera Guntram.
  • The second verse of A7's "Piece of Heaven" has the line "Now I'm better off alone", a reference to Alice Deejay's hit "Better Off Alone", which uses the same instrumentation.
  • Vampire Weekend's song "Holiday" has a first line ("Holiday, oh, holiday, and the best one of the year") that closely echoes the first line of Fairport Convention's "Matty Groves."
  • The verses in Def Leppard's "Rocket" contain references to the Rolling Stones, David Bowie (twice), Elton John (also twice), the Beatles, Thin Lizzy, Queen and others.
  • A trance tune called "14 Hours To Save The Earth" references a line from the Flash Gordon movie: "But we only have 14 hours to save the earth!" One of the mixes is called the Rocket Ajax mix, after War Rocket Ajax from the same movie.
  • The video for A-ha's "The Sun Always Shines On TV" features an orchestra of mannequins, a nod to Kraftwerk's "The Robots", which had robotic likenesses of the band singing and playing the instruments.
  • Rapper Cage originally went by the name Alex, as a nod to A Clockwork Orange. His single "Agent Orange" sampled Wendy Carlos' score from that film. They Live! is referenced in the artwork for his album Movies for the Blind. Jello Biafra, doing an imitation of The Dubya, says "I'll Fuck Anything That Moves!", quoting Dennis Hopper's character from Blue Velvet.
  • The works of Charles Ives are full of Shout Outs - particularly to marches, hymns, folk songs, and school fight songs.
  • Duran Duran shoutouts:
    • Their debut album included an instrumental called "Tel Aviv". When lead singer Simon Le Bon was working on an Israeli kibbutz before joining the band, he used to hang out in Tel Aviv.
    • Rio includes a song called "Last Chance on the Stairway", which in and of itself is a reference to the phrase "l'esprit d'escalier", or not being able to think of something good to say in response to someone else until it's too late. It also contains the lyric, "Just like a scene out of Voltaire, twisting out of sight," referring to how in many of Voltaire's works (Candide in particular), the storyline twists and turns so fast the protagonists never seem to know what hit them.
    • On their 1988 album Big Thing, there's a song called "Lake Shore Driving", which is a shoutout to Chicago's Lake Shore Drive. Chicago is one of keyboardist Nick Rhodes's favorite cities.
    • The band's name is derived from the Mad Scientist Durand Durand in Barbarella. Although they produced a song titled "Electric Barbarella" containing sound samples from the film, the lyrics have little to do with it, instead being about a Sex Bot.
  • Train's Soul Sister has the line "Hey soul sister, ain't that Mr Mister on the radio, stereo", referring to the group that performed "Broken Wings".
  • The bridge of Put Your Hands Up by Alex featuring Marwa references Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough", The Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love", and a melodic hook from the refrain of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".
  • Prince shout-outs:
    • "Get Your Groove On": "Bring the player, I'll bring the CDs / But don't U put nothing slow on / That new D'Angelo, some N.P.G. / And we'll make a bet 2 see who keep their clothes on"
    • "Good Love": "Gustav Mahler No. 3 jammin' on the box"
    • "Undisputed": "My level is now what you must learn to rise above / Talk to D'Angelo or better yet ?uestlove"
  • The New Wave of British Heavy Metal was chock-full of bands named after songs by Thin Lizzy, UFO, and Judas Priest. Chinatown, Black Rose, Heavy Pettin', Obsession, and Dissident Aggressor, just as the tip of the iceberg. Later speed metal bands borrowed Exciter (Judas Priest song, band initially an Iron Maiden clone), Overkill (Motorhead song), and Machine Head (Deep Purple album).
  • UFO's "Doctor, Doctor" has an incredibly obvious shout out to Led Zeppelin in its "Livin', Lovin'" chorus, although they make it sound original by taking it in a different direction. They also reference a band playing "Little Wing", and have an album with the incredibly Springsteen-ish title The Wild, the Willing, and the Innocent.
  • The title of Velvet Crush's Teenage Symphonies To God is a shout out to The Beach Boys - Brian Wilson was frequently quoted as describing the never released Smile as "A teenage symphony to God". They also called a compilation A Single Odessey as a shout out to The Zombies' Odessey And Oracle (note that both titles spell "odyssey" the same way).
  • This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow!
  • The end of Rush's "The Spirit Of Radio" has a spoof of the last line of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound Of Silence".
  • Panic! At The Disco's first album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, has several Chuck Palahniuk references, most obvious in the song "Time to Dance".
  • Scott Walker's The Seventh Seal is a lyrical homage to the Ingmar Bergman film of the same name.
  • It's easier to name a Space song which doesn't have some kind of Shout-Out in it, usually to fictional characters or celebrities. 'Charlie M' and 'A Liddle Biddy Help From Elvis' are two particular examples which spring to mind.
  • Titus Andronicus use quite a few shout outs in their music, perhaps the most badass being the ones in reference to Bruce Springsteen. See: "Tramps like us, baby we were born to DIE!"
  • U2's "Staring At The Sun" included the line "Stuck together with God's glue", which is a reference to an album of the same name by Something Happens.
  • Mercury Rev's "Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp" ends with the repeated line "Waving goodbye, I'm not saying hello", which seems to echo a line in The Flaming Lips "Felt Good To Burn" ("I wasn't waving goodbye, I was saying hello"). It's probably an intentional nod, because Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue was in The Flaming Lips when they had written "Felt Good To Burn" itself.
  • The lyrics to Daft Punk's "Teachers" are essentially a long list of artists who have influenced them: the majority are DJs and producers involved in techno or house music, but a few less expected names being checked are Brian Wilson, Dr. Dre, and George Clinton.
  • George Strait's "Blue Clear Sky" got its seemingly-backwards title as a shout-out to Forrest Gump.
  • Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown" has two: "I once was lost but never was found." ("I once was lost and then was found.") and "My generation is zero, I never made it back to working class hero"
  • Kid Rock also referenced "Amazing Grace" in "Cowboy": "I once was lost, but now I'm just blind", combining that line and the next, "Was blind but now I see".
    • "All Summer Long"'s refrain ends with "singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long" followed by the well-known guitar scores from the famous Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
  • Sugar Ray's "Fly" has the line "Twenty-five years old, my mother, God rest her soul." This is a direct reference to a line from Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again, Naturally", in which the mother's age was 65.
  • Ozma's Rock And Roll Part Three. It wasn't their third release [1] or a sequel to anything else called "Rock And Roll"; the title was meant as a nod to Gary Glitter's "Rock And Roll, Part One" and "Rock And Roll, Part Two".
  • Aside from being named after a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory character, Veruca Salt have made a lot of shout outs to other bands:
    • The album American Thighs is named for a line in ACDC's "You Shook Me All Night Long"
    • Eight Arms To Hold You was also a working title for a Beatles album (which became Help! instead).
    • In another Beatles reference, the bridge to "Volcano Girls" parodies "Glass Onion":

Told you 'bout the Seether before
You know the one who's neither or nor
Well here's another clue if you please
The seether's Louise

    • The bridge of "Born Entertainer" is a nod to Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me":

I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I dare you to ditch me
I beg you to miss me

    • "Number One Blind" includes a short bridge with the repeated lyric "It is time", a confirmed reference to The Pixies' Single-Stanza Song "Stormy Weather".
  • The refrain of Edge of Dawn's "Beyond The Gate" echoes the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey notably Bowman's descent into the sun and transformation into the Starchild: "I'm a suicidal planet and I'm aiming for the sun, all the gravity inside me will give way to a beautiful calm..." The title may reference the Star Gate. The band itself is named after a song from Covenant's first album.
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Good Time Boys" includes several prominent references to other bands: Fishbone ("Funk it up, Fishbone"), X ("If you don't believe me just ask John Doe", along with a brief sample of "White Girl"), The Minutemen, and fIREHOSE ("He'll tell you in a minute about the men he knows / he'll tell you 'bout a band called fIREHOSE"). A line mentioning "the Watt towers" might also be an oblique reference to Mike Watt (who was in both The Minutemen and fIREHOSE)
    • "Melowship Slinky In B-Major" has "Good god, purple haze now / Good god, the baddest of brains now".
    • One of their B Sides is an instrumental titled "Fela's Cock" - fans who don't catch the reference to Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Kuti tend to assume it's a typo for "Flea's Cock".
  • The video for Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" ends with a recreation of the stateroom scene from the Marx Brothers' movie A Night at the Opera.
  • Teenage Fanclub named their album Thirteen after the Big Star song of that name. Another nod to a Big Star song title was in the liner notes to Bandwagonesque - the "thank you" list had the heading "Thank You Friends".
  • Whitney Houston's How Will I Know? music video invokes the lyric "I'm asking you / 'cause you know about these things" while a still photo of Aretha Franklin appears briefly in the background. Apparently Whitney's mum was one of Aretha's backup singers, many years ago.
  • Céline Dion's Des mots qui sonnent, with no subtlety at all: "Ecris-moi des lignes / Qui swiguent comm' du Sting / Qui sonnent / Comm' du Jackson..."
  • Belgian singer Maurane's Sur un prélude de Bach (1992) mentions Ray Charles (US soul singer-songwriter), Glen Gould (Canadian pianist) and classical composers Mozart and Bach in its lyrics.
  • Filk singer Tom Smith's song "Divine Irregularity" makes an extended shout-out to Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans", when an adventuring party out to slay a dragon is instead surprised by the dragon in question:

So they started off for the dragon's cave, its treasures for to take,
But half way there the birds flew off and the ground began to shake.
They heard a roar and a terrible crash, and they all turned round to see
The dragon right behind them cleaning its nails on a tree.
And they ran through the brambles,
And they ran through the briars,
And they ran through the bushes were the rabbits couldn't go.
Ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch...
 (spoken) Sorry.

Back to Shout-Out
  1. ↑ It was actually their debut, not counting a self-released demo
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