Songs that reference (without directly sampling) other songs or famous bits of music

Gassage

As David remarked- 'I really cannot be bothered to spend the rest of my life suing Andrew Lloyd Webber.......'

Creed_Clicks

Right Said Fred "I'm too Sexy" has the Jimi Hendrix riff after the chorus

oh_pollo

'Glass Onion' by The Beatles references a half dozen other Beatles tunes.

ICBM

Philly_Q said:

Not a reference as such, more of a soundalike:

[Deep Purple - Burn]
[Lone Star - All Of Us To All Of You]

Burn itself is an adaption of George Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm.

Black Night is also taken from Gershwin's Summertime via Ricky Nelson and/or The Blues Magoos' We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet.

horse

Craig Finn's No Future has a couple of references including:

The best advice that I've ever gotten

Was from good old Johnny Rotten

He said "God save the Queen"

He said "No future for you, no future for me"

markv

First Class's "Beach Baby" and Strawberry Switchblade's "Since Yesterday" both use a phrase from Sibelius's Fifth Symphony (although listening to them, I suspect that "Since Yesterday" probably just got it from "Beach Baby")

NickL

Did Jack White consciously take the Seven Nation Army riff from Bruckner's 5th symphony or is the similarity entirely coincidental?

jonnyburgo

Love will Tear us Apart uses the melody form "And then he kissed me" at the end as does Beefhearts "Electricity" also at the end. Zappa's  "Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin" use a part from Holst's Planets suite.

Reverend

MagicPigDetective said:

Philly_Q said:

@MagicPigDetective nice to see a bit of Alunah on here!

I rate their latest album highly, a top band who should be getting more attention 

I think their first gig was supporting my old band.  Known Jake for decades

Reverend

Metallica - Sanitarium references Bleak House - Rainbow Warrior, which in turn references The Strawbs. 

Reverend

Monster Magnet - Twin Earth


 Captain Beyond - Mesmiration Eclipse

hollywoodrox

digitalkettle said:

Self reference: Sting's "big enough umbrella" phrase, born on 'Every Little Thing...' turns up again on 'O My God' and again on 'Seven Days'!

I thought it was clever on 7 days ,didn’t realise it appeared on another too 

hollywoodrox

markv said:

First Class's "Beach Baby" and Strawberry Switchblade's "Since Yesterday" both use a phrase from Sibelius's Fifth Symphony (although listening to them, I suspect that "Since Yesterday" probably just got it from "Beach Baby")

As I instantly listened to the tune in my head I heard the bit you were referring to , I’ve got beach baby on 45 somewhere in among my collection ,it seems to have survived purges that weeded out 
anything that shouldn’t be there ,I don’t even think it’s in a cover  un like all my precious stuff which is mostly in covers and poly sleeves . I was totally in lust with those strawberry switchblade babes 

Whitecat

Barenaked Ladies - Grade 9 - slips a couple of Rush riffs in quite overtly... as well as some Vince Guaraldi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQPYvoeOjtc

stimpsonslostson

Philly_Q said:

Black Sabbath quoting Devil Woman in Lady Evil.  2:55.

Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath famously uses Mars by Holst. 

markv

Another one I just thought of: Jesus & Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" quotes the iconic opening drum beat of The Ronettes' "Be My Baby".

As do probably a hundred other songs!

thecolourbox

I like to do this while writing my own stuff, because I'm not very good at imagination but I'm better at reworking stuff. Often I don't realise I'm doing it while writing but usually can piece it together afterwards where things are coming from. Often quite a few little sections of things and usually from contrasting places, it's quite a fun part of writing for me to be honest to work out where I've nicked things from - very rarely does anybody actually listen to my original stuff, so I tend to focus my enjoyment of finishing something on working out what I've plagiarised.

My last fretboard composition entry (the horror movie song thing) I've put Chopin's funeral march in the chorus, a bit of one of the later sections of part 1 of tubular bells in the riff, and Laura Marling's Night Terror in one line of the verse. I think the verse in general was meant to sound a bit like Muse from their first album, I can't remember which one.

joneve

Whitecat said:

Barenaked Ladies - Grade 9 - slips a couple of Rush riffs in quite overtly... as well as some Vince Guaraldi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQPYvoeOjtc

To add to that, "Hello City" includes a small section of the chorus from the Housemartins' Happy Hour

Paul_C

I used to do it quite a bit in one band I played bass in - here's a little bit of Midnight Hour in a song called Reaperman - the radio guys asked me about it after we'd played and I'd forgotten it was in there so was puzzled for a moment.

My favourite was covering No Diggity, as it doesn't have much of a tune or bassline so I used to jam all sorts of things in, including:

Come Together

Seven Nation Army

Feel Good Inc.

Word Up

Under Pressure

Which was fun, especially when the rest of the band picked up on it and ran with it for a bit.

Jalapeno

Gassage said:

As David remarked- 'I really cannot be bothered to spend the rest of my life suing Andrew Lloyd Webber.......'

According to Echoes' Wiki entry it references The Beach Boys Good Vibrations