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A Food Songs Mixtape

It all started with Mike Doughty. Dan and I had his albums on heavy rotation during our drives out West earlier this year, and after a few hours in the car, I started noting the many food references in his songs. “Down to This,” a song from way back in the day with Soul Coughing, mentions “blood like a panful of boiling ratatouille” and “muscles in mess like a mess of spaghetti,” as well as food-related phrases like “break down in a diner / then I paid the bill” and “I could get lost in a lunch box.”

In “Sunken-Eyed Girl” (see below), Mike’s ode to a Lower East Side lady from his solo album Haughty Melodic, he talks about her duty to “ladle my soup from the kettle pot” and the KFC’s bulletproof glass to “keep the man safe in his paper hat / keep the wrong hands off the biscuit fortune.” Not to mention his instructions in “Unsingable Name” off the same album to “mix the salt the sugar and flour.” (That particular quote’s painted on my kitchen wall, actually.)

Listening to these lyrics as we drifted through the high desert, my mind turned to other songs that prominently feature food themes. And I decided to make a playlist.

There are so many ways to interpret this theme, like it’s-a-clever-metaphor-for-a-woman-get-it? songs such as the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” and Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” (which can never be mentioned without a link to its terribly ’80s video). Or food-centric locales, like the Lemonheads’ “Kitchen” or Steely Dan’s “Lunch with Gina.”

Then there are songs that ostensibly aren’t about food at all, but have a killer phrase that mentions something edible, like the line from my favorite Buffalo Tom song “Porchlight” that rhymes “scrambling eggs” with “shambling legs.”

I could go on for hours, but here’s my initial selection of 20 (please, how could I keep it to a Top Ten with a topic like this?). I anticipate a spirited discussion in the comments and on Facebook. Is anyone else getting hungry listening to these?

Fast Food Rockers, “Fast Food Song” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/fast-food-song” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

The Clash, “Lost in the Supermarket” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/lost-in-the-supermarket” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Mike Doughty, “Sunken-Eyed Girl” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/sunken-eyed-girl” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

They Might Be Giants, “Dinner Bell” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/dinner-bell” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Van Morrison, “Tupelo Honey” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/tupelo-honey” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Morphine, “French Fries with Pepper” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/french-fries-with-pepper” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Lyle Lovett, “Pantry” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/pantry” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Jimmy Buffett, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/cheeseburger-in-paradise” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Simon & Garfunkel, “Punky’s Dilemma” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/punkys-dilemma” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Martin Sexton, “Diner” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/diner” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Squeeze, “Black Coffee in Bed” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/11-black-coffee-in-bed” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Jack Johnson, “Banana Pancakes” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/banana-pancakes” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

The Beatles, “Savoy Truffle” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/beatles-savoy-truffle” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Presidents of the United States of America, “Peaches” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/06-peaches” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Bunjie Jambo, “Chicken Pot Pie”*

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/chicken-pot-pie” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Pete Yorn, “Burrito” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/burrito” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Beastie Boys, “Finger Lickin’ Good” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/finger-lickin-good” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Flaming Lips, “She Don’t Use Jelly” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/she-dont-use-jelly” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Harry Nilsson, “Coconut” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/coconut” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

Rufus Wainwright, “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/cigarettes-and-chocolate-milk” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]

And a bonus Mike Doughty song:

Mike Doughty, “More Bacon Than the Pan Can Handle” Lyrics

[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/good-food-stories/more-bacon-than-the-pan-can-handle” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]


*
This ditty by an obscure Pittsburgh ska band may be the only song out there about one of my favorite dishes. I realize probably fewer than a thousand people have heard it, but I do love chicken pot pie… with carrots! and POTATOES! If anyone can find another, please send it my way and maybe one day I’ll have a whole pot-pie-themed mixtape.

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17 Comments

  1. There’s definitely a lot to mine from the Beasties, but I think “Finger Linkin’ Good” is a great example.

    Two that come to mind immediately for me from Jason Mraz: “Too Much Food”: “You could say that I’m the one curly fry in the box of the regular..” and “Dynamo of Volition”: “I do not sleep without a mistress, I do not eat unless it’s fixed with some kind of sweet like a licorice…I’m holding in heat like a fish stick, my phone it beeps because I missed it.”

  2. Good list! Here are some of my favorites:

    1. Tom Waits–Filipino Box-Spring Hog
    2. The Beach Boys–Vegetables
    3. Robyn Hitchcock–Cheese Alarm
    4. Prince–Starfish and Coffee
    5. Dizzy Gillespie–Salt Peanuts
    6. LL Cool J–Pink Cookies in a
    Plastic Bag Getting Crushed by a
    Building
    7. Talking Heads–Popsicle
    8. Dan Penn–Memphis Women and Chicken
    9. Tony Joe White–Polk Salad Annie
    10. The Bottle Rockets–Dinner Train to
    Dutchtown

    Bonus: The entire Cibo Matto catalog.

  3. I first thought of this when I heard Sting’s “Soul Cake” somewhere around Christmas, and I started thinking only of songs with food in the title. But like any good mix, you want quality of song over those that strictly fit the theme, and this list does that well.

    But no “Queen of the Supermarket”?

  4. 100% thought of Jimmy Buffet to start with.. then went towards a bunch of drink songs but I’ll avoid those for today’s list :)

    For my top, nearly any food song from Space Ghost albums start coming to mind for this list… but I’ll pick just 1: “Barbeque” from the Brak Album

    Other songs…
    “Food Glorious Food” – “Oliver!”
    “Be Our Guest”- “Beauty & the Beast”
    “Eat It” – “Weird”Al Yankovic
    “Spam” – Monty Python
    “Fish Heads” – Dr. Demento
    “That’s Amore” – Dean Martin
    “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” – Harry Chapin
    “Banana Boat Song” – Harry Belafonte
    “Brown Sugar” – The Rolling Stones
    “Big Rock Candy Mountain” – Harry McClintock
    “Choppin’ Brocolli” – Dana Carvey

    Wow.. I think I have too many funny songs in there :)

  5. Sarah: I put the Beastie Boys on for you specifically – I could only pick one, and I’m glad you approve of my choice!

    Dan B: I KNEW you would have stellar additions to the list. Can you believe I don’t own any Cibo Matto?

    Dan C: somehow Working on a Dream never made it to my iPod. I hope you can forgive the omission, since I did a whole post dedicated to Bruce last week.

    Matt: Choppin’ Broccoli! YES! I didn’t know whether or not to include drink songs either – “Alcohol” by BNL, “Red Red Wine” by UB40, “Mexican Wine” by Fountains of Wayne, “One Bourbon, One Whiskey, One Beer” – maybe there’s a follow-up drink post?

  6. What a cool post! Okay, here’s my offering: Bruce Springsteen, who often talks between songs at concerts and always donates $ to local food banks, sings, “Hungry Heart.” Then there’s Talking Heads with Psycho Killer, which got transformed into Psycho Chicken and was used later in Julie & Julia, a film about cooking. Not to forget Supertramp with their album Breakfast in America and The Logical Song, which mentions a certain type of vegetable …

  7. coming from other parts of the musical universe, I think, songs which come immediately to mind are Robert Johnson (and Rory Block, Pam Tillis, and others) Come On In My Kitchen, Irish band the Bridies, 4 and 9, which is a food filled song about an ill advised trip to a restaurant, Carrie Newcomer’s great song Holy As the Day Is Spent, with the line ‘frying eggs sound like psalms.’

  8. I can’t believe you have the fast food song here! My daughter learned how to sing this in pre-school. Ignore, for a moment, why someone thought pre-schoolers needed to learn that song, she’s going to get a kick out of me playing this.

  9. Love this. So how come Meatloaf didn’t make the list? I guess he’s an “artist” no necessarily a food song:)

    –Hey, I thought I was the only ska fan out there! In college I went to skavoovy (I’m not even sure how to spell it now). But I do remember singing along to “Mirror in the Bathroom.”

  10. I still think ‘fyring eggs sound like psalms’ especially in the context of the Carrie Newcomer song in which it occurs, is one of the best song lines on food I know. then there’s One Meat Ball (and No Spaghetti) a sort of humorous blues song that I fisrt heard on a Josh White record.

  11. Awesome idea, Casey! Great post. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad that you left off “I smell sex and candy…” Perhaps you don’t consider candy to be a food??

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