However, getting a good pun into a song title is much trickier than hiding one in the lyrics of your song. Rock music is full of dreadful puns - much as I might try to defend the reputation of REO Speedwagon, there's no excuse for their 1978 album title, You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish.
Although it does contain one of their better songs...
Meanwhile, I've seen it suggested online that the song Bruise Pristine by Placebo is a pun on Bruce Springsteen. Not a very good pun, if that's actually true.
No, I'm talking about this forgotten classic from Johnny Cash's former backing group, The Statler Brothers. The great thing about this song is that when you hear the title - You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith, Too - you figure there's no way the song is ever going to live up to it. And then it does, with a hilariously touching tale of two-timing and jealousy and the mildest curses you'll ever hear, considering what this guy is putting up with. If I were him, I'd be using words a lot stronger than "you rascal, you!".
That's my old school photo above, from 1988, our Fifth Form year before many of my fellow students went off to do other things... although I stayed on for the Sixth Form. (Apologies to those kids who were sat on the edges, my scanner wasn't as long as the photo. Luckily, I and most of my best friends are pretty central.)
I don't really keep up with any old school friends any more, except via facebook where I get occasional glimpses into where their lives have taken in the 30+ years since we left high school. I had two really good friends with whom I stayed close into my 30s, but we've lost touch over the last ten years, and I guess that's as much my fault as theirs.
The idea of a school reunion though is something I'd never entertain. I can guarantee it would be full of all the people I didn't want to see again and none of the ones I did.
30+ years before our class of '88, these guys were graduating...
Tommy's selling used cars, Nancy's fixing nails.
Harvey runs a grocery store and Margaret doesn't care.
Jerry drives a truck for Sears, Charlotte on the make.
And Paul sells life insurance and part time real estate.
Helen is a hostess. Frank works at the mill.
Janet teaches grade school and probably always will.
Bob works for the city. And Jack's in lab research.
And Peggy play organ at the Presbyterian Church.
And the class of '57 had its dreams.
We all thought we'd change the world with our great work & deeds.
Or maybe we just thought the world would change to fit our needs.
The class of '57 had its dreams.
Have you ever been / would you ever go to a school reunion?
Another curse of growing older is nostalgia for things long past. Wondering whatever happened to the good old days. (Clue: they may not have been as good as we remember, but that's nostalgia for you.) Here's ten songs focussing on that age old question, Whatever Happened To...
Van The Man wonders where all his old contemporaries went... although we all know what happened to the guy in line 2. Obviously Van didn't see that one coming when he wrote this back in 2002...
Whatever happened to PJ Proby? Wonder can you fix it Jim Where the hell do you think is Scott Walker? My memory's getting so dim
Don't have no frame of reference no more Not even Screaming Lord Sutch Without him now there's no Raving Loony Party Nowadays I guess there's not much
At least he changed the lyric slightly when he re-recorded the song as a duet with PJ Proby himself in 2015.
While the Buzzcocks might be wondering whatever happened to TV sex (erm: there's more of it?), The Statler Brothers are sick of all the smut they see on their cinema screens...
Everybody knows when you go to the show You can't take the kids along You've gotta read the paper and know the code Of G, PG and are and X You gotta know what the movie's about Before you even go Tex Ritter's gone and Disney's dead The screen is filled with sex.
Whatever happened to Randolph Scott? Ridin' the range alone Whatever happened to Gene and Tex And Roy and Rex, the Durango Kid? Whatever happened to Randolph Scott? His horse, plain as can be Whatever happened to Randolph Scott? Has happened to the best of me.
Something all true music lovers have no doubt asked themselves at one time or another...
I fell in love with the sweet sensation I gave my heart to a simple chord I gave my soul to a new religion Whatever happened to you? Whatever happened to our rock 'n roll?
Loudon Wainwright writing a song about love gone rotten? You don't say...
We used to be in love but now we are in hate You used to say I came too early But it was you who came too late Boy meets girl and they give it a whirl And the very next thing you know She thinks he's nuts and he hates her guts Then the bad blood starts to flow
Pete and Carl wonder where it all went wrong for their band... adapting the title of the British sitcom Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? along the way.
Ironically, the Libertines best song is their most self-referential.
Hired to dance behind Bob Dylan at the 1998 Grammy Awards, performance artist Michael Portnoy hijacked the show by ripping off his shirt and revealing the "two word poem" Soy Bomb while dancing alongside a bemused Dylan. (Was Dylan bemused or was he pissed off? Hard to tell, because he has a pissed off expression on his face most of the time. Seriously: when was the last time you saw Bob Dylan smile?)
When asked to explain himself, Portnoy later said: "Soy... represents dense nutritional life. Bomb is, obviously, an explosive destructive force. So, soy bomb is what I think art should be: dense, transformational, explosive life". He went on to explain that the incident was a "spontaneous explosion of the self to re-invigorate the current music scene".
Tosser.
Still, he inspired E to write a nice song, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
Ah, Huey, that is the million dollar question, isn't it?
Hey, I know it's a modern world And everybody's living for today But you and I were gonna be the exception Remember what you said, "let 'em all drop dead!" Now all your friends are telling you that they Have all been through this many times beforeI don't want to sound like an old love song I only want to know: where did our love go?
When former childstar Corey Haim heard this 2004 hit by Irish indie band The Thrills, he responded: "For eight and a half years, I was just watching movies, and just staying in bed and just eating food and just, you know, being just miserable," but now, he insisted, "I'm clean, sober, humble and happy". Sadly, he died of pneumonia just six years later, aged only 38.
1. The Stranglers - No More Heroes
What else was going to be Number One?
Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky? He got an ice pick That made his ears burn
Whatever happened to Dear old Lenin? The great Elmyra And Sancho Panza?
Whatever happened to the heroes? Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to All of the heroes? All the Shakespearoes? They watched their Rome burn!
