Names -> Song Titles Not Used as Lyrics -> B
Some songs have titles that aren't used in the lyrics, and end up becoming better known for their lyrics than their title. Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is better known for the refrain "Everybody must get stoned" than it is for the title.
Band | Song | Comments & Submittor Name | ||
| The Band | The Weight | Should be called 'The Load' since that's used rather than 'The Weight'. - Paul Warren | ||
| Barenaked Ladies | Stomach vs. Heart | They do mention stomach and heart, but not stomach vs. heart. - Paul Warren | ||
| Barenaked Ladies | Little Tiny Song | Should be known as 'Hey, I'm a Cow'. - Paul Warren | ||
| Barry Manilow | Weekend in New England | You can hunt in vain for "When will our eyes meet; when can I touch you" wracking you brain for a title, but Barry never uses the phrase, and only makes one reference to New England at all. - Tonette Joyce | ||
| Barry Manilow | Weekend in New England | Although the lyrics contain the line "Time in New England", the weekend is never mentioned. "When will our eyes meet When can I touch you When will this strong yearning end And when Will I hold you again " - Bob Borst | ||
| The Beach Boys | TM Song | T.M. is short for "transcendental meditation", which the Beach Boys mention. Neither the acronym nor the "song" is heard anywhere. - beach | ||
| Beach Boys | Mama Says | "Eat a lot, sleep a lot, brush 'em like crazy. Run a lot, do a lot, never be lazy." That's all the lyrics to this a capella song. - Paul Warren | ||
| Beach Boys | Busy Doin' Nothin' | You can tell this is Brian Wilson's down years when he couldn't even use the title in his lyrics. - Paul Warren | ||
| Beatles | Yer Blues | "So Lonely, Wanna Die"!... - Paul Warren | ||
| The Beatles | Ballad Of John And Yoko | Not surprisingly, neither the word "ballad" nor the phrase "ballad of" tend to be found in the lyrics of songs whose titles begin with that phrase. In this case, the opening line, "Standing on the dock at Southampton" might form a subsatitute title as much as any phrase, but I don't think I've heard it called by any phrase in the lyrics. Those familiar with this song tend, I suppose, to know the actual title, even though they couldn't deduce it from the lyrics. - Thessaly Danes | ||
| The Beatles | Tomorrow Never Knows | Last song on the Revolver album. Another of Ringo's 'mad' jumbled up plays on words similar to A Hard Days Night. Also the only Beatles song with only one chord ( C? ) I think!!?? - Eddie | ||
| Beatles | A Day In The Life | Perhaps the name should be "The News" as in "I read the news today, oh boy..." - ModiinJerry | ||
| The Beatles | Tomorrow Never Knows | The song is better known as the first Psychedelic song rather than 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. - Paul Warren | ||
| Bee Gees | New York Mining Disater 1941 | It should be known as 'Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones' sice that's the line that is uttered more in this song. - Paul Warren | ||
| Ben Folds Five | Heist | Heist is nowhere in the lyrics, it should be either "Where Diet Soda Flows" or "Don't Pay The Tab ('Till The Last Drop)" - Chris | ||
| Ben Folds Five | Song for the Dumped | The Refrain mostly says "Give me my Money Back, you b***h". But if Ben Folds used that as the title, it would get bleeped every time. - Paul Warren | ||
| Better Than Ezra | In The Blood | It's kind of unusual to find a BTE song that doesn't use its title at the end of the chorus, let alone at all. - Brian Kelly | ||
| Billy Joel | Scenes From An Italian Resturant | "Bottle of Red, Bottle of White".... - Paul Warren | ||
| Billy Joel | Miami 2017 | Best known as "I've Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway" the song is a future fictional account of the physical destruction of New York City, written tongue-in-cheek at a time when New York was on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 70s. The lyrics "I saw the mighty skyline fall" took on a new, more ominous meaning after 9/11. Joel performed this song at a benefit concert for the 9/11 victims at Madison Square Garden. - MasonR | ||
| Billy Joel | Goodnight Saigon | I know this is about Vietnam, but it never mentions Saigon anywhere in the song. - Paul Warren | ||
| Black Eyed Peas | The APL Song | It's in Tagalog - most of you might not understand it, but it's well known in my country; the song's included in the Elephunk album... Lapit mga kaibigan, at makinig kayo Ako'y may dala-dalang balita galing sa bayan ko Nais kong ipamahagi Ang mga kwento, at mga nangyayari, Nagaganap, sa lupang, pinangako - LPG-Unit | ||
| Black Sabbath | Paranoid | I think most people know the first line "finished with my woman 'cos she couldn't help me with my mind" Well-known lyrics sites seem to disagree on much of the rest! - karen | ||
| Blink 182 | M+M's | 'Cause when I'm with you/There's nothing I wouldn't do/I just wanna be your only one - Hawky | ||
| Blink 182 | Adam's Song | I never conquered, rarely came/Sixteen just held such better days/Days when I still felt alive/Couldn't wait to get outside/The world was wide/Too late to try/The tour was over/We survived/Couldn't wait till I got home/To pass the time in my room alone" - Hawky | ||
| Blood, Sweat, and Tears | The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes, and Freu | Did they run out of room for these guys? - Paul Warren | ||
| Bloodhound Gang | The Bad Touch | You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel. - Brian Kelly | ||
| Blur | Song 2 | This is more well-known as: "WOO-HOO!!" - Agrimorfee | ||
| Blur | Song 2 | They have done something clever on the Blur compilation "Best Of Blur". They made it Track 2 on the album, so that it is, quite literally, Song 2! - Time Machine | ||
| Blur | Girls & Boys | Both of the words "girls" and "boys" are used several times each in the lyrics, but the title "girls and boys" isn't. - B1982 | ||
| Bob Dylan | Highway 61 Revisited | A lot of events in the song happen "out on Highway 61," but they aren't "revisited." - Martha Hankins | ||
| Bob Dylan | From a Buick 6 | The only noticible relation between the lyrics and the title is 'I'm cracked up on the highway and on the water's edge/She comes down the thruway ready to sew me up with thread' - Feurzeug | ||
| Bob Dylan | Positively 4th Street | "You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend." The biggest put-down song in history, and the title is not in the lyrics. - crazydon | ||
| Bob Dylan | Queen Jane Approximately | The song contains the phrase "Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?" but the word "approximately" is not in the lyrics. - Martha Hankins | ||
| Bob Dylan | Rainy Day Women #12 & #35 | Better known for the refrain "Everybody must get stoned" - ChuckyG | ||
| Bob Dylan | Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues | One of many songs by the bard with a title not used as lyrics, was there ever such a thing as a tom thumbs blues? - Feurzeug | ||
| Bob Dylan | Girl from the North Country | 'If you're traveling in the North Country' One of the first songs by the Bard where the title was not used a lyrics. Yet the melody of this song was taken from English folk song Scarborough Fair, the title of which is used as lyrics. - Feurzeug | ||
| Bob Dylan | It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train The Cry | The only noticible relation the lyrics bear is the final line 'Don't say I didn't warn you when your train gets lost' - Feurzeug | ||
| Bob Rivers | The AOL Song | Although the words 'the' and 'AOL' are in the song the word 'song' isn't used. Also a lot of people claim this song is done by Weird Al, but it isn't. - Ed | ||
| Bob Rivers | Rummy Rocker Boy | Also known as "Rum pa pum pum" which is in the lyrics. - Ed | ||
| Bobbie Gentry | Ode to Billie Joe | "Ode" is never mentioned in the lyrics. The line most people remember is "Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge" - Bob Borst | ||
| The Box Tops | The Letter | The lyrics refer to "a letter" but never "the letter". And the song may well be better known by its opening line, "Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane". - Donna Gelpigi | ||
| Boz Scaggs | Lido Shuffle | "Lido missed the boat that day he left the shack..." No shuffling mentioned. - MOR | ||
| The Brothers Johnson | Strawberry Letter #23 | Not once is the title mentioned in the song, but "Strawberry Letter 22" is mentioned many times! - crazydon | ||
| Buffalo Springfield | For What It's Worth | It does have the parenthetical title (Stop, Hey, What's That Sound) which is the first line of the chorus. - crazydon | ||
| Butthole Surfers | Pepper | "They were drinking from a fountain that was pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain" - Joe H | ||
| The Byrds | My Back Pages | To my knowledge, this Dylan song (like some others) doesn't contain the title in the lyrics. It is best known for the refrain "but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now," which I thought was the title, which totally confused me - Raphael |
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