As an English literature teacher, I'd appreciate any so I can impress/bore my class. I'll start with: Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet Arctic Monkeys - The 'Montagues and Capulets' line in Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor Plus there is a 'stars hide your fires' line from Macbeth in a Mumford and Sons song I am pretty sure. Any others?
Talk to Me / Joni Mitchell (quotes Hamlet) Romeo Had Juliette / Lou Reed Sister Moon / Sting ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" from Sonnet 130) Limelight / Rush ("All the world's a stage..." from As You Like It) Sigh No More / Mumford & Sons (Much Ado About Nothing) Pound of Flesh / Regina Spektor (The Merchant of Venice) I Am the Walrus / Beatles (segment from King Lear at the end) Love Story / Taylor Swift Desolation Row / Bob Dylan (references Ophelia and Romeo) Cordelia / Tragically Hip (Cordelia is the good daughter in King Lear) Zillions more... If I had to guess, I'd wager Romeo and Juliet is the most referenced.
Grateful Dead: Althea You may be Saturday's child all grown Moving with a pinch of grace You may be a clown in the burying ground Or just another pretty face You may be the fate of Ophelia Sleeping and perchance to dream Honest to the point of recklessness Self-centered to the extreme
STUCK INSIDE OF MOBILE WITH THE MEMPHIS BLUES AGAIN -DYLAN "Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley With his pointed shoes and his bells Speaking to some French girl Who says she knows me well"
Shakespeare: "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." (Julius Caesar) Iron Maiden: "The evil that men do lives on and on." ("The Evil That Men Do", Seventh Son of a Seventh Son)
I'm not sure you can say that Donovan's "Under the Greenwood Tree" references Shakespeare - the lyrics in their entirety were written by Shakespeare.
Othello told Desdemona "I'm cold, cover me with a blanket" "By the way, what happened to that poisoned wine?" She said "I gave it to you, you drank it" Bob Dylan, "Po' Boy", 2001
Genesis - The Cinema Show Describes Romeo and Juliet as a modern-times couple who meet up for sex and know nothing about showing true emotion - playing their roles like actors in a movie. (In a Quentin Tarantino voice: Hence, the Cinema Show.)
Rush - Limelight: "All the World's indeed a stage and we are merely players" is paraphrased from As You Like It.
Here's a couple of good ones from from Bob's Love & Theft: Romeo, he said to Juliet, "You got a poor complexion It doesn't give your appearance a very youthful touch!" Juliet said back to Romeo, "Why don't you just shove off If it bothers you so much?" - Floater (Too Much To Ask) Othello told Desdemona, "I'm cold, cover me with a blanket By the way, what happened to that poisoned wine?" She says, "I gave it to you, you drank it" Poor boy, layin' 'em straight - pickin' up the cherries fallin' off the plate. - Po' Boy