Shakespeare references in songs

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Madrid, Oct 12, 2018.

  1. Madrid

    Madrid Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Madrid
    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?
     
  2. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    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.
     
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  3. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
     
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  4. extravaganza

    extravaganza Senior Member

    Location:
    San Diego, CA USA
    “Shakespeare’s sonnets leave me cold”

    XTC “My Bird Performs”
     
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  5. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    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
     
  6. savemenow

    savemenow Forum Resident

    Location:
    SE Pa
    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"

     
  7. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    next thread: Beatle references in Shakespeare's work... ;)
     
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  8. Saintbert

    Saintbert Forum Resident

    Location:
    Helsinki
    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)
     
  9. x2zero

    x2zero Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn USA
  10. Scooter59

    Scooter59 Forum Resident

    Location:
    North Shore, MA
    As You Like It - "All the world's a stage...."
    [​IMG]
     
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  11. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    Most Black Uhuru albums include his name in the credits
     
  12. DPK

    DPK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southeastern U.S.
    Guided by Voices- "Please Be Honest"
     
  13. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    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. :)
     
  14. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    Might have been written by the bard:

     
  15. stetsonic

    stetsonic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Finland
    To be or not to be
    That's the question unceasingly


    -Roky Erickson

    :righton:
     
  16. newpony

    newpony Well-Known Member

    Location:
    whitley bay
    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
     
  17. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    BOC’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” mentions Romeo & Juliet.

    And so does Ratt’s “Round and Round.”
     
  18. LeBon Bush

    LeBon Bush Hound of Love

    Location:
    Austria
    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.)
     
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  19. vudicus

    vudicus Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    " Ophelia drowned in the water, Crushed by her own weight".

    Jewel - Innocence Maintained.
     
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  20. tkl7

    tkl7 Agent Provocateur

    Location:
    Lewis Center, OH
    Rush - Limelight: "All the World's indeed a stage and we are merely players" is paraphrased from As You Like It.
     
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  21. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
  22. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Prince - Gold

    "And all that glitters ain't gold" (Merchant of Venice)
     
  23. bobc

    bobc Bluesman

    Location:
    France
    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
     
  24. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Let the Sunshine in (Hair)

    "The rest is silence" (Hamlet)
     
    bekayne likes this.
  25. Dodoz

    Dodoz Forum Resident

    Location:
    France


    My Vitriol "Infantile"

    "And if all the world's a stage, count me out of this play".
     

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