Famous Men in Song

This was more challenging than I thought it was going to be when I came up with the idea. Plenty of songs have famous people named in them. I wanted to find songs that weren't just a one and done proposition, avoiding those that take minutes to get to the name. For example, I found four songs with Bob Dylan in the title, but I wasn't enamored with any of them. The closest for Dylan was Mr. Jones by The Counting Crows, but all he sings is, "I wanna be Bob Dylan" over three minutes in. I wanted the men to either be the topic or to at least have more than one mention. Some of these may be a close call, but since this is my piece, I get to choose!

I ended up with an even dozen songs. All of the men in my cover picture are included. Can you name them all before reading on? Enjoy!

Song Number 1 is James Dean by The Eagles. The song was written in 1972-3 but was shelved because it didn't fit the changed theme of their album Desperado. It was finished and released in 1974. It's a tribute to the life and death of American movie star James Dean.

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Song Number 2, Obama Song, is a cool reggae tune performed by Michael Franti and Spearhead, introduced in 1994. I have Michelle on the women's list, so it's only fair to include Barrack here.

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Song Number 3 is Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus, 1979. Lugosi was a Hungarian American actor known for playing the character Dracula in early black and white films. This one does have a rather long instrumental intro, but they do get around to the topic!

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Song Number 4 is Leonardo by Blessed Union of Souls, 1999. The Leonardo in question is Di Caprio, although the song does reference some other actors. I'll let you discover who they are by listening, if you're so inclined.

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Song Number 5 is Brian Wilson by The Barenaked Ladies, 1992. It was a tribute to the man of Beach Boys fame.

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Song Number 6 is Sweet Home Alabama, 1974, has an interesting backstory. Neil Young wrote two songs that were in his words "misconstrued." Southern Man and Alabama tackled such topics as racism, slavery, and Ku Klux Klan. Lynyrd Skynyrd's front man, Ronnie Van Zant, didn't much care for the dark picture and cheap stereotyping. He used it to fuel his own composition. Neil Young gets a proverbial slap in the face, musically speaking. Young did apologize and the two managed to find peace.

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Song Number 7, Man on the Moon, was written in 1992, primarily by Michael Stipes, with the assistance of his fellow REM band members. Although there are references to other famous people, it was written as a tribute to Andy Kaufman.

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Song Number 8, Robert De Niro's Waiting was performed by Bananarama in 1984. There's an amusing video of Robert De Niro getting aggravated listening to it, getting up, and scratching the record, quoting himself, "Are you talking to me?" and then walking off.

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Song Number 9 is Just Like Fred Astaire, 1999. If you don't know who that is, we can't be friends. Well, maybe, but you should look him up.

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Song Number 10, Steve McQueen, 2002, by Sheryl Crow (c0-written by John Shanks) is a fun tune.

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Song Number 11, Moves Like Jagger, 2011, performed by Maroon 5, is (of course) referring to Mike Jagger of The Rolling Stones. I like this video because you see his moves!

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Song number 12 is Buddy Holly, 1995 by Weezer. This also mentions Mary Tyler Moore, but the title is Buddy Holly, so I included it here. It's fun that they made it look like part of an episode of Happy Days.

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I hope you enjoyed this group of songs mentioning famous men as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Here's the link to my partner piece, Famous Women in Song: