Best/Worst Life-of-a-Musician Songs

This came up in a thread.

Every musician eventually has to put out at least one, maybe more, songs about their life as a musician. Some bands do this on like their first album -- like Boston. First album, never really toured. They drop "Rock and Roll Band" on you.

It's a long way from Newton to Needham, I'll tell you what, brother.

What are the good ones, what are the bad ones?

Here are my nominees for good ones: "It's a Long Way to the Top" by AC/DC and "Life's Been Good" by Joe Walsh are, I think, the best.

Got someone who said Bob Seger's life-on-the-road "Turn the Page" is good. Ehhhh... I don't know about that.

Then there's Bad Company's "Shooting Star" and the Moody Blue's "I'm Just a Singer in a Rock-N-Roll Band." Pretty lame.

Rap does it too. RunDMC's "It's Tricky" is kind of the rap version of "It's a Long Way to the Top."

I think any band where the guys talk about buyin' their first real six-string qualify. Like... ugh, Bon Jovi's "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

I gotta figure that one quarter of country songs are about this. Like, one quarter of Johnny Cash's songs are about this, right? I don't know. I don't really know country.

Anyway, since I was young, I always sort of wanted to put a list together of these Life of a Musician self-referential I'm-out-of-other-subjects-to-write-about songs. If you could help, I'd appreciate it.

Sub-Category: Harry Parastes brings up Toby Keith's "How Do You Like Me Now?," which I would actually say is a sub-category of what I'm talking about -- the "I'm a Big Fat Success Now Baby" song.

Bruce Springsteen's "Rosalita" is this kind of song. But not really a "Life of a Musician" song. The true Life of a Musician song has to kind of complain about it and make it seem heroic that they manage to get on stage and play music every night for weeks at a time.

Another Subcategory: In another sub-category is the "These Music Industry Jagoffs Just Keep Tellin' Me I'm So Great But They Don't Mean a Word of It" song.

Richard Marx: "Don't Mean Nothin'"

Billy Squier: "Stroke Me"

Pink Floyd "Have a Cigar"

Update: As I suspected, the Carpenters had one. Sort of.

Well not really. It's a groupie song.

Another Category: The "Rock N Roll Will Change the World" Song.

Via DangerGirl, this is obviously the best one.

posted by Ace at 07:08 PM

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