What I've Learned

A song called I Put You There, written and performed by the wonderful female a cappella group, Mary Schmary, is a classic example of a self-referential song--that is, a song that refers to itself in the lyric.

In this song by Mary Schmary (I really like saying their name), self referencing begins with the opening words, "This is a song about me and this is a song about you."

The singer (okay, singers, but you know what I mean) is addressing the man of her dreams, who doesn't notice she exists.

"I could be dead for all you care," the Schmary sing, complaining that she could be standing on her head and he wouldn't even blink.

Self referencing crops up again with the words, "Here you are with me in my song."

And then, "You don't talk to me, you don't hear me, you don't smell me, and you don't see me, but you're in this here song with me ... you're in this here song with me 'cause I put you there."

I like Mary Schmary more than Elton John, but his hit, Your Song, is certainly a worthy example of self reference. "You can tell everybody this is your song"

And then there's Alice's Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie, which starts off, "This song is called Alice's Restaurant; it's about Alice ... and the restaurant ... But Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, it's just the name of the song ... That's why I call the song Alice's Restaurant ... ."

Fire and Rain, by James Taylor, says, "I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song. I just can't remember who to send it to."

Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen, refers to its own chord sequence, "Well, it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, The minor fall and the major lift."

I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am, by Herman's Hermits, has a quick and funny bit of self reference, "Second verse, same as the first."

You're So Vain, by Carly Simon, bemoans paradoxically, "I'll bet you think this song is about you."

A subtle bit of self referencing happens in The Hippopotamus Song by the brilliant British duo, Flanders and Swann. "The hippo-po-tay-mus was no ignoramus and sang her this sweet serenade ... ," referring to the song's own delightful chorus of, "Mud, mud, glorious mud ... ."

Even the saddest love song ever, The Tennessee Waltz, refers to itself when it says, "Yes I lost my little darlin' the night they were playing the beautiful Tennessee Waltz."

I told you all that so I could tell you this.

I saw a quote recently that said, "Art is something that when you see it, it makes you want to be creative."

How true, I thought. Art – painting, drawing, writing, composing, singing, dancing – not only inspires us with its beauty, but engenders in us a desire to create.

I've seen it in my own life. Years ago, I was tickled by The Song That Never Ends, which became the closing theme of Lamb Chop's Play-Along, a televised puppet show on PBS

At the time, I wasn't aware of the idea of self reference in a song. I just knew I liked The Song That Never Ends and wanted to write something similar, something that would circle back on itself and endlessly repeat. And so I wrote a little ditty called Sing Yourself This Song.

The lyric, in its entirety, goes, "It isn't very pretty and it isn't very long, but if you want to I would let you sing yourself this song. It's the song that I sing no matter where I'm at. I go ahead and sing it, even though I know that ... "

And around and around it goes.

Later on when I learned about self reference in songs, I laughed to realize I'd written just such a song myself. And why had I written it?

Because art makes you want to be creative, that's why.