Music about food

[davebr]

Recently I have been noticing plenty of food references in music, what is everyone's favorite reference?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Not recent but a classic:

Food Glorious Food from Oliver

Food, glorious food!

We're anxious to try it.

Three banquets a day --

Our favourite diet!

Just picture a great big steak --

Fried, roasted or stewed.

Oh, food,

Wonderful food,

Marvellous food,

Glorious food.

Kisses Sweeter than Wine by the Weavers

[GG Mora]

This old porch is like a steaming, greasy plate of enchiladas

with lots of cheese and onions and a guacamole salad

and you can get'em down at the Lasalle Hotel in old downtown

with iced tea and a waitress and she'll smile every time.

– Lyle Lovett

I suspect this has been done here before. To death. But it's always fun to start a new one.

Edit: I never could figure out how a porch could be like a greasy plate of enchiladas but, well, that's extended metaphors for you.

Edited August 13, 2004 by GG Mora (log)

[tommy]

'Got more chunk than a fresh potato salad' - Big & Rich

absolutely horrible.

Edit: I never could figure out how a porch could be like a greasy plate of enchiladas but, well, that's extended metaphors for you.

clearly your porch has never had "lots of cheese and onions and a guacamole salad".

Edited August 13, 2004 by tommy (log)

[bloviatrix]

As I came to this thread Wilco's Theologians is on the radio. In it is the line I'm a cherry ghost. Now, I have no idea what a cherry ghost is, but it sounds pretty cool.

[Mayhaw Man]

Louis Jordan's 1949 Decca version of "Chicken ain't nothing but a bird"

You can boil it, roast it, broil it

Put it in a pan or pot

Brown it!

Eat it with potatoes, rice or tomatoes

Chicken is still what you got, boy

[balmagowry]

Meself, I like Cab Calloway's irresistible rendition.

(I wrote an article once about this felicitous pairing - food and music, that is. Called "Brindisi," it was one of the most trivial casualties of the 9/11 attacks; the publication had to scale back its operation for a while, and unfortunately that meant paying me off and dropping the food feature. They're back on deck now, so now I think of it I should see about placing the piece again - it was a fun one I must say.)

"I Hear the Voice of a Pork Chop Calling" is an old favorite of mine, if a bit PI. Then there's always "The Roast Beef of Old England" and its ilk; not to mention "God, That's Good!" and "A Little Priest" (three times through the grinder, don't you know...) - but I think "Bread and Gravy" would have to be my pick.

Edited August 13, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[balmagowry]

Now would be a great moment for someone to do a revival of Lee Hoiby's opera "Bon Appetit."

[eunny jang]

Highlights:

I'm movin' to the country...

I'm gonna eat me a lot of peaches

...

Nature's candy in my hand

or a can, or a pie

...

Millions of peaches

peaches for me

Millions of peaches

peaches for free

[VeryApe77]

The first one that comes to mind is that Outkast line from Aquemini -

"...street scholars that majoring in culinary arts/You know how to work that bread, cheese, and dough..."

[FistFullaRoux]

Travis Tritt's "A Great Day To Be Alive" talks about cooking rice (in the microwave, but who cares) and making some homemade soup.

Robert Earl Keen goes hunting his Five Pound Bass fueled by coffee and a honey bun.

Paul Sanchez from Cowboy Mouth was sitting in the square dripping chili on himself.

Would someone please get that damn cake out of the rain? Ms Ross has been bitvhing about it for a half-hour now.

Little Milton said that Grits Ain't Groceries, but I disagree

And don't forget that the guy from Digital Underground who "Once got busy in a Burger King bathroom..." but I'm not sure if that counts.

I now have Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger in Paradise running through my head.

[Laksa]

Lately, Diana Krall has revived it. I just saw her perform this last month and it was great!

She is great, isn't she? I saw her in June at the PNC Bank Arts Center. Too bad no "Frim Fram Sauce" or "Peel me a grape".

[mongo_jones]

ween once advised, "don't shit where you eat, my friend". this, i think, is generally sound. but you can always trust all culinary advice from an album titled "chocolate and cheese".

edit to add:

and then there's the hilarious "carne asada" on "the pod"--perhaps the most bizarre series of restaurant orders ever taken. on the same album there's another song titled, "pork roll, egg and cheese".

also on the brilliant "buenos tardes amigo" on "chocolate and cheese", a great spaghetti western song in which a man is describing his plans of revenge to his intended victim, there occur the following lines:

"i went to every fiesta,

for you i wanted to greet,

maybe i'd sell you a cheecken,

with poison interlaced with the meat"

Edited August 13, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[hannnah]

Two of my favorites -

"Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes

What'd life be without home grown tomatoes

There's only two things that money can't buy

That's true love and home grown tomatoes."

-- Guy Clark, Home Grown Tomatoes

"Barbeque sliced beef and bread

Ribs and sausage and a cold Big Red

Barbeque makes old ones feel young

Barbeque makes everybody someone

If you're feelin' puny and you don't know what to do

Treat yourself to some meat - eat some barbeque."

-- Robert Earl Keen, Barbeque

[Laksa]

Peeled grapes are such a luxury -- plump and slippery with escaping juices now the peel is off. Oohhh...

I wonder what it would be like to sleep on a pillow made from peach fuzz.

[GG Mora]

I wonder what it would be like to sleep on a pillow made from peach fuzz.

Itchy.

[tanabutler]

Southern Culture on the Skids! Their second album (which should shoot to the top of the eGullet charts when I post its name), Too Much Pork for Just One Fork (later retitled (??) Dirt Track Date) contains the hit song, "Eight-Piece Box," an anthem for fried chicken lovers everywhere. Other hits (on various albums) include "Fried Chicken and Gasoline," "Banana Pudding," and a song ("Camel Walk") with the line, ""Baby? Will you eat that there snack cracker in your ... special outfit for me? Please?"

Culinary references include: a bag of stale Fritos, corn liquor, "Pours herself a drink of gin/She likes the booze cause it keeps her thin," and "Spent my afternoon/With a bottle of wine/Now I’m creepin along/Like a kudzu vine."

And last, where would we be without an ode to the possum (from the album, Plastic Seat Sweat)?

"The best darn eatin in the whole southern land/well that possum meat is just all right by me/always so red and always so sweet."

A quote from the Dallas Observer:

The Carolina-based band's repertoire reveals an appreciation for the role of food in Southern life--"Mexy Melt," "Banana Puddin,'" "Tunafish Every Day," "Carve That Possum," "8 Piece Box," "Fried Chicken and Gasoline"--as well as other aspects of life with a drawl: "Roll Another Number (for the Road)" (as Uncle Dave Bacon and Toxic Pig Fuck), "Moonshine Martinis," "Girlfight," "Shotgun," "$5 Shoes," "Roadside Wreck," and the endearing "Put Your Teeth up on the Window." They also have a keen sense of history, which they revealed with their cover of the classic Jeannie C. Riley cheese-nugget "Daddy was a Preacher, Mamma was a Go-Go Girl."

My interview with SCOTS, circa 1996.

[Mayhaw Man]

Alright you kids! Straighten up before I make you go cut a switch!

This is a recurring and very popular topic on eGullet and it looks like you guys would have learned by now-Please take the time to review The eGullet Copyright and Fair Use Document.

It was crafted by some of the finest legal minds.....(well, they ARE lawyers and they do have MINDS so there is some potential there, but you never know ) around and we would really appreciate it if you would try to adhere to it as you make your music related posts.

Posting a verse is one thing, posting an entire song (credited or not) is something else entirely. The best way to go about this is to post a verse or a line and then LINK to the entire song if you feel that is called for.

Like this:

Louis Jordan, a native of the Delta from Brinkley, AR., the man who took swing and turned it into what was to become Rock and Roll, wrote a number of songs that either directly or indirectly (often as a euphamism for something else that has been popular for even longer than food ) involve food and food related topics.

Jordan's Saturday Night Fish Fry is a great example of a song that involves some of my favorite subjects-parties, food, women, drinking, and entertaining but ill advised behavior:

LITTLE MOE:

Now the women was screamin' and jumpin' and yellin'

the bottles was flyin' and the fish was smellin'

and way up above all the noise they made

somebody hollered

BIG MOE:

"Better get outta here, it's a raid!"

Like that. See what I mean?

Carry on.

[tanabutler]

Whew, I didn't break the rules. I wuz afraid I wuz gonna get in trouble for saying, "Toxic Pig Fuck," but then I realized you'd know I was quoting the upcoming autobiography, Anthony Bourdain: My Early Years.

[Squeat Mungry]

How can we forget the utter blather yet sheer brilliance of Toto Coelo:

Chorus:

I eat cannibals, feed on animals

Your love is so edible to me

I eat cannibals

I eat cannibals, it's incredible

You bring out the animal in me

I eat cannibals

. . .

Roast it, toast it, you're the one I'm boasting

Eat me, eat you, incredibly delicious too

Gourmet, flambe, serve you up an entrée

In-take, home baked, you're the icing on the cake

Relive the magic here.

And of course Wall of Voodoo's classic line:

wish I was in Tijuana

Eating barbequed iguana

Mexican Radio

Cheers,

Squeat

[JennotJenn]

And don't forget that the guy from Digital Underground who "Once got busy in a Burger King bathroom..." but I'm not sure if that counts.

It's Humpty Hump, and does it matter if it counts or not? After all, he'll drink the bottle Hennessy you got on the shelf (so just let me introduce myself). He'll also eat up all your crackers and your licorice. And he likes his oatmeal lumpy.

editing to say he'll eat your crackers and licorice. It's his nose that's like a pickle.

Edited August 13, 2004 by JennotJenn (log)

[tryska]

hmm....does cherry pie count?

and *lol*@JennotJenn

[haresfur]

The Christmas and other December holiday season is very food and very music oriented. December 21 is designated Gravy Day in Australia, after this Paul Kelly song. Sorry I'm late.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2025 by Smithy
Removed first sentence at request of poster (log)

[patti]

 

[patti]