The Age Old Question: A Podcast for Music Fans · Rich Price and Clint Bierman

What Is The Best Self-Reference By A Band?

April 18, 2024·58 min·3 clips

Steely Dan's “Showbiz Kids” includes “they got the Steely Dan t-shirts.”

Rich Price and Clint Bierman frame the episode around Mark's question about the best self-reference by a band in a song. They begin with Steely Dan's 'Showbiz Kids' and the line about the Steely Dan t-shirts. That is enough to get things moving. The question opens up fast. Clint says it felt small at first, then turned into one of those topics that keeps turning up better examples the more they look. That surprise is part of the charm. The conversation stays loose and friendly as they move through different examples and quick reactions. It never gets too serious. One of the best side trips is 'Everybody Have Fun Tonight' and the way the band name folds back into the lyric. They hear a verb in it. The hosts spend time on how odd that move feels, since it is not just a self-reference but a phrase that almost turns the band into an action. That is a nice trick. They also talk through the band's name and the odd path from pronunciation to identity, including the Geffen-era name change from Hwang Chung to Wang Chung. Even the name has a story. Steely Dan stays the anchor, though, and 'Showbiz Kids' keeps the episode tied to the original listener idea. That line gets its due. As the examples pile up, the episode becomes less about picking a winner and more about noticing how bands play with recognition, inside jokes, and fan memory. It keeps moving. The whole thing feels like two music fans working through the question in real time, with enough detours to uncover a few surprises along the way. It ends on a grin.

As heard by us

A playful music-fandom debate that keeps circling back to clever self-references.

The episode starts with Mark's Steely Dan question and turns it into a familiar music-fandom puzzle: what is the best self-reference by a band in a song?

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a clever, trivia-light rabbit hole about bands name-checking themselves in songs.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Age Old Question: A Podcast for Music Fans