Block rockin' eats: 22 of our favorite songs that reference food

We’ll always associate “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” with the 1988 Tim Burton film “Beetlejuice,” but the song was actually first recorded decades earlier. Harry Belafonte’s 1956 version is the most well-known recording—and the one used in “Beetlejuice”—which makes sense, as it’s a traditional Jamaican work song, and Belafonte is one of the most successful Jamaican-American musicians of all time.

Warren Zevon’s most famous song, 1978’s “Werewolves of London,” opens on a lycanthrope with a Chinese menu in his hand: “He was looking for the place called Lee Hȯ Fȯoks / For to get a big dish of beef chow mein.” Beef chow mein is similar to beef lo mein, but while the latter uses thicker, boiled noodles, the former uses thinner, parboiled noodles.

“Weird Al” Yankovic has a bunch of songs about food—songs like the Michael Jackson parodies “Eat It” and “Fat” are full of ‘em. But we’re going with Al’s first hit, “My Bologna,” which is of course a parody of The Knack’s 1979 song “My Sharona.”

“Cake by the Ocean,” the DNCE song that lit up the airwaves (or Internet) in 2015, really makes us crave dessert. It talks about eating this sweet dessert on the beach and consuming frosting on your fingers…but it turns out the whole thing is actually just a metaphor for making love.

Can there be a more perfect combination than a cheeseburger in paradise, the subject of Jimmy Buffett’s hit song “Cheeseburger in Paradise”? And Jimmy’s burger sounds particularly appetizing, as he says, “I like mine with lettuce and tomato / Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes / Big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer.” Okay, we stand corrected: A cheeseburger AND a beer in paradise is the perfect combination.

“She’s my cherry pie / Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise” are the opening lines to Warrant’s 1990 single “Cherry Pie.” Of course, the narrator is just using cherry pie as a metaphor for a particularly attractive woman—which the steamy music video makes very clear.

The 1979 hip-hop song “Rapper’s Delight” is most famous for lyrics like: “Hip-hop, hippie to the hippie, to the hip-hip-hop and you don't stop,” and so on. But the song has a plethora of other lyrics—the full version is nearly 15 minutes long, after all—including a verse about going over to a friend’s house and eating terrible food. The dinner menu at the friend’s house includes chicken that “tastes like wood,” and is later “slowly rotting into something that looks like cheese.”

Bob Marley once sang about living in Trenchtown (a neighborhood in Kingston, Jamaica), building a fire, and cooking cornmeal porridge, “Of which I'll share with you.” These lyrics of course come from Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1974 classic “No Woman No Cry.”

“Brown Sugar” might be the most obvious Rolling Stones food, but we’re going with a more literal, non-metaphorical example: frozen steak. We could have also gone with cake, as the line from the Stones’ 1966 song “Mother’s Little Helper” is: “So she buys an instant cake, and she burns a frozen steak / And goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper.”

“Ice Cream Man” is a song about a guy willing to do anything to impress his love interest, and he expresses the fact that he has the hots for her by offering some metaphorical cold treats. The song was included on Van Halen’s 1978 self-titled debut album and is actually a cover of a tune written by blues guitarist John Brim in 1953, although it wasn’t released until 1969.

Hank Williams’ 1952 song “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” mentions numerous foods, including crawfish pie and gumbo, but we’ll go with the namesake jambalaya here. We want to be sure to credit Williams as the original artist, as this Cajun-themed tune has also been covered by Elvis, Garth Brooks, Fats Domino, John Fogerty, Harry Connick Jr., The Carpenters, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

“Could we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear, mummy dear? / They got to have 'em in Texas, 'cause everyone's a millionaire.” That’s the beginning of the second verse of Supertramp’s 1979 song “Breakfast in America,” which is about a British youth who dreams of a lavish life in the United States—albeit a somewhat inaccurate one.

A rock lobster isn’t a crustacean that’s into rock and roll—it’s an actual variety of seafood. It’s also a 1978 song by the new wave band The B-52s, and one of their most popular songs. Among other sea life, the song also mentions a dogfish, a catfish, a piranha, and a narwhal. 

“Millions of peaches, peaches for me / Millions of peaches, peaches for free.” How can we not use this 1995 song from the Presidents of the United States of America? We chose it not just because it’s all about peaches, eating peaches, and canned peach production, but because it uses the word “peaches” about 40 times in total. And it was nominated for a Grammy!

The 1967 hit “Incense and Peppermints” epitomizes the psychedelic ‘60s, as does the name of the band that made it famous: Strawberry Alarm Clock. Boomers will no doubt remember the trippy tune as a former Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song, and younger generations might recognize it from the nightclub scene at the beginning of “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.”

Alice Cooper is a hungry man, but he “don’t want pizza”—at least according to his 1992 single “Feed My Frankenstein,” which is actually a cover of a Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction song recorded a year prior. And to make a second consecutive Mike Myers reference: movie fans might remember this song as the one Alice Cooper plays in the comedy “Wayne’s World.”

“Back Door Man,” off of The Doors’ self-titled 1967 debut album, includes the lyrics: “You men eat your dinner, eat your pork and beans / I eat more chicken than any man ever soon.” Since we already mentioned chicken in this list, the entry goes to pork and beans

The ghostly chorus of “We don’t need no education” is the most memorable part of Pink Floyd’s three-part 1979 composition “Another Brick in the Wall,” but a close second is the spoken section in the song’s second part. In this anti-corporal punishment anthem, an adult admonishes a child by saying: “If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding / How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?” Keep in mind, the British use “pudding” for a number of different desserts!

The Beatles’ far-out 1967 classic “Strawberry Fields Forever” paints a psychedelic picture with words, and it all centers on delicious fields of fruit. Beatles fans can visit a real place called Strawberry Fields, a 2.5-acre section of Central Park that was dedicated to John Lennon on October 9, 1985—which would have been his 45th birthday. However, the actual Strawberry Field that inspired the name of the song was a former children’s home located in Woolton, England, a suburb of Liverpool.

Def Leppard’s most iconic song, 1988’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” contains a reference to the sweet substance right in the title, as well as numerous other mentions, including the question: “Do you take sugar? One lump or two?” Of course, the whole thing is a metaphor for getting physical, but it’s still a must on this list.

“Down Under” was first released in 1980 by Men at Work, a band that is, in fact, from Australia. The song talks of the various adventures of a globe-trotting Australian, including an incident where the narrator meets a tall man in Belgium and asks if they speak the same language. “And he just smiled,” the song says, “and gave me a vegemite sandwich.” Vegemite is a popular spread in Australia that is made from brewers’ yeast extract.

Beastie Boys’ debut album, 1986’s “License to Ill,” contains a handful of references to the mini-burger chain White Castle. “Girls” (“From White Castle to the Nile”) and “Hold It Now, Hit It” (“I got the ladies of the eighties from here to White Castle”) both use it as a measure of distance. “The New Style” (“I chill at White Castle 'cause it's the best”) and “Slow Ride” (“We went to White Castle and we got thrown out”) both talk about spending time at the restaurant. But the only song that actually mentions a food item from the fast-food restaurant is “Slow and Low”: “We got determination—bass and highs / White Castle fries only come in one size.”