10. Sally Oldfield, “Song of the Lamp.” Sung with such extraordinary range and sweetness that it could shatter a lamp. Interchangeable with Stevie Nicks’ Blue Lamp (“I had looked everywhere but the only lamp left on in the house
Was a blue light, a blue light”) for winsome wandering and waiting metaphors.
9. “Sushi Lamp Song.” There’s this video game, Shadows of the Damned, in which one of the achievements is to “shoot a sushi lamp.” The instrumental accompaniment to that accomplishment can be heard here: http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/showthread.php?t=336661
8. Lamps figure in countless Christian songs, from Godspell to country and western to the folk classic “Give me oil in my lamp.”
7. Genie of the Lamp, Mac Dre. “I don’t fuck with it if it don’t bear the stamp/
I’m thizzlamic the genie of the lamp.” Not Islamic, mind you, but Thizzlamic.
6. Lady With the Lamp, Country Joe McDonald, featuring Jerry Garcia on guitar. About Florence Nightingale. “She is the soldier’s friend.”
5. “Lamplight,” David Essex. Flip side of the original “Rock On,” and one of the songs which rather unfairly got Essex tagged as a Dr. John rip-off.
4. “Lamp,” Bump of Chicken. The first single from the Japanese rock band, it later appeared on their second album The Living Dead.
3. “Leaning By the Lamppost,” composed by Noel Gay. It’s been heard in a George Formby movie, a Herman’s Hermits album and the Broadway musical Me and My Girl. And it sounds exactly the same every time—a chipper comic relationship song. Not that you could turn it into a ballad or torch song too easily.
2. Lava Lamp, Duran Duran. “I’d love to turn you on.” Seriously. From the Pop Trash album.
- She’s got a flex comin’ out of her head
Stands in the corner, or she sits by the bed
She’s got a bulb in her mouth and switch in her legs
That’s why the lady is a lamp.
— The Consultants, one of the funniest British comedy troupes of the past decade. BBC Radio 4 Extra rebroadcast this episode last week and I must have rewound and listened to it a few dozen times. So funny it inspired me to create a list of Songs About Lamps.