Pun Based Title / Music

• Daniel Amos: The song "Youth with a Machine" (from Doppelgänger) is a pun on the real-life group Youth With A Mission.
• Angry Snowmans are a band who perform Christmas/Holiday-themed song parodies of Punk Rock or Hardcore Punk songs: Their name is improperly pluralized because it makes the pun on hardcore punk band Angry Samoans more obvious. Somewhat similar is The Scrooges, a The Stooges cover band who perform in Santa suits and usually only get together around the holidays.
• Aural Exciters' "Emile (Night Rate)" is a drug song.
• Avenged Sevenfold has the song "Sunny Disposition" on The Stage, which doesn't refer to a bright mood but to radiation poisoning after a nuclear war.
• The charity fundraising collective Band Aid is a deliberate pun on the adhesive bandages. It was done without seeking permission, but the manufacturers didn't mind too much, given that the publicity was so positive.
• The Beatles, surely the most famous band with a pun-based name.
  • Please Please Me.
  • Also Rubber Soul, a pun on rubber soles in shoes and the phrase "plastic soul", which Paul McCartney found out was how some black entertainers called the white blues-rock of The Rolling Stones.
  • "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill", a pun on Buffalo Bill.
• Belle and Sebastian member Stevie Jackson gave a solo album the near-eponymous title (I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson, playing on The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".
• The Black Crowes' third album, Amorica. In case you're wondering, the formula is: America + amor ("love" in Spanish) = Amorica.
• The Bouncing Souls, playing off the trademark "bouncing soles" of Dr. Martens boots.
• David Bowie
  • The album Aladdin Sane and its Title Track play on the phrase "a lad insane."
  • In 1997, Bowie and his touring band played a handful of "secret shows" under the name Tao Jones Index, where they performed more experimental/Drum and Bass-style versions of Bowie's songs as inspired by remixes. The name was a pun combining the Eastern philosophical concept of tao (pronounced "dow"), the American stock market index known as the Dow Jones ^note possibly also an in-joke about "Bowie Bonds", and David Bowie's real name, David Jones.
• From Garth Brooks: Chris Gaines' fictional Fornucopia album, which is a portmanteau of "fornication" and "cornucopia".
• Numerous releases by Cex: The first album was titled Cells, as in "Sex sells", and there's also Shamaneater, Tall, Dark and Handcuffed, Role Playa ^note "role play" + "playa" in the hip-hop slang sense; he also released an album called Role Model earlier that year, Bataille Royale ^note French author Georges Bataille + Battle Royale, and Maryland Mansions ^note other than the phrase sounding like "Marilyn Manson", it's a nod to the artist being raised in Baltimore, Maryland
• Alex Chilton's album Bach's Bottom puns on his old band The Box Tops.
• Cracker's Greatest Hits Album / B-Side compilation Garage D'Or: "D'or" is Gratuitous French for "golden", making the title literally "Golden Garage", but "d'or" is pronounced similarly to "door", as in "garage door" - the front cover depicts the front of a small garage. It's probably also a self-effacing joke about them being closer to a garage band than one with many hits to speak of.
• The Cranberries were originally The Cranberry Saw Us (you know, like "the cranberry sauce"). Once vocalist Dolores O’Riordan joined, she convinced the others it was a particularly groanworthy pun and they shortened it to just The Cranberries.
• Dinosaur Jr.. have a song with the Non-Appearing Title "Lose" - the title does fit the tone of the lyrics, but it's probably also a nod to Lou Barlow getting to Step Up to the Microphone, since "Lose" is a homophone for "Lou's".
• Dischord Records, a Washington, D.C.-based independent label known for Hardcore Punk and later Post-Hardcore: A junction of "discord" (musical or otherwise) and "chord".
• Danish jazz saxophonist Candy Dulfer is known for the punny titles of her albums, including Saxuality, Sax-A-Go-Go, and Candy Store.
• Eminem's late-2010s tour was called the Rapture Tour, which he explained during the shows was really "Rap Shirt Tour" (pronouncing it to sound almost identical, in his signature word-warping rhyming style). The reason for this was that every time he appeared, it was in a shirt printed with a rap album that he loved and was inspired by; he would announce on stage that he did this in the hope that his young fans with no idea who these artists were would check the music out.
• "Sara Lee" by The Evens - the semi-title drop is "Not necessarily".
• Evile is a portmanteau of Evil and Vile.
• Satirical death metal band Faxed Head have a song called "Gore And Guts". Given the title and the genre, you'd expect a song involving gorn or a Shout-Out to the band Gorguts - it's actually about then-US-vice-president Al Gore, and his "guts", as in courage ("Albert Gore has the guts / to lead this nation of god damn nuts!")
• Four Tet followed up the album Pause with a remix EP called Paws: The two titles are of course homonyms.
• (G)I-DLE's song "$$$" (pronounced "Dollars) is a pun on the Korean word 달라 (dalla) meaning 'different. The song even samples a Google Translate reading of the English word.
• The Genesis albums Nursery Cryme and Selling England by the Pound.
  • One of Tony Banks' solo albums (and the band name he issued it under) is called Bankstatement.
  • Steve Hackett has at least a couple of solo tracks that make puns on his last name; his album Highly Strung has a track called "Hackett to Pieces", and a track he wrote as a member of the supergroup GTR is called "Hackett to Bits" (and was actually inspired by the former song).
• Let's face it: If your work is being scored by Michael Giacchino, he's bound to pepper the score's tracks with puns. Examples include:
  • "Here Today, Gone to Maui" (Lost: Season 3)
  • "Shang Way High" (Mission: Impossible III)
  • "I Gotta Beam Me" (Star Trek: Deluxe Edition)
  • "Pterodactyl Ptemper Ptantrum" (Land of the Lost)
  • "A Little Horse (s'il vous) Play" (Monte Carlo (2011))
  • "Thark Side Of Barsoom" (John Carter)
  • "Blunder And Lightning" (Cars 2)
  • "L'eggo My Eko" (Lost: Season 3)
  • "Cryo Your Heart Out" (Star Trek Into Darkness: Deluxe Edition)
  • "Monkey See, Monkey Coup" (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes)
  • "Indominus Wrecks" and "Nine To Survival Job" (Jurassic World)
    • This is Double Subverted for his Rogue One score. While the main titles are devoid of puns, the puns are still present as alternate track titles in the album.
• Gnarls Barkley, the project fronted by Cee Lo Green and Danger Mouse, is a pun on the name of basketball star Charles Barkley.
• God Lives Underwater has "Medicated to the One I Love", a pun on the late 50s soul ballad "Dedicated to the One I Love".
• Among the compositions Benny Goodman and his Orchestra recorded was a tune called "Six Flats Unfurnished", written in G-flat. That key has six flats, from which the title creates a pun with the "apartment building" definition of "flat".
• The score for Turning Red, written by Ludwig Goransson, has a track titled "Panda-monium".
• The Greg Kihn Band apparently really like making puns on Greg Kihn's last name. Their discography includes albums called Next of Kihn, Rockihnroll, Kihntinued, Kihnspiracy, Kihntagious and Citizen Kihn. Only three of their studio albums don't involve a freakihn' pun of some kind.
• The The Happy Fits EP called "Awfully Apeelin'" has a banana on the cover.
• The Happy Mondays album Uncle Dysfunktional. From that album, there's "Anti Warhole On The Dancefloor".
• Hepa-Titus (whose name is already a pun on "hepatitis" and possibly the Roman Emperor Titus) have a single with the title Don't Half A Cow. Aside from the expression "don't have a cow", the title references the fact that the A-side features half of the original lineup of the band Cows - the band's bassist is former Cows member Kevin Rutmanis, while former Cows vocalist Shannon Selberg makes a guest appearance.
• Kristin Hersh punned on her own name with the song title "Christian Hearse".
• Indie rock group Hippo Campus: The hippocampus is a part of the brain found in humans and other vertebrates; separating it into two words that way also brings to mind hippopotamuses and college campuses, which is likely intentional.
• Hum's album Fillet Show - also sort of an Intentionally Awkward Title.
• Ice Nine Kills are fans of this trope in both album (The Silver Scream) and song titles ("Enjoy Your Slay", "The Plot Sickens", "Tess-Timony", "Merry Axe-Mas", "Bloodbath & Beyond").
• Inverse Phase's Pretty Eight Machine is a Chiptune Cover Album of Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine using various 8-bit systems. Adding to the "eight" theme, the standard edition of the album used eight different systems, though a later "Special Edition" added three bonus tracks ^note alternate versions of two tracks from the NIN album, plus the B-Side "Get Down Make Love" and used two additional 8-bit systems. And finally, the artist sold compact discs of the album for $8.88.
• The IOSYS album Touhou Houmatsu Tengoku features the song Heartful Necromancer, a mix of Kaenbyou Rin's Leitmotif Be of Good Cheer and Michael Jackson's Thriller. In pronunciation and kana, however, the word is "neko Romancer," which also explains the lyrics.
• The Iron Maiden album Piece of Mind (which in turn was promoted with the "World Piece Tour"), and their song "Public Enema Number One". Also, the live albums Maiden England and Maiden Japan (also a pun on the Deep Purple live album Made in Japan).
• Jean-Michel Jarre's Les Chants Magnétiques: literal translation = "The Magnetic Songs", a pun on "champs magnétiques" = "magnetic fields". The album was released as Magnetic Fields in anglophone countries.
• Jimmie's Chicken Shack's album Pushing The Salmanila Envelope, playing off manila envelopes, salmonella, and the expression "pushing the envelope" - It loosely relates to the band name because consuming raw or under-cooked poultry can be a cause of salmonella. The album artwork features a drawing of lead singer Jimi Haha opening a small manila envelope full of chicken feathers.
• The band Joanna Gruesome named themselves as a pun on Joanna Newsom.
• John Wilkes Booze, a pun on Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth. Better yet, they were originally called The John Wilkes Booze Explosion, a pun on both John Wilkes Booth and the name of another band, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
• Kraftwerk's second electronic album is titled Radio-Activity, and indeed, it is not about radiation but about radio.
  • One of the songs on Radio-Activity is titled "Ohm Sweet Ohm".
  • Their debut album Kraftwerk has two songs named "Stratovarius" (a pun on Stradivarius violins) and "Megaherz" (a pun on megahertz that translates to "mega-heart").
• When La-La Land released Star Trek: The Original Series: Soundtrack Collection, among its many pleasures were some of the cue titles like "Go For Baroque" (from "The Conscience Of The King") and "Navel Maneuvers" (written for, but not heard in, "Wolf In The Fold"). What Michael Giacchino would have come up with had he been working on the original show - and being the greatest musical prodigy ever in the process, since he was just over a year old when the last episode to be scored ("Plato's Stepchildren," if you're wondering) premiered - we can only speculate.
• Led Zeppelin (kind of a pun on "lead" as in "you'll go down like a lead balloon", said by Keith Moon to Jimmy Page meaning It Will Never Catch On); actually it was changed to make the pronunciation unambiguous.
  • Their reggae parody "D'Yer Mak'er" is a pun on "Jamaica", but ultimately it's based on an old joke:
  My wife's gone to the West Indies.
  Jamaica?
  No, she went of her own accord.
  • And speaking of reggae, let's not forget the parody band Dread Zeppelin.
• Tendon Levey is noticeably fond of these. Examples include: "Kingdom Coma", "Romeo and Oubliette", "Vespal Virgin", "A Sucker is Gored Every Minute", "Carpe Demon", "Hive Sweet Hive", "A Throat By Any Other Name", "The Perfect Swarm", "Glitch Doctor", "Hard of Healing", "Life After Daath", and many others.
• The one-hit wonder band Lipps Inc. of "Funky Town" has a slightly self deprecating punny name if said aloud.
• Local H's "Bryn Mawr Stomp", combining the Led Zeppelin song title "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" with women's liberal arts college Bryn Mawr.
• The album Pure Heroine by Lorde refers both to a female hero and the drug.
• Four Sail by Love. When you combine the album title with the band's name you get "love four sail", or "love for sale".
• Kirsty MacColl's Electric Landlady, a pun on Jimi Hendrix's album Electric Ladyland. Amusingly enough, some misprinted early copies of Electric Ladyland actually did render the title as "Electric Landlady".
  • See also Electriclarryland by Butthole Surfers.
• Madonna's The Immaculate Collection is a pun on The Immaculate Conception, the Catholic belief that the Virgin Mary was born sinless so that she could conceive Jesus.
• Stephin Merritt's side project The Gothic Archies have a name that plays off Gothic architecture (as in "Gothic arches"), Goth Rock, and The Archies, the Fake Band associated with Archie Comics. The name fits with the music, which is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek cross between goth rock and bubblegum pop.
• Paul McCartney's Working Classical, punning on the Classical Music contained on the album and Paul's "working class" upbringing.
• Brian McNeill's second solo album Unstrung Hero (musical strings + "unsung hero").
• The Megadeth album and song Rust in Peace, a pun on "Rest in Peace".
• Michael Cera Palin, which is not a solo artist but a full band whose name is meant as a mashup of actor Michael Cera and politician Sarah Palin - it can also be construed as a reference to a third celebrity, Michael Palin, but this is apparently not something the group realized until they occasionally found themselves accidentally tagged in Facebook posts about Monty Python.
• The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste by Ministry^note a pun on "a mind is a terrible thing to waste", the slogan of the United Negro College Fund scholarship program. They're also fond of punning on classic rock album titles - see Rio Grande Blood, Houses of the Molé and Dark Side Of The Spoon. And they've even punned on their own album titles with a couple of remix albums: Rio Grande Dub Ya (referencing both the genre of dub and George W. Bush's nickname) and The Last Dubber (referencing their album The Last Sucker - already a pun on "the last supper" - and dub again)
  • Al Jourgensen is a fan of puns in general. Some of the tours he's done include the SphincTour, CliTourIs, FornicaTour, MasturBaTour, C-U-LaTour, LubricaTour, DefibrillaTour...
• Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" (which eventually became the album title), because it's one letter away from "Heir of the Dog", i.e. "son of a bitch" - a phrase prominently featured in the chorus, but the label wouldn't allow such an Intentionally Awkward Title.
• The Ned's Atomic Dustbin album God Fodder ("godfather"). Supposedly it was inspired by a pun made while the band were playing a round of Trivial Pursuit - one of the questions asked what "the food of the gods" was, and a member of the band jokingly gave the album title as their answer.
• Joanna Newsom released an EP called Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band - the EP was recorded with the backing band that toured with her in support of the album Ys (pronounced similarly to "ease"), and it's also a reference to Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band.
• Ninja Sex Party have two cover albums (with a third in the works) with the fan-suggested title of "Under the Covers". The cover art for Volume 1 emphasizes the pun by showing Danny and Brian sitting on top of a large bed with satin sheets. (Though that would technically make them ABOVE the covers...)
• The Nirvana records Hormoaning and Incesticide
  • Sonic Youth tried to out-pun them by calling an EP Whores Moaning.
• Origami Angel: GAMI GANG gives us "Noah Fence", which is about the singer doing his best to politely refuse converting to Christianity. The title sounds like "no offense".
• Pantera's Reinventing The Steel, playing off the expression "reinventing the wheel" and Judas Priest's British Steel.
• Parasites' debut album Pair Of Sides, playing off the band's name and the two "sides" of a record or cassette (the album was not initially released on CD, a format the pun wouldn't have worked for).
• The Preston School Of Industry's debut album All This Sounds Gas is a play on George Harrison's first post-Beatles solo album All Things Must Pass. Singer/guitarist Scott Kannberg might have been making a tongue-in-cheek comparison between Harrison and himself with that title: Kannberg typically only got to Step Up to the Microphone on one or two songs per Pavement album, much like most albums by The Beatles were dominated by Lennon/McCartney compositions.
• The Qemists' debut album Join the Q - "Q" as in the first letter of the group's name, but it's also meant to sound like "join the queue", meaning "get in line". Since it's largely a British expression, the joke can be lost on those outside the band's home country.
• Rasputina's "DwarfStar" is a pun on the celestial body
  He said he was a dwarfstar
  'Cause he was small
  And he was... famous
• When Brazilian band Ratos de Porão did a Cover Album, they named it with a pun on Guns N' Roses' fellow tribute album "The Spaghetti Incident?": Feijoada Acidente?
  • Also from that country, the band RPM, "Revolutions Per Minute" - meaning revolts instead of rotations (the latter is even the word that acronym has in Portuguese).
• The bagpipe-centered band Red Hot Chilli Pipers.
• Rush's Moving Pictures (Album) has lots of Visual Puns on its cover to be considered one twice over, since on the surface one would think it refers to movies, but the cover shows people carrying paintings out of a museum, as well as people crying or appearing otherwise emotionally affected—that is, moving the pictures out of the building, and also moved by the pictures.
  • A picture in the liner notes/booklet◊ shows that the action depicted on the album cover is being filmed, therefore making it a moving picture.
• Ty Segall's Ty Rex is a cover EP of T. Rex songs.
  • Segall Smeagol is a Harry Nilsson cover EP, referencing both Nilsson Schmilsson and The Lord of the Rings (Smeagol being Gollum's original name before he was corrupted by the One Ring).
• Silverstein's song "My Heroine" refers to both the sarcastically named female, and the drug.
  • Sleeping with Sirens used the pun as well.
• Alan Silvestri is not immune to this trope:
  • "Pair O’ Docs" (Back to the Future Part II)
  • If You Incest" (Reindeer Games)
• Sixpence None the Richer pulled this on their CD Divine Discontent with the song Still Burning... which came right after Waiting On The Sun. (And since the song is actually Waiting on the Sunshine it's very much intentional).
• The rock group Slade has an album called Slayed?. This was a reference to their frequent use of misspelt titles, eg "Take Me Bak 'Ome" and "Gudbuy T'Jane".
• Sparks:
  • Kimono My House is a pun on the title of the traditional pop song "Come on-a My House".
  • Angst in My Pants is a pun on "ants in my pants".
  • Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins is a play on "gratuitous sex and senseless violence". The individual songs "Gratuitous Sax" and "Senseless Violins" play the phrases literally.
• Sufjan Stevens:
  • "Come on Feel the Illinoise!" is a riff on the title of a Slade song, the word "noise", and the way "Illinois" is commonly mispronounced.
  • "The Seer's Tower" (referring to the Willis Tower, once known as the Sears Tower).
  • "Get Behind Me Santa", which is a riff of "Get Behind Me Satan" (both a phrase from the Bible and the title of a The White Stripes album).
• Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales initially just seems like a reference to The Canterbury Tales, but it's also a pun on his real name, Gordon Sumner.
• "Animal Nitrate" by Suede is a play on the drug amyl nitrate (and the animalistic nature of the protagonist's Fetishized Abuser).
• Road To Rouen by Supergrass, a pun on the expression "on the road to ruin" and Rouen, a city in France. It may also be a Shout-Out to the The Ramones' album Road to Ruin.
• System of a Down's hit single "Chop Suey!" (off of the album Toxicity) was originally called "Suicide". On the album version, you can even hear one of the members announcing "Rolling 'Suicide'" right before the song starts. However, they decided to change the title to make the single more radio-friendly, with "Suey!", of course, short for "Suicide".
• Teenage Fanclub's "Neil Jung", combining the names of Neil Young and Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung (pronounced "Yoong").
• Texan band The Texas Instruments named themselves after a technology company called Texas Instruments, also based in Texas. The pun is that applying that name to a band makes one think of musical instruments, not, say, graphing calculators.
• They Might Be Giants' Back To Skull EP, playing off the phrase "back to school": The EP was a companion piece to the album John Henry, which featured imagery of a human skull in its artwork (as does the EP itself), and it was released in mid-August, when stores tend to have their "back to school" promotions.
• This Heat's album Made Available: It's a collection of sessions they recorded for the BBC at Maida Vale Studios. They also punned on their own band name by calling another album Deceit.
• Lesbian punk band Tribe 8 have a name that plays off "tribade", which is an obsolete term for a lesbian, as well as tribadism, a specific lesbian sex act.
• The Turtles' much-sampled "I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're The Royal Macadamia Nuts)" has a punny title.
• The VAGIANT (now Tijuana Sweetheart) album Public Display of Infection.
  • Their old name also qualifies, being a junction of "vagina" (it's an all-girl band) and "giant".
• The Miller's Tale, a Tom Verlaine anthology, is based on the same pun as the Sting example.
• The Vampire Weekend song "Diane Young". (As in "Dying young".)
• Venus Infers named themselves as a pun on Venus in Furs, either in reference to the novel or the Velvet Underground song based on said novel.
• Videodrone's "Ty Jonathan Down": Spoken aloud it sounds like an imperative sentence ("tie Jonathan down"), but it's also a reference to the two singers featured on the recording: Jonathan Davis makes a guest appearance alongside the group's normal lead vocalist, Ty Elam. The music video adds a Visual Pun by including scenes where Jonathan and Ty are both depicted with their hands tied behind their back.
  • The band's name is a play on Videodrome.
• So far, Weedeater have done this with three out of their four album titles: ...And Justice for Y'all is a parody of Metallica's ...And Justice for All. God Luck and Good Speed is sort of a Spoonerism for "Good Luck and Godspeed", and also a likely reference to "speed" as in amphetamine. Jason... The Dragon is another drug pun, referring to "chasing the dragon".
• The Australian band X (not to be confused with the other X (US Band) or X Japan) released an album called Aspirations... As in "Exasperations".
• Christopher Young blazed a trail for Michael Giacchino in the Pun stakes. Observe:
  • "Grusin Twosome" (Bandits promo)
  • "Heist Society" (Entrapment)
  • "Music For Violence And Orchestra" (Swordfish promo)
  • "Jerry's Gold Myth" (The Power)
• Neil Young:
  • Le Noise is an album produced by Daniel Lanois, where the distorted guitar tone on most of the songs could be described as "noisy". The pun only works in print, since Lanois' surname is pronounced "lan-WAH".
  • There's also the anti-GMO Protest Song "A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop", playing off the phrase "rock star", Starbucks Coffee, and the verb "buck", meaning to resist.
• The title of Yes' 1978 Tormato album was a reference to Yes Tor, a Welsh geological formation where Hipgnosis shot the original album cover, and the tomato thrown by keyboardist Rick Wakeman at the picture when disappointed with the cover photo; the combined results made the final print◊.
• Frank Zappa has a few of those too:
  • "Aybe Sea" from Burnt Weeny Sandwich.
  • Zoot Allures, a pun on the French curse zut alors.
  • Sheik Yerbouti, a pun on Shake Your Booty by K.C. & The Sunshine Band.
  • "Dinah-Moe Humm" from Over-Nite Sensation: "I heard a Dinah-Moe humm", a pun on a humming dynamo.
  • "Manx Needs Women" from Zappa In New York is a pun on the film Mars Needs Women.
  • Läther — yes, the umlaut is important — is a twofold pun, being spelled identically to "lather" but pronounced identically to "leather." The two different covers for the album play into the different ends of this wordplay, with the initial 1996 release depicting a cow (which leather is typically derived from) and the 2012 remaster depicting Zappa covered in lather.
• Roy Zimmerman's song "Limbaugh (How Low Can You Go?)", referring to a) the limbo and b) Rush Limbaugh.
• The Christmas benefit album Maybe This Christmas was followed by Maybe This Christmas Too? and Maybe This Christmas Tree. The latter is a labored enough pun that it doesn't make a lot of sense if you don't know it's the third in a series.
• Give Me the Cure was a Cover Album featuring bands from Washington, D.C. covering the Cure, the proceeds of which went to benefit AIDS research. Aside from the general idea of covering songs by the Cure to help cure a disease, "Give Me The Cure" was also the title of a song by Fugazi, one of the most famous bands to come out of D.C.'s independent music scene.
• Zucchero: Two of his albums are titled in this fashion:
  • Oro, Incenso & Birra ("Gold, Frankincense & Beer") is a pun on Oro, Incenso e Mirra (Mirra meaning "Myrrh").
  • Spirito DiVino, thanks to the CamelCase, can be read as either Spirito Divino ("Holy Spirit") or Spirito di Vino ("Spirit of Wine").

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