Waxing Lyrical / Web Original

• The Angry Video Game Nerd:
  • In his first Ghostbusters game review, he pondered why you're capturing ghosts if they're not harming anything, and asks: "Because busting makes you feel good?", a line from the Ghostbusters theme song.
  • This happens with the show's own Theme Tune in "AVGN: Christmas Carol":
    Nerd: Why are you seeing me?
    Ghost of Christmas Past: To take you back to the past!
    Nerd: To play some shitty games that suck ass? No thanks.
  • Also, from the Tiger Electronics episode: "Yeah, this Tiger sure rose up to the challenge of its rivals, had the guts, got the glory, went the distance, now it's not gonna stop! It's literally a survivor!"
• A frequent gag including Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. Including:
  Marik: Let's see how you like my Cage of Doom!
  Yami: Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.
  
  Vic Mignogna: Let's dance!
  Yami: I don't feel like dancing. No sir. No dancing today.
  
  Téa: We didn't start the fire! It was always burning since the world's been turning!
  • And another one, from Episode 36, that then turns into BGM:
    Yugi: Hey, Joey, how'd it come to this? I mean, after all we've been through? Two of a pair, now on opposite sides.
    Joey: Yeah, from the very start with honor we've dueled 'n stuff. Watched each other’s backs and, you know, battled with pride.
    Yugi: We’re closer than brothers. And now we have to fight each other.
    Yugi and Joey, singing: And we trust our fate to the heart of the cards!
    Tristan: No matter what!
    Yugi and Joey, singing: Let the game begin.
    Tristan: No matter what!
    Yugi and Joey, singing: May the best man win.
    ^note Kaiba: (I love this song)
• Any time Rickrolling comes up in an Internet discussion, there's a good chance that someone will mention how Rick Astley's never gonna give you up and never gonna let you down. You wouldn't get it from any other guy. It's now possible to recite lines that are simply a similar form of exaggeratedly romantic promises, and get your audience to Rickroll themselves.
• The Descendants loves this. To date, it's used "Hurt" by Trent Reznor, "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads and "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones.
  • The "Sympathy for the Devil" one is arguable because the characters were quoting the Show Within a Show.
• In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, when describing the Astral Knights, the Emperor says that they were "...the best around. Nothing was ever gonna keep them down.", quoting the "You're the best" song from The Karate Kid.
• Unskippable's Grandia III episode:
  • As far as I know, there's only been one.
  • Singular sensation.
• An episode of ENN (LoadingReadyRun's Daily Show-style gaming news show that eventually became Checkpoint) has the newsreaders reciting the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
• This News Biscuit article, "Mild alarm caused by kung fu fighting outbreak" ("it was a little bit frightening" said one witness)
• Homestar Runner:
  • In a really old version of the character page, Marzipan's description stated that "She loves horses and her boyfriend, too."
  • "3 Times Halloween Funjob" has Strong Sad dressing up like David Byrne, and sure enough, there's an Easter Egg with the inevitable reference to the lyrics of "Once In A Lifetime".
    Coach Z: Well, Strong Sad, this is a beautiful house you got here.
    Strong Sad: This is not my beautiful house!
    Coach Z: Oh, and I haven't been introduced to your beautiful wife yet, neither.
    Strong Sad: This is not my beautiful wife!
  • In the Strong Bad Email "cliffhangers", Strong Bad's eventual response (after some Literalist Snarking) to a request to "resolve all the cliffhangers, please" is "You say you want a resolution, huh?"
  • In Teen Girl Squad Issue #14, Quarterman quotes some lines from "What I've Been Looking For" when he tells The Ugly One, "All this time I was looking around, and you weren't right there in front of me. But I realized... when I was looking around... that you were right there in front of me... all this time...".
    The Ugly One: (excited) That makes so much sense!
  • In "A Decemberween Mackerel", Homestar is so turned off at the thought of helping Senor Cardgage, that he leaves for Marzipan's house. As he does this, he references "Winter Wonderland" by telling Marzipan "Later on, we'll conspire."
  • The last update to the site (until April Fools' Day of 2014, at least) was a "Decemberween costume special" that had The King of Town dressed up as Heat Miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus. When Homestar confused it for a "Devil Don King", he was corrected, followed by the KOT saying "I'm Mister Heat Blister, I'm Mister Hundred and One!"
  • "Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold", an unfinished sequel to their original children's book, features a flying competition involving strapped-on wings. After Homestar's teammate Mr. Bland is put out of commission, he drafts Strong Sad onto the team saying "Take these broken wings and learn to fly!" a line from both "Blackbird" by the Beatles and "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister. When this was adapted into a cartoon, two alternate takes were added where the line is swapped out first for "You've got to fly, fly to the angels" ("Fly to the Angels" by Slaughter) and then "You're motoring! What's your price for flight?" ("Sister Christian" by Night Ranger).
  • In "Mr. Poofers Must Die", Strong Sad starts making a series of references to Dinosaur Jr. albums, in reference to Marzipan dressing as lead singer J. Mascis. Strong Bad complains that no one else gets the reference, and Marzipan says that while she gets the joke, it's not very funny.
• Whenever someone on a message board or any sort of site says something that also happens to be the lyrics to a song, the next few posts are usually continuations of the lyrics.....
• Linkara tends to do this quite a lot, most often when a comic's dialogue gives him a decent opening. This is usually an excuse to play the song, no matter how otherwise irrelevant, over the opening title card or closing credits. He will also occasionally play a clip from the song immediately after reciting the verse if he thinks viewers might not get the reference. He seems to know an awful lot of songs.
• After a chapter of Dive Quest that's been particularly harrowing for both of them on a personal level, Tislomer and Babrakus start reciting lines from the Dropkick Murphys' "Forever".
• In Suburban Knights, some of The Nostalgia Chick 's elven montages feature lyrics to 'One Week' by Barenaked Ladies and Bad Romance by Lady Gaga.
• Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG:
  390. My character's background must be more in-depth than a montage of Queen lyrics.
• In the DVD-R Hell review of Bibleman, archvillain Doctor Insano delivers a "We Will Meet Again" speech from behind bars.
  Beware, Bibleman — There's a new scientist in the neighborhood! Lives downstairs, and it's understood!
• Mr. Mendo does this a lot, usually as a Couch Gag. At various times, he's introduced himself as:
  Your fantabulous host who works harder with a gun in his back for a bowl of rice a day, who's got a double mission with evil at its worst, who can fill you with real millionaire shit..., etc.
• TV Trash's The Rowdy Reviewer does this when reviewing The Groovenians. After a character says "Tomorrow is another day", he follows it up with "And I'm thirsty anyway, so bring on the rain."
• In Death Note: The Abridged Series (kpts4tv) Da Chief declares "I won't let you down... or give you up... but I might run and round and desert you."
• Nobody Here: The description for "Lost" reads "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for", a reference to the Music/U2 song of the same name.
• The Nostalgia Critic concludes his review of Jingle All the Way with this, as a threat to Santa:
  Critic: You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I'm telling you why. THE NOSTALGIA CRITIC IS COMING TO YOUR HOUSE!
• Happens occasionally in Todd in the Shadows' videos, usually using lyrics from the song he's reviewing.
  • In "OMG" and "The Top 10 Best Songs of 2010", he hits on Lupa with terrible song lyrics ("OMG" itself and "Sexy Bitch" in the former, "Carryout" in the latter).
  • To push the joke on "Born This Way" and "Express Yourself" being considered too similar, he advises Lady Gaga by saying that a wise person once said, "Don't go for second best baby, put your love to the test".
  • He closes a U2 top 5 with "I'm Todd in the Shadows, and I still haven't found what I'm looking for".
  • "I mean, you'd think people would have had enough of silly love songs."
  • "Levine, get off of his cloud!"
  • He begins his review of "We Are Young" and "Somebody That I Used to Know" by quoting the former's opening lyrics: "Give me a second. I... I need to get my story straight."
  • In His "Top 10 Best Songs of 2013" video, Kyle convinces Todd to get over his depressive stupor and go on with the show by telling him to "be the best... hooded silhouetto of a man that you can be!"
    • From the same video, when discussing Gotye's failure to get any further publicity after "Somebody That I Used to Know" became a #1 hit, he admonishes the public: "You didn't have to cut him off!"
    • A partial example when he's describing "Some Nights" by fun. — he asks "What is this song about? What is this song about?" in a manner deliberately imitating the song's "What do I stand for? What do I stand for?" and immediately cuts to the next line, "Most nights, I don't know."
  • When introducing Justin Timberlake in his review of "Suit and Tie"/"Thrift Shop", Todd asks, "You ready, JT?", just as Timbaland does in "Suit and Tie".
  • In the "Worst Hit Songs of 2013" video, he says that the "bros" who have overtaken country music in 2013 are "not here for a long time, just a good time."
  • In his "Talk Dirty" review, when he realizes Jason Derulo has still been having hits, he states that it's "not a come back, he's been here for years".
  • When introducing "Show Me" in his Worst Hit Songs of 2014 video, he comments that the song reminds him of something, but he doesn't know what it is.
  • Also in the Worst of 2014 video, when discussing Jason Derulo's "Trumpets," particularly that the subject's eyes remind him of a Coldplay song, Todd responds with, "...they were all yellow?"
  • In his "Best Hit Songs of 2015" video, before introducing "Wildest Dreams," he comments that Taylor Swift romanticizing a sustained relationship is hard to believe because "she goes on too many dates" but "can't make them stay." At least, "that's what people say". Also, while discussing "FourFiveSeconds," he says that the song carries the sentiment of "It's the freakin' weekend, baby, I'm about to have me some fun!"
  • Todd sums up "Scars to Your Beautiful"'s underlying message as "you are beautiful no matter what they say, words can't bring you down."
  • The One Hit Wonderland review of "How Bizarre" had That Dude in the Suede saying that by growing up in a New Zealand very proud in having a worldwide hit, the song was inescapable, "I mean, it's like every time I look around, there it was, in my face."
• Brows Held High:
  • In Anatomy: "She gets unimpressively naked and lets you know what it feels like for a girl. Lets you know what it feels like in this world for a girl."
  • In Zardoz, "They're all, 'Oh, I am immortal. I have inside me blood of kings' and 'Here we are. Born to be kings, we're the princes of the universe.'". Kyle lampshades shortly later. (specially as he had already used "Who Wants to Live Forever?" before, as "it's a movie with immortals with Sean Connery. I had to use Queen")
  • Hamlet tells the story all about how his life got flipped turned upside-down.
    Ah, Fresh Prince. Well, in the words of another famous rap lyric, "Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die."
  • In Ken Park, after the "Thom Yorke-looking kid" has a sex scene with a woman who has had work done on her breasts: "She's his fake plastic love, and she wears him out. She wears him out."
  • Alfred Eaker's mistress taking him, shall we say, "Down where it's better, down where it's wetter."
  • When listening to the cheesy tango on the soundtrack of Room in Rome, he begins singing "Whatever Lola Wants".
  • His review of Shame has an epic mash-up used to drive home his point that there are a LOT of songs written about New York City:
    Is there a single square inch of New York City that doesn't have a song written about it? Like, is this something you New Yorkers do? Like, they wake up in the city that never sleeps, and so they say goodbye to their Coney Island babies and take the A train to find a rose in Spanish Harlem or see those dancing feet on 42nd Street, but they get no offers, just the come-ons from the whores on 7th Avenue?
  • The Devils at a certain point mentions how "Mother Superior jumped the gun".
• In Hellsing Ultimate Abridged, Penwood and his men get reports that London Bridge is falling down. This is lampshaded twice by The Major and a Nazi named Hans, who both note they want to invoke this scenario.
  British Intelligence Agent: London Bridge is falling down!
  Penwood: Falling down?!
  British Intelligence Agent: Falling down!
  Penwood: London Bridge is falling down... My fair lady, what should we do!?
• The Doctor Who analysis blog TARDIS Eruditorium occasionally does this with its jokey picture captions, for instance, suggesting that in "Planet of Fire", the Master is saying to Peri "See Kamelion, lying there in the sun..."
• The Ben Heck Show: In the 2015 Halloween episode, Ben quotes word-for-word the ending rap/speech of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
• Rotten Tomatoes had a consensus that read "The Shareef don't like Rock The Kasbah, and neither will viewers...".
• El Sandifer of TARDIS Eruditorum, also did this with her previous blog The Nintendo Project, quoting One-Hit Wonder the Vapors with a shift in punctuation, when her discussion of baseball games says "Video games have always been turning Japanese, I think. So?"
• Parodied in the Smosh video "REJECTED TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODES!" where one of the rejected episodes featured a woman who could only say lyrics from Lady Gaga songs.
• In Sword Art Online Abridged, Yui admits that she latched onto Kirito and Asuna to try to figure out how two incredibly dysfunctional people managed to form a stable relationship. Or as she puts it:
  Yui: I wanted to know what love is. I wanted you to show me.
  Asuna: (tearing up) Goddamn Foreigner...
  Kirito: Y-you mean the band, right?
• From the 1000 Misspent Hours review of Murder at the Baskervilles:
  El Santo: Now a horse is a horse (of course, of course), and no one can bribe a horse to throw a race (of course), and that pertains even if the horse is the famous Silver Blaze.
• An invoked version: Go on YouTube and search for "Sung by the movies". You'll find a number of videos of movies spliced together so their dialogue forms the lyrics to various songs.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable But Really Really Fast, Kira does this with the lyrics from the They Might Be Giants' song "ECNALUBMA", which also foreshadows his eventual fate. An example, which also has lyrics from the Jojo Part 4 theme song itself, "Great Days":
  Kira: I knew that this would happen, WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN?! I THINK I'M GONNA HAVE A BREAKDOWN, BREAKDOWN--
• In his review of The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, The Cinema Snob unamusedly sings 'Silent Running' by Mike + the Mechanics. He recites the lyrics in such a way that his disdain for the film is palpable.
• OverSimplified: In "The Pig Wars", Stuart starts using the lyrics of "All Star" by Smash Mouth when describing the migration of American settlers to Oregon:
  But the Americans keep coming, and they don't stop coming.
  Hopped in their wagons, and they hit the ground running.
  Didn't make sense to keep sharing Oregon,
  when they outnumbered the Brits more than six to one.
• Puella Magi Adfligo Systema: Portal's "Still Alive" in #432
• The Unlucky Tug: In "EVERY Railway Series Book Ranked", he starts the segment on Small Railway Engines by saying, "Never overlook a little Railway Series book!" Cue instrumental version of "Never Overlook a Little Engine".
• X in X Minutes: In Team Four Star's parody of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency the characters named after famous music acts tend to quote lyrics from those music acts' most-known songs. Other song lyrics are quoted just for the hell of it.
  Wamuu: Thanks for waking us up before you went-went!
  
  Joseph Joestar: (to Lisa Lisa) And you are the one I adore!
  Lisa Lisa: Not the reference, but whatever. [She's actually named after Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam]
  
  Lisa Lisa: You are now Hamon masters head to toe.
  
  Esidisi: Oh, you've got some big balls to take me on.
  
  Joseph Joestar: [after defeating Esidisi] Looks like he's on a highway to Hell, now!
  
  Esidisi: [his brain is possessing Suzi Q's body] So, turns out Hell's not a bad place to be!
  Joseph Joestar: Hell's Bells, he's got Suzi Q! She's up to her neck in him! Esidisi, your dirty deeds will not go unpunished!
  
  Esidisi's brain: [as he's exploding] I've been... Hamon struck!
  Joseph Joestar: Now that's what I call a brain shake!
  
  Kars: Sorry, but I'm a real dangerous type, and while you might have the drive to beat me, you're all mixed up if you think you have the skills! [Joseph kicks him off a cliff] Aw, dammit. [falls]
  Joseph Joestar: Bye-bye, love!
  
  Wamuu: It was a mistake to come here alone, but if you're that eager to die, I'm your man.
  
  Joseph Joestar: [mourning Caesar Zeppeli] We had good times, bad times... Sometimes we had a communication breakdown, but... now you're climbing a stairway to Heav- [Zeppeli's blood bubble hits Joseph in the face] Blood in my eyes! Blood in my eyes, oh God! This is how you get hepatitis!
  Lisa Lisa: JoJo, this is no time to get lost in emotion!
  
  Joseph Joestar: [having just decapitated a distracted Wamuu] Looks like you got careless... whisper.
  Wamuu's Head: Y'know, some people consider "Careless Whisper" to be a George Michael solo single, Even though it was released on Wham!'s "Make it- [dies]
  
  Robert E.O. Speedwagon: Don't worry; they've [Stroheim and his cohorts] got sunshine in their pockets!
  Rudol von Stroheim: And ze good soul in our beams!
  
  Kars: [upon becoming the Ultimate Life Form] And now, let the good times roll! [Joseph crashes a plane into him]
  Joseph Joestar: Terribly sorry, but I'm all you've got tonight!
  Kars: It's sunrise, you asshole!

---