Pop Shots – In Honor of Thanksgiving, Here are 7 Songs About Pie
Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, with Thanksgiving coming up on Thursday I’m dedicating this week’s column to the post-turkey delicacy everybody loves – pie!
I know that traditionally pumpkin pie is the type of pie that’s served to close out Thanksgiving dinner – it also signals the end of pumpkin spice season, and the beginning of gingerbread season – but for the purposes of this column I’ll be taking a musical look at all sorts of different flavors of pie.
So strap in, because I have seven songs about pie for your audible feasting pleasure. Of course, since this is Pop Shots you know everything is seasoned with a little bit of attitude.
This song is totally about food, guys. Jani Lane just really liked cherry pie, and needed to write a hair metal ode to it. I mean, what else could it possibly be about?
Side Note – This is easily one the greatest videos of all-time … because of the subtlety.
Staying with songs that are definitely about food, and not a metaphor for anything else, Domino’s favorite type of pie was “Sweet Potato Pie.”
This song is such an underrated jam, and yes, I openly rapped along to it back in 1993.
D’Angelo was singing about a totally different kind of pie on “Devil’s Pie,” which was about the evils of materialism, and served as a critique of some of mainstream hip-hop’s most frequent subject matters.
Being that, as a nation, we’re encouraged to shop till we drop the day after Thanksgiving, this might be the perfect song to remind us that maybe that’s not the best course of action.
Released in 1971, the lyrics of “American Pie” were a commentary on the state of society at the time, and Don McLean painted a heck of a picture of a changing America that had been rapidly losing its innocence.
Like two earlier songs on this list, Led Zeppelin’s “Custard Pie” is clearly about food, and nothing other than food. Absolutely no euphemisms here, folks!
I’m beginning to think some of these songs about pie aren’t really about something you find on a dessert cart.
Despite being completely folksy, with “Rhubarb Pie” John Fogerty sounds like he’d rather hang out with 2 Live Crew than Marie Callender.
If you search the internet for what the lyrics of this song mean you’re going to end up going down a rabbit hole of some really strange theories (hi, I’m Adam, and I just lost quite a few minutes of my life doing this). My favorite comment was posted on songmeanings.com – “I could not interpret this song to save my life.”
Good luck to those who try! It’s an awesome song regardless, and we can be pretty sure it isn’t about lady parts.
That’s all for this edition of Pop Shots, but come back next Monday for more shots on all things pop.
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