NAMEDROPPERS

22 songs which mention three or more real people in the lyrics:

1 Reasons to Be Cheerful pt 3 (Ian Dury & the Blockheads) - Buddy Holly, Elvis, Scotty (Moore), Wee Willy Harris, Stephen Biko, Rico (trombonist), Harpo, Groucho, Chico (Marx), Woody Allen, (Salvador) Dali, Smokey (Robinson), John Coltrane and others.

2 Killer Queen (Queen) - Marie Antoinette, (Nikita) Khrushchev, JF Kennedy.

3 We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel) - Liberace, James Dean, Juan Peron, Buddy Holly, Malcolm X and many others.

4 Hello (The Beloved) - Tommy Cannon, Bobby Ball, Little Richard, William Tell, Salman Rushdie, Desmond Tutu, Fred Astaire, Mary Wilson, Jeffrey Archer, Barry Humphries, Jean Paul Sartre and others.

5 There, There My Dear (Dexy's Midnight Runners) - Michael Rennie, Frank Sinatra, (Simone de) Beauvoir, (Jack) Kerouac, (Soren) Kirekegaard, (William) Burroughs, JG Ballard, (Marcel) Duchamp.

6 Vogue (Madonna) - Greta Garbo, Gene Kelly, Grace Kelly, Marlon Brando, James Dean and others.

7 It's the End of the World as We Know It (REM) - Lenny Bruce, Lester Bangs, Leonid Breshnev, Leonard Bernstein.

8 One Week (Bare Naked Ladies) - Sting, LeAnn Rimes, Harrison Ford, (Akira) Kurosawa, Bert Kaempfert.

9 Genius of Love (Tom Tom Club) - Smokey Robinson, Bootsy Collins, Kurtis Blow, Bob Marley, James Brown and others.

10 Sweet Soul Music (Arthur Conley) - Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Lou Rawls and Otis Redding.

11 Jung Talent Time (TISM) - Samantha Fox, Billy Ray Cyrus, Uri Geller, Graham Hick; Mandy Smith, Lee Majors, John Cage, Mickey Rourke and many, many others*

12 That’s What I Like Mick (The Sandwich Song) (Chas and Dave, memorably covered by Tori Amos) - Glen Hoddle, Cannon & Ball (again!), Shirley Maclaine, Little Richard, Jerry Lee (Lewis) and others.

13 Endless Art (A House) - George Orwell, Man Ray, Claude Monet, John Donne, Jack Kerouac**, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ian Curtis and many others.

14 Three Stars (Tommy Dee) - Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper

15 Abraham, Martin and John (Marvin Gaye) - Abraham (Lincoln), Martin (Luther King), John and Bobby (Kennedy)

16 Rapture (Laura Veirs) - (Claude) Monet, Basho, Kurt Cobain, Virginia Woolf***

17 Got a Girl (The Four Preps) - Fabian, (Frankie) Avalon, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Rydell, (Elvis) Presley

18 Creeque Alley (The Mamas and the Papas) - John (Phillips), Mitchy (Michelle Phillips), Zal (Yanovsky), Denny (Dennis Doherty), (John) Sebastian, (Roger) McGuinn, (Barry) McGuire, Mama Cass

19 You Were Right (Badly Drawn Boy) - The Queen, Madonna, (Frank) Sinatra, Jeff Buckley, Kurt Cobain, John Lennon

20 Dickie Davies Eyes (Half Man Half Biscuit) - Roger Dean, Dickie Davies, Michael Moorcock, Brian Moore

21 Clash City Rockers (The Clash) - Prince Far-I, (David) Bowie, Gary Glitter

22 You Get What You Give (New Radicals) - Beck, Marilyn Manson, Courtney Love (also, in a way, Mercedes Jellinek and Karl Benz)

* Thanks to Brian for this one; thanks to Susan for a few others
** "His life was a rollercoaster and he just couldnae get off"
*** Veirs makes a bit of an error here, singing, "young Virginia Woolf / death came and hung her coat" when in fact Woolf was 59 when she drowned herself. Good song though...