ABSTRACT
There are few precursor writings on the topic of self-referential songs. Werner Wolf has investigated what he terms "metareference" in the arts more broadly, with familiar examples from the novel Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, the artworks of Escher and Magritte, and films such as Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. Wolf clearly feels that on balance self-referentiality raises the complexity and interest of a piece in ways that include providing amusement, engaging the intellect, and bolstering its status as an artwork. What is it that self-referential songs are doing, and what does it have to say about the general operation of the text-music connection that is taken for granted? There are few precursor writings on the topic of self-referential songs. Many other self-referential harmony songs refer to their own chords by name or type, or to their key, but rarely in a straightforward way.
