This list will be very important in those situations where you are trying to work up an appetite, but for whatever reason (nothing but offal,
sous vide on the menu, etc.) nothing's happening. Just pop in your earbuds and ask someone to please, pass the salt.
Top Ten Songs About People Eating
One of the dilemmas that civilization has faced since the beginning of time has been what to do with livestock or animals once they have passed their usefulness. Thankfully, the human diet has evolved to address such an issue. Old roosters too old to squire are cooked in red wine to produce the French delicacy Coq Au Vin. An old steer can be slow-roasted over mesquite to make some of the most mouthwatering barbecue. The Two Men Gentlemen Band, a retro-swing band from the North offer a handy suggestion of how to dispose of a beloved pet after they've been called to Glory.
The wolf has long been an important symbol in film and literature. Cassius, his "lean and hungry look" was likened to the wolf in
Hamlet. In fact, all of Roman hisory is hearkened back to the She-Wolf and her offspring. In fairy tale lore, there is no villain worse than the Big Bad Wolf. In "Foodie," the dark comedy horror being filmed in Durham, NC, during the summer of 2011, the wolf is embodied in the character of JOHN LANDO, the restaurant chef and frequent guest to Kitchen X, the exclusive underground dinner club. The action of "Foodie" takes place when Lando brings his most recent invitee to Kitchen X and teaches him firsthand that, when the wolf invites you to dinner, you better know what's on the menu. Lando is played by
David Berberian, a veteran Triangle talent.
Weird Al made quite a career of parodying popular songs in the 1980s, and quite a few of them involved food and eating. The video to "Just Eat It" is a veritable time machine.
It could be argued that Elvis did a lot to repair the image of the Southerner in the age of Civil Rights. There would be just as many arguements claiming the opposite, doing more damage to the South than William Sherman. His southern archetype sang and danced his way through scrapes with the mob, boot camp, jail and even Hawaiians. His performances were on a par with his equivalent in Westerns: John Wayne. Aug. 16, 1977 was the horrible day we lost our dream to see him play Rhett Butler in a remake of Gone With the Wind.
Read in the context of the upcoming film "Foodie," this deep cut from the Beatles' White Album alludes to cannibalism. Read another way, it could reference gluttony or overconsumption. In the context of George Harrison's well-publicized personal and spiritual beliefs, it most likely characterizes the piggies as greedy and critiques capitalism. Read through the context of Charles Manson's Helter-Skelter vision of the apocalypse, it served as instructions to orchestrate the Tate-LaBianca murders, delivered by the first four Horsemen: John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
Old-Time and Southern music are laced with code words and thinly-veiled allusions to activities best left implicit due to societal constraints. African-American music made use of code in work songs in order to deceive slavemasters, overseers and white officials. Other songs develop clever allusions to sex, druges, or other illicit activities. One has to wonder however if, due to all the Southern songs dealing with "pork" or "pigmeat," that if it were a code word for "human meat" or "cannibalism," what a different tone this music would make.
4.
"Maneater" by Hall and Oates
Everyone loves a foodie, but what everyone loves even more is the wine-obsessed foodie. At any great foodie gathering, there's usually something that just knows that much more about juice than anyone else in the room. Usually, if you're lucky, you'll find two in the same gathering and watch sparks fly. Two adults coming to blows over Muscadet is something that every person should see at least once. On of the main characters in "Foodie" is BETH, a woman who truly loves her wine. Beth, who co-owns a wine store with her husband, can be quite extreme. She's the kind of woman with whom you would not want to be trapped on a desert island, because she would quickly have you paired with a spicy, aromatic little jammy number from Rioja or perhaps a Beaujolais, when in season. Beth is played by
Tracey Coppedge, an amazing local talent!
3.
"The Whole Damn Thing" by Those Darlins
This quartet from Murfreesboro, Tennessee is what you get when you mix a little Ramones with the Carter Family, or some punk with a hell of a lot of twang. This hit from their first album presents a problem that thousands of Americans face each morning: what happened to the food that I had in the fridge before I started drinking?
2.
"I Eat Cannibals" by Tot Coelo
The Euro-synth hits of the 1980s are one of the most overexposed, yet underrated in terms of theme. Laced throughout the simplistic lyrics and driving pop beats are some of the most complex images and issues. "Turning Japanese" was a catchy little hit, but it was also allegedly an allusion to masturbation. Toto Coelo's hit, where they claim their "love is so edible(/Oedipal?), hints at so much more than friendly meat-eating.
1.
"Cannibals In Love" by The Mission Creeps
This song is easily one of the most poetic songs dealing with hunger or eating in the canon of American music. Two people are stranded and in order to survive, must feed on one another or die. James Arr's haunted lyrics ask the important question, "What good's an eye... What good's a leg, when I plan to never leave here?" The solution to the couple's dilemma, set to Miss Frankie Stein's hypnotic bass, make this song the best song about people eating.
