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Music Videos of Popular Songs Relating to Superhero Comic Book Characters
By Marc | March 11, 2008
The other day I was piddling around on YouTube and pulled up some old music videos I hadn’t seen in a while. I had the song “Superman’s Song” by Crash Test Dummies in my head and found out there was a video made for it.
So I got to thinking of the various songs that relate in some way to comic book characters, particularly ol’ Kal-El. There are quite a lot that have the name of characters in the titles, and even more that mention someone in the lyrics somewhere (Aquaman in “One Week” by Barenaked Ladies), and a few that use a character’s name, but unrelated to the comic persona (“Iron Man” by Black Sabbath). There are also many that relate to comic strip (“Flash’s Theme” by Queen) and non-superhero comics (“Alley Oop” by the Hollywood Argyles).
Also, my memory isn’t the greatest, so I needed a list. An extensive song list at ‘Nuff Said! helped me out. So here you have a pretty good showing of popular or somewhat popular (at one time or another) of videos about comic book superheroes (in no real order)(Some of them are only as links – I wasn’t allowed to show them on our site):
1. “Superman’s Song” by Crash Test Dummies.
The first time I heard this, Crash Test Dummies became my favorite band. I bought the CD (The Ghosts that Haunt Me), and listened to it constantly. Every track is good. You know how almost every album has at least one crappy tune and you think is just there for filler, ego, or contract fulfillment? I didn’t feel that with this one.
But with time, CTR became for me like Dio. With each successive album, the material didn’t exactly suck more, but became just less good. God Shuffled His Feet was one I liked okay but skipped a few tracks. A Worm’s Life was listened to I think twice and shelved. Sadly, I kind of gave up on them and didn’t hear much from them after that, so hopefully I can give them another listen, but I still love Ghosts that Haunt Me.
Anyway, here’s the video for “Superman’s Song”, a true classic.
2. “Superman’s Dead” by Our Lady Peace.
This song doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Supes at all, but I really dig the tune and I really dig the group.
3. “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” by Spin Doctors.
I absolutely love this song. It’s got a groovy vibe, and if I danced I would dance to it.
4. “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down.
Dig the song, love the video. Old superheroes head banging cracks me up.
5. “Batdance” by Prince.
I didn’t want to include this, but I guess I have to. The first Batman movie was huge and Prince made a fool of himself, but both made a ton of money. One of the things that makes me laugh whenever I watch that movie is how impossible they make it for Michael Keaton to actually move in that solid piece of rubber. That’s okay, Batman wasn’t one for physical activity anyway.
6. “Magneto and Titanium Man” by Wings.
I’m not even sure if this song was even popular, but I love there being a reference to an obscure character like Titanium Man in the title. This clip is from the concert film, Rockshow.
7. “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan.
Okay, this is another one that has absolutely nothing to do with the Man of Steel, but it’s here anyway.
8. “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five for Fighting
Kind of neat.
and finally…
9. “Surfing with the Alien” by Joe Satriani.
This song never made it to the charts, but instrumentals rarely do. This was an awesome album and it’s a reference to the Silver Surfer, which always means cool in my book. This one isn’t an “official” video, but the tune rocks.
There you go. I know there are more, but this is all you get. This post didn’t have much substance, mostly fluff, but I hope you got some entertainment and a little killed time.
Bonus! If you want to check out some tunes by and for comic geeks, give a listen to Ookla the Mok. I only just found out about them last night, but I relate to their geekness. I haven’t heart all of their stuff, but I like the title “Stop Talking about Comics or I’ll Kill You”. You can get their albums at CD Baby.
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