If music be the food of love...

As I prepare to move to London I have been trying to slim down my music collection, so I have music on the brain a bit more than usual. Added to my usual preoccupation with food, it got me thinking about the relationship between the two.

Plenty of musicians have put food into song, some more appetisingly than others. One of Leonard Cohen’s most famous songs is Suzanne, and one of its most lovely lyrics is “And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China.” The foreign fruit provide exoticism and beauty – a bit like the Strawberry Fields of the Beatles song, even if John Lennon was possibly not referring to literal strawberry fields.

Leonard Cohen. Photo by HollyWata

Possibly the first song which made me think about food and music at the same time was REM’s Bittersweet Me, which is a lament for unsatisfied appetite. The refrain goes: “I couldn't taste it /I'm tired and naked. / I don't know what I'm hungry for / I don't know what I want anymore.”

The trouble is that eating is not a very rock star thing to do. The Oasis song Cigarettes and Alcohol certainly suggests that their priorities were elsewhere.

When music becomes specifically about food, it tends to be from earlier styles of music than rock and often has more than a touch of humour. There is the Tom Waits song Eggs and Sausage, which lovingly enumerates the menu items at an American diner. “Eggs and sausage and a side of toast, Coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy, Chilli in a bowl with burgers and fries, What kind of pie?”

Tom Waits: Photo by stunned on Flickr

Meanwhile folk singer Steve Goodman laughs wryly at the healthy diet inflicted by his girlfriend, in the song Chicken Cordon Bleus: “When I first met you baby, you fed me on chicken and wine. It was steak and potatoes and lobster, and babe I sure felt fine. But now all you ever give me is seaweed and alfalfa sprouts, and sunflower seeds and I got my doubts.” The spiritual successor to this song is surely the Kink’s Skin and Bone, which warns of the effect of a crash diet. “Fat flabby Annie” doesn’t seem to be any happier once she is skinny, and the chorus “Don't eat no mashed potatoes, Don't eat no buttered scones, Stay away from carbohydrates, You're gonna look like skin and bone,” seems to list the forbidden foods with more longing than anything else.

What are your favourite songs about food? Let me know using the comments.