What are the things we need most in life? Water, food, shelter and companionship.

If you go searching for songs about these things, you’ll find thousands of songs about the latter (love, romance, close relationships) and quite a few about shelter (house and home). And I’ve put multiple playlists together about water (including rain, rivers and lakes). That leaves food.

How interesting that songwriters, for the most part, have mostly neglected using food as subject matter for song lyrics, and when they’ve mentioned the names of edibles, it’s usually as a term of endearment (“Honey Pie”), a location (“Blueberry Hill”), a color (“Raspberry Beret”) or a stage name or nickname (“Lady Marmalade”). Rarely are the lyrics about actual food items.

But I found a few, and, um, beefed up the list with a few classics and a couple deep tracks that use food metaphorically. All told, I’ve collected 20 songs that mention food in the title, with back stories about each tune, plus another ten honorable mentions. There’s a Spotify playlist at the end that includes them all..

I hope this one whets your appetite…

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“Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie,” Jay & The Techniques, 1967

Songwriter Maurice Irby Jr. came up with this catchy tune in which the title has nothing to do with the food items mentioned.  “I was working on lyrics while sitting in a diner, and I saw ‘Apple, peach, pumpkin pie’ listed as dessert choices on the menu,” he recalled.  “I thought the phrase rolled off the tongue so nice.  I just made ’em plural and used it as the title.”  The recording of it by Jay and The Techniques zoomed to #6 in the summer of 1967:  “Apples peaches pumpkin pie, you were young and so was I, now that we’ve grown up, it seems you just keep ignoring me, I’ll find you anywhere you go, I’ll follow you high and low, you can’t escape this love of mine anytime…”

“Do Fries Go With That Shake?” George Clinton, 1986

In the ’60s, Clinton formed a doo-wop group, The Parliaments, that also dabbled in soul, notably the 1967 hit single “(I Wanna) Testify.” He established the P-Funk Collective, using two different groups (Parliament and Funkadelic) to explore different sounds, technology and lyrics, both hugely popular among Black music lovers in the ’70s. He went solo in the ’80s, and on his 1986 LP “R&B Skeletons in the Closet,” he had a Top 30 hit on R&B charts that suggestively asked about an energetic fly-girl dancer, “Do Fries Go With That Shake?” An accompanying music video wildly parodied “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” with an all-Black cast in a surreal dream sequence.

“Ice Cream,” Sarah McLachlan, 1993

Singer-songwriter McLachlan is one of Canada’s most successful musical exports, selling 40 million albums worldwide and winning multiple Juno awards and Grammys over her 35-year career. She spearheaded the popular Lilith Fair festivals, which showcased all-female lineups. Between 1997 and 2014, McLachlan charted four consecutive albums in the Top Five on US album charts, notably 1997’s “Surfacing” with its three hits, “Building a Mystery,” “Adia” and “Angel.” Prior to that, her LP “Fumbling Toward Ecstasy” in 1993 was her breakthrough and included the understated track “Ice Cream,” in which she tells her man, “Your love is better than ice cream, better than anything else that I’ve tried…”

“Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes),” Dee Dee Sharp, 1962

In 1962, R&B singer Sharp was a sensation with five Top Ten singles, two of which capitalized on the popular Twist-like dance move known as the Mashed Potato, where dancers would grind their feet into the dance floor as if mashing potatoes.  In the lyrics to “Gravy,” Sharp says she needs more than just dancing, she needs romancing as well:  “I dig this twistin’ but I want some more, there’s somethin’ missin’ while we’re on the floor, come on baby, I want some gravy, a little kissing’s what I’m waiting for, gimme gravy on my mashed potatoes…”

“Beans and Corn Bread,” Louis Jordan, 1949

Jordan and his jump-blues band The Tympany Five were hugely popular in the juke joints in the 1940s as well as at some of the tonier clubs in bigger cities when they could get gigs there.  Many of the early rock and roll pioneers credit Jordan for writing songs that inspired them to compose their own brand of irresistible dance music.  This one used food pairings to emphasize the need for couples to stick together:  “Beans and corn bread, hand-in-hand, that’s what beans said to corn bread, ‘We should stick together, hand in hand, we should hang out together like wieners and sauerkraut, we should stick together like hot dogs and mustard…’”

“Sweet Potato Pie,” James Taylor, 1988

North Carolina-born Taylor no doubt ate his share of sweet potato pie in his youth.  For his high-spirited song by that name from his 1988 album “Never Die Young,” Taylor sings about a girl the narrator knew years earlier who ends up as his delectable ladyfriend decades later:   “I’m glad I had to wait awhile, a little bit too juvenile, /I needed to refine my style, a silk suit and a crocodile smile, /So let the whole damn world go by, ’cause I just want to testify, /From now on, it’s me and my sweet potato pie…” Taylor re-recorded the song in a collaboration with Ray Charles on “Genius Loves Company,” a 2004 album of duets Charles recorded with a dozen other artists and released just after his death that year.

“Cheeseburger in Paradise,” Jimmy Buffett, 1978

Buffett’s famous tune, which appears on his “Son of a Son of a Sailor” album in 1978, became the name of his lucrative restaurant chain as well. Its lyrics speak of how it’s no fun dieting and eating healthy foods all the time, not when what he really wants is the good old-fashioned American favorite, which he describes in delicious detail:  “I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes, big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer, well, good god almighty, which way do I steer for my cheeseburger in paradise?…”

“Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” Hank Williams, 1952

Jambalaya is a spicy, Louisiana-based dish of sausage, crawfish vegetable and rice, and Williams’ song honoring its savory flavor was written to be delivered as a Cajun two-step tune.  He chose to dilute it somewhat to make it more palatable to a mass market, which was the right move — it held the #1 spot on the country charts for 13 weeks in 1952, and crooner Jo Stafford’s cover peaked at #3 on the pop charts that same year.  Other major artists covering the song in the years since include Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Fogerty, The Carpenters, Emmylou Harris and Van Morrison:  “Jambalaya, crawfish pie and fillet gumbo, for tonight I’m gonna see my cher ami-o, pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o, son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou…”

“30,000 Pounds of Bananas,” Harry Chapin, 1974

This semi-comical story-song by Harry Chapin is actually based on a true story about a tragic accident that happen in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1965. A truck driver carrying a load of produce from New Jersey to the Pennsylvania town found that his brakes failed just as he came upon a steep downhill roadway leading into the city. He crashed his rig into a house and died, injuring another 15 onlookers. Despite the bleak result, Chapin found it morbidly amusing when he heard about it from an old-timer on a Greyhound bus ride out of Scranton years later. The song, which has fictionalized elements, appeared on his 1974 LP “Verities and Balderdash” and became a cult favorite among his fans at concerts. Chapin sang it at an increasingly fast tempo to mirror the speeding vehicle in the tale: “You know, the man who told me about it on the bus, /He shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head, 
and he said, ‘Boy, that sure must’ve been something, /Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas, /Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas…”

“Savoy Truffle,” The Beatles, 1968

George Harrison was starting to come into his own as a songwriter when The Beatles were assembling material for the 30-song doubler LP known as “The White Album.” He was allotted four tunes for this collection, and although “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” deservedly got the most attention, this song about sugary desserts holds up quite well a half-century later. It was written to tease his friend Eric Clapton, who had such an addiction to sweets that it caused him plenty of trips to the dentist to have teeth pulled.  Harrison’s lyrics mention several yummy European candy specialties that, while tasty, ultimately made his friend’s life miserable:  “Creme tangerine and montelimar, a ginger sling with a pineapple heart, a coffee dessert, yes, you know it’s good news, but you’ll have to have them all pulled out after the Savoy truffle…”

“Bread and Butter,” The Newbeats, 1964

Written by Larry Parks and Jay Turnbow, this sassy mid-’60s hit for The Newbeats reached #2 on US pop charts, even amidst the Beatlemania craze then gripping the music world. The Newbeats were a vocal trio out of Georgia and Louisiana consisting of brothers Dean and Mark Mathis and friend Larry Henley, and while they only charted twice — the other being “Run, Baby, Run (Back Into My Arms) in 1965 — they had a second life in England in the ’70s when the “Northern Soul” phenomenon occurred there, rejuvenating deep soul tracks and exposing them to a whole new audience. “Bread and Butter” playfully used food items to describe what a young woman prepared for her man: “Well, she don’t cook mashed potatoes, she don’t cook T-bone steaks, /She don’t feed me peanut butter, she knows that I can’t take, /He likes bread and butter, he likes toast and jam, /That’s what his baby feeds him, he’s her loving man…”

“Coconut,” Harry Nilsson, 1972

This was essentially a novelty tune that made it all the way to #6 in the summer/fall of 1972.  Nilsson was a highly regarded songwriter who curiously had his biggest chart successes interpreting other people’s songs (Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’,” “Badfinger’s “Without You”). He wrote “One,” Three Dog Night’s first big hit, and “Me and My Arrow,” “Cuddly Toy” and “Jump Into the Fire.” He claims he was just joking around when he recorded “Coconut” as a doctor’s whimsical remedy for a hangover, combining coconut and lime in a big glass:  “You put the lime in the coconut, you drink ’em both together, put the lime in the coconut, then you feel better, put the lime in the coconut, drink ’em both up, put the lime in the coconut, and call me in the morning…”

“Banana Pancakes,” Jack Johnson, 2005

The hedonistic life of surfer Jack Johnson comes through in much of his music, which encourages enjoying life’s pleasures, laying around in a hammock, on the beach, or in bed.  In the tune “Banana Pancakes” from his 2005 LP “In Between Dreams,” Johnson urges his girlfriend to remain in the sack on a cool, cloudy weekday while he makes her a plate of her favorite breakfast:  “Baby, you hardly even notice when I try to show you, this song is meant to keep ya from doing what you’re supposed to, /Waking up too early, maybe we can sleep in, make you banana pancakes, pretend like it’s the weekend now…”

“Eggplant,” Michael Franks, 1976

A talented singer-songwriter of smooth jazz and pop, Franks is a Southern California native who has worked with many artists and had his songs covered by many others. On his delightful 1976 major label debut, “The Art of Tea,” he was ably accompanied by Larry Carlton, Joe Sample and Wilton Felder of The Crusaders, scoring the minor hit “Popsicle Toes,” which might have made this list if not for the even more appropriate “Eggplant.” In the lyrics, the narrator explains how his girlfriend is a wizard in the kitchen who “cooks her eggplant 19 different ways”: “The lady sticks to me like white on rice, she never cooks the same way twice, /Maybe it’s the mushrooms, maybe the tomatoes, /I can’t reveal her name, but eggplant is her game…”

“Polk Salad Annie,” Tony Joe White, 1969

Pokeweed grows wild in the woods down South, and White recalled often eating cooked dishes made of it “when there wasn’t much else in the fridge.”  Sallet is an old English word that means “cooked greens,” not to be mistaken for “salad,” but in fact, White’s record company did just that when they changed his song from “Poke Sallet Annie” to “Polk Salad Annie.”  It reached #8 in 1969:  “Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods and in the fields, looks somethin’ like a turnip green, and everybody calls it poke sallet, poke sallet, used to know a girl lived down there, and she’d go out in the evenings and pick her a mess of it, carry it home and cook it for supper..”

“Burgers and Fries,” Charley Pride, 1978

Starting out as a pretty decent baseball player in the Negro Leagues in the 1940s and 1950s, Pride was also blessed with a fine singing voice, and he was particularly fond of country music, despite it being embraced by mostly white audiences. In 1967, he became one of the only Black artists to perform last the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, and began a remarkably career with more than two dozen hits on US you ntery charts throughout the ’70s. One of those was the title track to his 1978 LP, “Burgers and Fries,” which equated the meat-and-potatoes combo to fond childhood memories: “Well I’m still the same old me, that’s all I’ll ever be, /I’d like to think that you’re the same old you, /We lost something down the line that I wish we both could find, /Lord, I’d like to do the things that we used to do, /When it was burgers and fries and cherry pies, it was simple and good back then…”

“You’re My Meat,” Joe Jackson, 1981

One of Louis Jordan’s devotees decades after the jump blues period had passed was British rocker Joe Jackson, the classically trained pianist and composer of hits like “Steppin’ Out” and “Breaking Us in Two.” He devoted his 1981 LP “Jumpin’ Jive” to Jordan’s music, which featured shouted, highly syncopated vocals and earthy, comedic lyrics. Included between tracks like “Jack, You’re Dead” and “How Long Must I Wait For You” was “You’re My Meat,” a bawdy tune which lovingly described a heavy-set woman in terms of food: “Outside in and inside out, you’re my meat, fat and forty, but lordy, you’re my meat, /From your feet to your head, you knock me dead, you’re my meat, I got you covered, but baby, you’re my meat…”

“Butterbean,” The B-52s, 1983

Hailing from the college town of Athens, Georgia, was the quirky punk/New Wave band known as The B-52s, known especially for their dance club classics, 1989’s “Love Shack” and 1992’s “Good Stuff.”  Early on, songs like “Rock Lobster” and “Private Idaho” put them on the map, with Kate Pierson’s warbling vocals that reminded John Lennon of his wife Yoko Ono’s singular voice and motivated him to return to recording in 1980. On The B-52s’ third LP, 1983’s “Whammy!”, songs like “Butterbean” were more the order of the day, celebrating the traditional Southern snack favorite:  “Gramps and grannies, kids in their teens, junkyard dogs and campus queens, yeah, everybody likes butterbeans… Pass me a plateful, I’ll be grateful, 1-2-3-4, pick ’em, hull ’em, put on the steam, that’s how we fix butterbeans…”

“RC Cola and a Moon Pie,” NRBQ, 1972

NRBQ (New Rhythm & Blues Quartet) was a Kentucky-based band founded in 1966 that merged rock, pop, jazz, blues and Tin Pan Alley styles, playing mostly small clubs but occasionally opening for bigger bands like Poco or R.E.M.  A concert favorite was “RC Cola and a Moon Pie,” an old Bill Lister tune from the Fifties about Royal Crown Cola (a regional competitor of Coke and Pepsi) and a Moon Pie (essentially a s’more — two graham crackers with marshmallow in between, covered in chocolate).  It was known as “a working man’s lunch” throughout the South:  “I don’t want no cornbread, and I can do without peas and rice, I don’t want no carrots or no real hot pizza slice, but everything’s gonna be all right with an RC Cola and a moon pie…”

“Hungarian Goulash No. 5,” Allan Sherman, 1963

When I was young, I was a fan of comedian Allan Sherman and his song parodies, which were a kind of precursor to what Weird Al Yankovic did in the 1980s. Sherman’s 1963 LP “My Son, The Nut,” which included the well-known summer-camp comedy anthem “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,” was full of clever lyrics written to go with traditional musical numbers like “C’est Si Bon,” “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” and “You Came a Long Way From St. Louis.” The music from Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5,” written in 1869, was turned into an international smorgasbord called “Hungarian Goulash,” listing various dishes from several different countries: “Chicken cacciatore is Italian, kangaroo soufflé must be Australian, /Mutton chops are definitely British, chicken soup undoubtedly is Yiddish… /So, there you have one food from each land, each one delicious, each one simply grand, /Mix them all up in one big mish-mash, and what have you got? Hungarian goulash!”

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Honorable mention:  “Diggin’ My Potatoes,” James Cotton, 1984; “Tangerine,” Led Zeppelin, 1970;  “Dixie Chicken,” Little Feat, 1973; “Strawberry Fields Forever,” The Beatles, 1967;  “Tupelo Honey,” Van Morrison, 1971;  “Pineapple Head,” Crowded House, 1993; “Buttered Popcorn,” The Supremes, 1961; “Hotdogs and Hamburgers,” John Mellencamp, 1987; “Rock and Roll Stew,” Traffic, 1971; “Corned Beef City,” Mark Knopfler, 2012.

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