“You Can’t Hurry Ribs” And Other Great Food Tunes You Can Burn

By:

Meathead

Here’s a playlist of BBQ, food, drinking, and related tunes for playing while cooking. Burn them and play them on the road while you’re lookin’ for that great little rib shack. Feel free to click to download “You Can’t Hurry Ribs“, my theme song sung by my niece Natalie Longo to the tune of “You Can’t Hurry Love” by Diana Ross. Just click the button below

You Can’t Hurry Ribs

Below are some of our favorite food tunes. Special thanks to the readers who have suggested additions to the list and offered wise cracks. Add yours to the comments section below. Red links take you to iTunes where you can listen to the tune and then buy it if you wish. Alas, many of the links are broken right now. Seems like Apple has moved them. Sigh.

A

• Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens – BB King
• All That Meat & No Potatoes – Fats Waller (not really about a meal. Louis Armstrong does a nice version, too.)
• American Pie – Don McLean
• Applebite – Soundgarden

B

• Barbecue Bess – Lucille Bogan
• Bar-B-Q – Wendy Ren
• Banana Pancakes – Jack Johnson
• Beans and Cornbread – Louis Jordan
• Beer Can Chicken – Kenny Chesney
• Big Rock Candy Mountain, Harry McMlintock
• Birthday Cake, Cibo Matto
• Breakfast – Newsboys
• Breakfast in America – Supertramp
• Brown Sugar – The Rolling Stones
• Burger Man – ZZ Top

C

• Call Any Vegetable, The Mothers of Invention
• Camembert Electrique – Gong
• Candy Everybody Wants, 10,000 Maniacs
• Caramel – Suzanne Vega
• Champagne Supernova – Oasis
• Cheeseburger in Paradise – Jimmy Buffett
• Cheese Cake – Dexter Gordon
• Chewy, Chewy – Ohio Express
• A Chicken Ain’t Nothin’ But a Bird – Cab Calloway
• Chicken Fried, Zac Brown Band
• Chicken Shack Boogie – Lionel Hampton & His Sextet
• Chicken Soup With Rice – Carole King
• Chitlins Con Carne, Kenny Burrell
• Chocolate, The Chenille Sisters
• Chocolate Chip – Miles Davis
• Chocolate Pork Chop Man, Pete “Guitar” Lewis
• Choux Pastry Heart – Corinne Bailey Rae
• The Closer to the Bone (The Sweeter Is the Meat), Louis Prima
• Coconut – Harry Nilsson
• Cold Turkey – John Lennon (not really about food)
• Come On In My Kitchen – Robert Johnson (not really about food)
• Cookin’ – Jogando Capoiera / Cookin’ – Beatfanatic
• Crackerman, Stone Temple Pilots

D

• Dinner Bell – They Might Be Giants
• Dixie Fried – The Kentucky Headhunters
• (Do the) Mashed Potatoes, James Brown
• Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee , Stick McGhee

E

• Eat Steak – The Reverend Horton Heat
• Eat to the Beat – Blondie
• Eggplant – Michael Franks
• Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac With Susan Michelson), Tom Waits
• Englishman In New York – The Police (like my toast done on one side)
• Everybody Eats When They Come to My House – Cab Calloway

F

• Finger Lickin’ Good – Charlie Musselwhite (ok, not quite food)
• Fish, Chips and Sweat – Funkadelic
• Food, Glorious Food, Keith Hampshire
• Food Innuendo Guy, Adam Sandler
• Fried Bananas, Benny Golson
• Fried Bananas, Dexter Gordon
• Fried Chicken, Ice T
• Fried Chicken and Coffee, Nashville Pussy
• Fried Chicken and Gasoline, Southern Culture on the Skids
• Fried Neck Bones and Some Homefries – Willie Bobo
• Frim Fram Sauce – Diana Krall
• Frim Fram Sauce – Nat King Cole

G

• Green Onions – Booker T & The MGs
• Greasy Greens, Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers
• Grits Ain’t Groceries, Little Milton

H

• Half Caf-Decaf, Debbie Davis (right, I know, coffee)
• Hard Candy, Counting Crows
• Hold Tight (Want Some Sea Food Mama) – The Andrews Sisters
• Honey – Moby
• House of Blue Lights – Asleep At the Wheel
• Hot Barbecue, Brother Jack McDuff

I

• Ice Cream Man – Van Halen
• I Heard the Voice of the Porkchop, Greg and Jere Canote
• I Like Food – Descendents
• Ice Cream – Sarah McLachlann
• It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips At Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long – The Notorious Cherry Bombs

J

• Jambalaya, Hank Williams
• Jambalaya (On the Bayou) – Fats Domino
• Jambalaya (Charanga Version), K-Paz De La Sierra.
• Jelly Roll, Charles Mingus

K

• Know Your Chicken, Cibo Matto

L

• Lemon, U2
• The Lemon Song – Led Zeppelin (ok, just pretend it really is about lemons)
• Lips Like Sugar – Echo & the Bunnymen
• Lunchbox – Marilyn Manson

M

• MacArthur Park, Richard Harris (he left the cake out in the rain…)
• Malted Milk, Eric Clapton
• Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken), Tom T. Hall
• Maximum Consumption, The Kinks
• Mayonnaise, Smashing Pumpkins
• Memphis Soul Stew, King Curtis
• Milkshake – Kelis
• Miss Otis Regrets (She’s Unable to Lunch Today) – Ella Fitzgerald

O

• One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, George Thoroughgood
• One Meatball – Ry Cooder
• One Meatball, Josh White

P

• Pass That Bottle – The Devil’s Daughters
• Peace Love & Barbecue – Marcia Ball
• Pecan Pie, Golden Smog
• Piece of Pie, Stone Temple Pilots
• Plant a Radish – From The Fantasticks music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones
• Poke Chop Sandwich, ZZ Top
• Pork Roll Egg and Cheese – Ween
• Pork Store, The Booglerizers
• Pulling Mussels (From the Shell) – Squeeze

Q

• Quiche Lorraine, The B-52’s

R

• Raspberry Beret – Prince
• Recipe For Love – Harry Connick, Jr.
• Red Hot Chicken – Wet Willie
• Red Pepper Blues – Art Pepper
• Red, Red Wine – Neil Diamond
• Ribs and Hot Sauce – Lionel Hampton
• Ribs and Whiskey, Widespread Panic
• Rib Shack Boogie, Steve Guyge
• Rock N Roll McDonald’s, Wesley Willis
• Rum and Coca-Cola, The Andrews Sisters

S

• Saturday Night Fish Fry, B.B. King
• Saturday Night Fish Fry – Louis Jordan
• Savoy Truffle – The Beatles
• Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Billy Joel
• Shade and Honey – Sparklehorse
• Sing for Your Supper – The Mamas & The Papas
• Sinkin’ Soon, Norah Jones (the oyster crackers on the soup)
• Smokestack Lightning – Howlin Wolf
• Sno-Cone – The J. Geils Band
• Soul Sauce (Guachi Guaro) – Cal Tjader
• Spaghetti, Shel Silverstein
• Strawberry Fields Forever, The Beatles
• Struttin’ With Some Barbecue, Louis Armstrong
• Sugar Magnolia – The Grateful Dead
• Sugar Mountain, Neil Young
• Sugar Never Tasted So Good – The White Stripes
• Suzanne – Leonard Cohen (line: And she feeds you tea & oranges that come all the way from China)

T

• That’s Amore, Dean Martin (When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie…)
• The Trout Quintet – The Schubert Ensemble
• Tupelo Honey, Van Morrison

V

• Vegematic, Steve Goodman
• Vegetables, The Beach Boys

W

• Whipped Cream – Herb Alpert & the Tijuanna Brass
• Wild Honey, U2

Y

• Your Greens Give Me the Blues, Rev. Billy C. Wirtz
• You’re My Meat, Joe Jackson
• Yummy, Yummy, Yummy – Ohio Express

Not on iTunes at this time (2/7/2014)

• Barbecue – Robert Earl Keen
• Blessing of the Pork – Billy Ray Mangham
• Chicken Cordon Blues – Steve Goodman
• Eating Greens – Michael Tilson Thomas
• Everytime I Eat Vegetables It Makes Me Think of You – Ramones
• Watermelon Man – Jimmy Smith
• Polk Salad Annie – Tony Joe White
• A Fridge Full of Food – The Nancy Drews
• Beer Is Good – PsychoStick
• Barbecue Shoes – BBQ Pitt Boys
• Skin and Bones – The Kinks
• Caviar and Chitlins by the Atomic Fireballs
• Mexican Radio – Wall of Voodoo (I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued iguana)
• Barbecue – Duke Tumatoe
• Candy – Big Maybelle
• I Want a Hot Dog for my Roll – Butterbeans & Susie
• Memphis Women & Fried Chicken – Dan Penn
• Fried Chicken – Rufus Thomas
• Chicken Heads – James Cotton (& many others)
• Too Much Barbeque – Big Twist & the Mellow Fellows
• Angelina – Louis Prima

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Published On: 4/21/2012 Last Modified: 4/26/2021

• Meathead - Founder and publisher of AmazingRibs.com, Meathead is known as the site's Hedonism Evangelist and BBQ Whisperer. He is also the author of the New York Times Best Seller "Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling", named one of the "100 Best Cookbooks of All Time" by Southern Living.

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