Band name meanings/bands original names

[Mellotron]

Always find this interesting, add the ones you know about here:

Meanings:

U2 - War submarine
Death Cab For Cutie - Headline relating to Paul McCartney's death in a car crash

Original names:

Radiohead - On A Friday
Muse - Gothic Plague/Fixed Penalty/Rocket Baby Dolls
Interpol - The French Letters
U2 - The Hype

 

[BadFish]

Warsaw - Joy Division - New Order

 

[Bold Seagull]

Foo Fighters - name allied WWII pilots gave to ufo or strange phenomena they saw

 

[Mellotron]

Original names

Blur - Seymour
Coldplay - Starfish
Daft Punk - Darlin'
Green Day - Sweet Children
Pink Floyd - The Megadeaths
Oasis - The Rain
Queen - Smile
Slipknot - Meld

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Always find this interesting, add the ones you know about here:

Meanings:

U2 - War submarine
Death Cab For Cutie - Headline relating to Paul McCartney's death in a car crash

Original names:

Radiohead - On A Friday
Muse - Gothic Plague/Fixed Penalty/Rocket Baby Dolls
Interpol - The French Letters
U2 - The Hype

I'd always assumed "Death Cab for Cutie" was from a track of that name on the original Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band album, Gorilla.

But I do say "assumed". I have no evidence to back that up.

 

[BadFish]

Duran Duran are one of a few bands to be named after stuff in Barbarella.

edit: okay maybe there weren't any others

 

[The Large One]

Bee Gees - named after racetrack promoter Bill Goode (not Brothers Gibb).

The Teardrop Explodes, taken from a panel caption in the Marvel comic strip 'Daredevil'.

 

[Mellotron]

I'd always assumed "Death Cab for Cutie" was from a track of that name on the original Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band album, Gorilla.

But I do say "assumed". I have no evidence to back that up.

You may well be right. And that song title no doubt originally comes from the headline relating to Paul McCartney's death.

 

[skipper734]

Always find this interesting, add the ones you know about here:

Meanings:

U2 - War submarine
Death Cab For Cutie - Headline relating to Paul McCartney's death in a car crash

Original names:

Radiohead - On A Friday
Muse - Gothic Plague/Fixed Penalty/Rocket Baby Dolls
Interpol - The French Letters
U2 - The Hype

Neil Innes, Bonzo Dog etc. and I would not agree.

While Innes claims the title came from an American pulp fiction magazine, the phrase may have been coined by Richard Hoggart in his 1957 book The Uses of Literacy, which discussed British popular culture and was a pioneering work in the cultural studies field. The term appears in Chapter 8, "The Newer Mass Art: Sex in Shiny Packets", under part C: "Sex and Violence Novels". Hoggart provides a list of "imitations" of the "terse, periodic titles" of these novels, including "Sweetie, Take It Hot"; "The Lady Takes a Dive"; "Aim Low, Angel"; "Sweetheart, Curves Can Kill"; and "Death-Cab for Cutie".
Ben Gibbard used the title of the song as the name of the rock band he founded in 1997, saying "The name was never supposed to be something that someone was going to reference 15 years on. So yeah, I would absolutely go back and give it a more obvious name."[SUP][2]

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[The Large One]

I'd always assumed "Death Cab for Cutie" was from a track of that name on the original Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band album, Gorilla.

But I do say "assumed". I have no evidence to back that up.

... were once known as the Bonzo Dog Dada Band, but changed it when they felt no-one would know what Dadaism was.

 

[gazingdown]

The Cure - Easy Cure

 

[BadFish]

The Chemical Brothers were called The Dust Brothers in honor of the american producers who worked with The Beastie Boys among others. But they had to change their name when they started to get big for fear ofl reprisal from The Dust Brothers

 

[KZNSeagull]

U2 was a spyplane, not a submarine.

My Chemical Romance is from the subtitle of the novel Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh
T'Pau was a character is Star Trek
Heaven 17 get their name from a group in A Clockwork Orange

 

[Pevenseagull]

Steely Dan

 

[Pevenseagull]

10cc

 

[Pevenseagull]

Level 42 (Douglas Adams)

 

[KZNSeagull]

Warsaw - Joy Division - New Order

For one gig only, they were billed as Stiff Kittens, but then changed to Warsaw

 

[T soprano]

The high numbers - The Who
North London Invaders - Madness

 

[catfish]

Lovin Spoonful

 

[Superphil]

David Bowie - Davy & Davie Jones