Anyone who says Superman is superior to Batman is fooling themselves. The Caped Crusader trumps the Man of Steel in comics, movies, outfits, nicknames, lady friends, TV shows, and dorky sidekicks — but what about music? There have been hundreds of songs written about both Batman and Superman, so in honor of Man of Steel, I thought we’d take a look at their musical history.
Some criteria: I only chose songs that are NOT on official soundtracks (i.e. no “Bat Dance,” which is obviously the greatest thing ever), and they have to mention either “Batman” or “Superman” in the title. With a “Vicki Vale, Vick Va Vicki Vale” in your heart, here are 10 examples.
#5. “Batman” by Rocky and the Riddlers
“Whoa whoa, Batman, he’s out catchin’ the crooks/Whoa whoa, Batman, he’s in the comic books/Even if he’s not real/He’s still our ideal.” That’s poetry.
#4. “I Am Not Batman” by Mogwai
If you’re a largely instrumental band, the only humor you can add to your songs, without resorting to old timey car horns and toilet flushing sound effects during the bridge, is in their titles. Scottish post-punks Mogwai are the Lenny Bruce of funny song titles: “Oh! How the Dogs Stack Up,” “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong,” “I Know You Are but What Am I?” and the deceptively clever, “I Am Not Batman.” Yeah, sure. *wink*
#3. “(I Saw) Batman (In The Launderette)” by the Shapes
To be a punk band in the U.K. in the 1970s meant that you had to write political songs. For the most part. The Shapes were much more absurdist than their peers, so while the Sex Pistols were recording “God Save the Queen,” they whipped up “(I Saw) Batman (In The Launderette),” which is about, yes, seeing Batman at the launderette. Must take place during Alfred’s once-a-two-decade vacation.
#2. “I Whupped Batman’s Ass” by Wesley Willis
In the battle between Batman and train station schizoid punk Wesley Willis, I’d take W.W. every time.
#1. “Batman and Robin Over the Roofs” by the Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale
In 1966, the same year Adam West’s Batman debuted on ABC, famed producer Tom Wilson (“Like a Rolling Stone”) asked jazz composer Sun Ra and the psychedelic freaks in the Blues Project to record a half-hour of songs about the Caped Crusader, because $$$. So, thanks to a sponsorship from a toy company in Jersey, they did, working under the moniker the Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale. It should have been embarrassing — it turned out great.
#5. “Black Superman” by Above the Law
Not to be confused with the 1977 motion picture Abar, the First Black Superman, “Black Superman” is a single from Above the Law’s underrated Uncle Sam’s Curse, their final album on Ruthless Records before Eazy-E died. The funky sample comes from the Ohio Players’s “Funky Worm,” and as far as I can tell, it’s the only song that paints Superman as a sympathetic drug dealer from Compton. Though that might be what the next song’s about, too…
#4. “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five for Fighting
Not saying it’s good, but…well, it’s not good, but it is one of the more famous songs that uses Superman as a metaphor (pretty much all of them), and probably the most prominent hockey reference in pop culture since The Mighty Ducks came out. It’s unknown what the guy who sang the song, John Ondrasik, is up to these days, which really means, I’m too lazy to look it up and hope he’s serving for five for fighting in prison.
#3. “Sunshine Superman” by Hüsker Dü
The original “Sunshine Superman,” a chart-topping hit for Donovan in 1967, clocks in at a little over three minutes. Naturally, nearly two decades later when Hüsker Dü got their calloused mitts on the song for their debut album Everything Falls Apart, Grant Hart & Co. shortened it to under two minutes and amped up its intensity by about 1,359% (Amusingly, another Grant, comic book writer Grant Morrison, named an Animal Man character Sunshine Superman. He was black and a member of the Love Syndicate of Dreamworld. They did a lot of drugs.)
#2. “Waitin’ For A Superman (Is It Gettin’ Heavy?)” by the Flaming Lips
One of the best songs from the Flaming Lips’ best album, The Soft Bulletin, the lyrics for “Waitin’ For A Superman (Is It Gettin’ Heavy?)” are actually pretty straightforward, at least for Wayne Coyne. It’s about how you can spend your whole life waiting for a Superman (or THE Superman, if you live in Metropolis), but he may not always show up and you have to take matters into your own hands. YOU GOT THAT LOIS LANE.
#1. “Superman” by R.E.M.
Although most people associate “Superman” with R.E.M, as sung by Mike Mills (Michael Stipe wasn’t enamored with the song), it’s actually a cover. The original comes from the Clique, who had a minor amount of pop success in the late 1960s. They’ll forever be the Jimmy Olsen to R.E.M.’s Superman.
AND THE WINNER IS:
There just aren’t as many songs written about Batman as Superman. He won on a technicality.
