Artist	Song
John Lennon with the Rolling Stones	Yer Blues (Rock and Roll Circus version)
Bob Dylan with the Band	Ballad of a Thin Man
The BeeGees	New York Mining Disaster, 1941
Counting Crows	Mr. Jones (acoustic version)
NoFx	Mr. Jones
Talking Heads	Mr. Jones
Johnny 'Guitar' Watson	Lover Jones
Ocean Color Scene	Mrs. Jones
Coolio	A Thing Goin' On
HTlFne STgara	Mrs. Jones
Billy Paul	Me and Mrs. Jones
Hole	Mrs. Jones
Art Tatum with Ben Webster	Have you met Miss Jones?
The Rolling Stones	Miss Amanda Jones
Clientele	Oh, Miss Jones
Mike Ness	The Devil in Miss Jones
Kool and the Gang	Jones vs. Jones
The Temptations	Don't Let the Joneses Get You Down
The Temptations	The Joneses

Comment:

Long before the Osbournes, the Jacksons or the Osmonds, the Jones family paved the way in rock and roll squalor and disorderly behavior. No matter where you moved, the Joneses always seemed to be living next door. They knew the important people, they went to the exclusive parties. They had better things than you had, tempting you to try to keep up. But somewhere, in the back of your head, you knew they weren't quite right. There was the much bruited cluelessness of Mr. Jones. There were Mrs. Jones' poorly concealed whoredoms in suburbia. And there were the epic antics of the recently nubile and socially mobile Miss Jones.

Such is the stuff of rock and roll lyrics. You could say Dylan started it, but it goes back a ways.

Although several of these have similar or identical titles, they are all different songs, with the possible exception of Coolio's A Thing Goin' On, which, being an hommage to Billy Paul's, is allowed a little latitude. Twenty years separate the last two songs, and though the idiom moves from funk to post-disco, the Temptations' message remains the same: you don't want to be like these people.

(Those who are familiar with J. Wellington Wimpy probably remember his catchphrase, "I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today," but Wimpy had several such at his beck, including my favorite, "My name is Jones -- I'm one of the Jones Boys.")

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