What's In a Name?

Namesake and nemesis?

I would like to present an excerpt from a conversation that I've had, oh, roughly 78 billion times in my life:

Me: "Hi, my name is Eli."
Some Damn Fool: "Did you invent the cotton gin?! Ha ha!"
Me: "I invented no such thing, sir. Harumph!"

It would appear from my highly scientific analysis that for 99% of humanity the only context for the name "Eli" is Eli Whitney, he of the cotton gin and the interchangeable parts. Sure, Whitney's most popular invention made slavery profitable and put the nation on a path to civil war, but at least he's no longer the most destructive graduate of Yale. I bring this up only to expound on the pathetic joy I experience upon the entry of any new reference into the Eli Cultural Lexicon (a feeling I'm sure Eli Morrero and Eli Wallach know only too well). Thus, we come to the well-reviewed new album by Portland, Oregon's The Decemberists. Track 3 is entitled, "Eli, The Barrow Boy," and though it is unlikely to supplant Three Dog Night's version of "Eli's Coming" for Q-factor supremacy in the world of music, I find the need to mention it. Why? See above (re: "pathetic joy"). Though we Elis must forever live in the shadow of the reknowned Whitney, we're chipping away bit by bit, piece by piece, boats against the current, born ceaselessly back into the past, and so on and so forth.

Speaking of music, I've been puzzling over a certain quandry for some time. First a little background: in film and art history, a "mise-en-abime" is "a narrative enclave that reproduces the features of the whole work that contains it." A self-reflexive story-within-a-story, so to speak. Is this odd French concept applicable in other areas and contexts? Thus we come to my question: can the entire oeuvre of a band or performing artist be summed up in a single line or verse? For example, The Beatles="All you need is love." Marvin Gaye="When I get that feeling/ I need sexual healing." Van Halen="Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad/I'm hot for teacher/Whoa!" I have some more examples, but I'll put it to my more music savvy readers to see if this tree will bear fruit.