History Literature / SoulMusic

* BewitchedAmphibians: The music shop keeper threatens to invoke this trope on Glod and Cliff because she belongs to the Neighborhood Witch scheme.

** A small dog stops to listen to one of Dibbler's sound-capture boxes, in reference to the dog-and-gramophone painting "His Master's Voice", from which British media-outlet HMV gets its name and logo.
** According to Glod, the legendary Brother Charnel stole gold from the gods to make a magical trumpet, which means the world's greatest horn player was a felonious monk - Thelonious Monk. (That one borders on a {{stealth|Pun}} {{feghoot}}.)

** The opening says this is a book about sex, drugs, and Music With Rocks In--then adds "one out of three ain't bad," as a shout out to Music/MeatLoaf, who also receives a shout out to the Bat Out Of Hell album on the cover.

** Cliff accidentally sits on Imp's harp; if not for that, they never have found the guitar that starts the story.

* GoneHorriblyRight: The school Susan goes to was founding on the belief that girls not having anything to do until they got married could at least spend that time being educated. Turns out giving them fresh air, healthy exercise and a good knowledge of trigonometry makes them especially apt at getting over the very high walls.

** Also in the AnimatedAdaptation, after Susan is summoned to the University by Ridcully and are served the burgers, Ridcully tells the three female servers/chefs of the University off for not bringing him a "proper breakfast" -- not knowing what a burger is, he calls it "some sort of beef paté -- ugh, and you've ''fried'' it!" The servers, who had gone to the concert the night before and are dressed in matching pastel-colored [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poodle_skirt poodle skirts]], respond by singing "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_My_Party_(Lesley_Gore_song) It's my paté and I'll fry if I want to, fry if I want to, fry if I want to!]]" before giggling and running off.

** Death's speech to Susan about how the idea of everyone having their own story is wishful thinking and most people are really nothing more than dumb animals reads a lot like a refutation of the CentralTheme of ''Literature/GoodOmens'' coauthor Creator/NeilGaiman's ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman The Doll's House]]''.

* AnswerSong: In the AnimatedAdaptation, the song "She Won't Change Her Mind" is an answer to Music/TheBeatles song "You're Going to Lose That Girl"

* CanisLatinicus: The AnimatedAdaptation shows Ridcully performing the Rite of Ashkente on camera and invents ritual words of this type for it.
* CompositeCharacter: In the AnimatedAdaptation, the three wizard students helping Ponder are combined into one single student who gets their combined lines, the appearance of Skazz and the name of "Big Mad Drongo" Adrian Turnipseed. This is the basis for a joke where Ridcully, upon first meeting Big Mad Drongo, angrily demands "Who let a student into my University?!" before changing his mind and deciding "I suppose ''one'' student won't be too much of a problem."
* DesperateObjectCatch: In the Animated Adaptation, Susan doesn't just pull out an Assassin's lifetimer and show it to him, she ''tosses'' it in front of him and he has to catch it or die if it shatters.

** Susan is mentioned to have got a [[MyLittlePony My Little Binky]] set on her third birthday.

** Imp's first song was called "Sioni Bod Da". Sioni is Welsh for Johnny and "Bod Da" is Welsh again for "be good". So it's ([[Music/ChuckBerry "Johnny B. Goode"]]).

** Imp y Celyn is Welsh for "Bud of the Holly". And if you haven't got it yet, don't translate the middle bit. [[spoiler:Made all the better that the entire end of the book is an allusion to the song American Pie, which was about Buddy Holly's death.]]
** His first song was called "Sioni Bod Da". "Bod Da" is Welsh again for "be good" ([[Music/ChuckBerry Johnny B. Goode]]).

Was made (along with ''Literature/WyrdSisters'') into an AnimatedAdaptation. The L-space entry is [[http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/soul-music.html here]], and explains the numerous sly references to famous bands and songs. A fan-created expanded version is [[http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Book:Soul_Music/Annotations here]] and picks up the slack since the official annotated Pratchett file has not been updated for six years.

* FamousLastWords: Ysabel's last words in the animated adaptation are "FATHER!" as Death shows up to do the reaping.

** Death's speech to Susan about how the idea of everyone having their own story is wishful thinking and most people are really nothing more than dumb animals reads a lot like a refutation of the CentralTheme of ''Literature/GoodOmens'' coauthor Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman The Doll's House''.

* NoodleImplements: Glod is warned about messing with one of the instruments in TheLittleStopThatWasntThereYesterday. "If you blow that, you'd better have a [[VirginSacrifice sacrificial virgin]] and a big cauldron of breadfruit and turtle meat standing by."

* NoodleImplements: "If you blow that, you'd better have a [[VirginSacrifice sacrificial virgin]] and a big cauldron of breadfruit and turtle meat standing by."

* PunctualityIsForPeasants: Dibbler thinks this is happening after the Band With Rock In doesn't show up onstage (having taken the money owed them and escaped). When it becomes clear they aren't coming, period, he puts a stupefyingly bad GarageBand on instead. The crowd riots and tears the stage apart.

** A noted trend with the girls at Susan's school is that, on being told very emphatically by their teacher about things they shouldn't do, like all teenagers everywhere they decide they'd like to experience these things in large quantities.

* LazilyGenderFlippedName: Susan says that "Nigella" means "Oops, we wanted a boy". (Nigel is an English masculine given name, itself not very common, and Nigella is very rare in real life.

** When talking about the times a pocket full of decent spells and a well-charged staff got him out of trouble, the Archchancellor mentions "that dragon, you remember" which may refer to the dragon in ''Literature/GuardsGuards!'', although that would be a bit of a continuity error as Ridcully hadn't come back to Unseen University to be Archchancellor at that point, prior to which he spent the past 40 years in the countryside, and during that book the wizards don't have any part in actually solving the dragon problem.

* LamarckWasRight: Susan has several of '''[[Death's]]''' abilities, such as the ability to become invisible; despite the fact that she is only '''[[Death's]]''' granddaughter by adoption, and some of those abilities shouldn't be inheritable anyway. '''[[Death]]''' points out that this is probably the result of MorphicResonance rather than heredity.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Llamedos is Wales turned up to the extreme. ("It has rain mines!")