"This one goes out to all the Serbians. Also the ladies. But mostly the Serbians."
A speech delivered before a song begins to play. This trope usually comes in two types:
Type 1 Alice starts her performance by stating who she's singing her Intercourse with You or Anti-Love Song for. General dedications to "the ladies" and "the fans" are also popular. This type is common among professional musicians, as well as drunken amateurs at the Karaoke Box.
Type 2 Alice requests a song on the radio (or an In-Universe equivalent) for Bob.
A Sub-Trope of Dedication.
Examples:
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Type 1
Advertising
- The Dairy Queen Lips precede their songs about the Dairy Queen bacon cheeseburger by saying "This one's for the carnivores".
Documentary/Rockumentary
- Green Day: Bullet in a Bible
Billie Joe Armstrong: This song is dedicated to everybody who took the train to get here tonight, alright? This song's called 'Jesus of Suburbia.'
- GWAR: Live from Antarctica
Oderus Urungus: [before playing "Sick of You"] ...and this song is dedicated to you insufferable... human filth!
- Linkin Park: Live in Texas
Chester Bennington: How many musicians do we have in the house? [audience cheers] Good luck to everyone of you guys man. We were on the other side of the barricade a few years ago, man. Coming to these shows, seeing our favorite bands and having the dreams. Just persevere, believe in yourself. One day you'll be up here with us. Or Metallica or Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Mudvayne [the band starts playing "P5hng Me A*wy"] so this one's dedicated to all of you guys out there.
- Lady Gaga dedicated 'Boys Boys Boys' to "all the gay boys and girls out there" at pretty much every concert of her Monster Ball tour. This following the explanation of how she was donating ten thousand dollars in a randomly picked audience member's name to a fund for LGBT homeless youth.
Fan Works
- In the Xiaolin Showdown fanfic, Demon of Wind, Rai does this to Kimiko in the BLAM chapter. With Rai clones as a backup chorus.
Films — Animated
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie: The soundtrack version of Bowser's Villain Love Song "Peaches" begins with a short speech mentioning he's dedicated it to his "one and only true love", Princess Peach.
Live-Action TV
- The Parkers episode "Funny, Funny Valentine"
"Ideal" Lead Singer: This song goes out to a newly engaged couple in the audience.
[Spotlight shines on Professor Oglevee]
Professor Stanley Oglevee: She's gone. Get that damn light off of me.
"Ideal" Lead Singer: Oh... ok. Well, how about a couple who just got back together.
[Spotlight shines on Nikki Parker]
Nicole 'Nikki' Parker: Valentine's Day is for suckas. Get that damn light off of me. - Veronica Mars: In "Clash of the Tritons", Veronica dedicates her karaoke version of "One Way or Another" to a secret society she’s trying to catch.
Veronica: This song goes out to my friends in the Tritons.
- Kath & Kim has Brett dedicate his karaoke performance of Foreigner's "Cold as Ice" to his wife, Kim.
- Done in Happy Days, when Richie plays DJ. At the end of the episode, Fonzie does his on-air dedication... to a Long List of girls.
- Mad TV's parody of OutKast's "Ms. Jackson," "Sorry, Mrs. Jackson."
Female Reporter: Reverend Jackson, if you had one thing to say to your wife about your love child, what would it be?Jesse Jackson: Well... This one goes out to my baby's mama and her baby's mama and her baby's mahama-drama. Let's do this!
Music
- Flight of the Conchords prefaces live performances of "Ladies of the World" with this usually.
- Jpop BENNIE K's song "Okay" begins with one of the singers saying, "Hey yo, this song is for my girls."
- Five Iron Frenzy spoofs this on one of their live albums when Jeff says, "This song goes out to all the people who are over here (indicating one side of the audience)."
- MC Hawking's song "Fuck the Creationists" starts with "This song goes out to all my homies working in the field of evolutionary science".
- A wonderfully bitchy example by Eagles, when Don Henley said "I'd like to dedicate this song
to Mr Rupert Murdoch". The song? Dirty Laundry.
- Paul Stanley of KISS is legendary for his between song banter, rife with Unusual Euphemism and manly boasting. There exists a bootleg CD with 70 pristine-sounding tracks of Stanley's greatest song introductions, called People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest.
- They Might Be Giants:
- On their Severe Tire Damage live album, "S-E-X-X-Y" is dedicated to "the one love of my life — the ladies!"
- The studio version of "Alienation's For The Rich" from They Might Be Giants (Album) is dedicated to "all you modern-day troubadours out there... And I think I know who you are".
- On the first track of Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Dr. Death Defying begins the lead-in to "Na Na Na" with, "This one's for all you rock-and-rollers, all you crash queens and motor babies..."
- Faith No More's cover of "Easy" opens with "Turn the lights on baby... this one's for the ladies in the house."
- Parodied by Richard Cheese, who dedicates "for the ladies"... "Rape Me".
- Butthole Surfers "I Hate My Job" starts with the following memorable rant:
Is the tape- Hey! This is for fucking Mark fucking B and John fucking O'Rourke and I can't say their full goddamn names 'cause the fucking corporate shit are gonna sue my ass... I'm tired, I'm frustrated, I'm full of shit and I HATE MY FUCKIN' JOB!
- BT and Mike Doughty's "Never Gonna Come Back Down" starts with Doughty announcing "I'm just gonna say, uh, this is to the people, not so much the audience as the people sitting in my mind..." It's that kind of song.
- The Specials' version of Toots & The Maytal's "Monkey Man":
This one's for all the bouncers... big, big, monkey man!
- Van Halen's cover of "Ice Cream Man" begins with David Lee Roth saying:
Gonna dedicate one to the ladies...
- Bad Religion's "All There Is."
This song goes out to all the hopeless sinners...
- Tenacious D, "Fuck Her Gently".
"This is a song...for the ladies. And all you fellas, listen closely..."
- Edguy's "Aren't You A Little Pervert Too?".
"This one is for our troops who beat the shit out of bad people and their families."
- The Front Bottoms:
- "Twin Sized Mattress" begins with an obscure and poetic dedication: "This one's for the lions living in the wiry broke-down frames of my friends' bodies."
- "West Virginia" has one after the first verse, but before the rest of the song: "This one goes out to all my friends in West Virginia". The song (a Break-Up Song) otherwise has nothing to do with West Virginia; supposedly the line references a particularly good show the band had in that state.
- Played With regarding "The One I Love" by R.E.M. — the song itself is the shout-out.
This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I've left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love - Tupper Ware Remix Party dedicate nearly every song in their live shows “to all the ladies.”
- "Tameeka" by Mario with Fabolous, opens with "Yo, this goes out to all the Tameekas, yeah. All around the world, you know who you are, I see you."
Professional Wrestling
- Non-musical example, Scott Steiner used to end his promos with "This goes to all my freaks in [name of city]! Big Poppa Pump is your hookup! Holla if ya hear me!"
Webcomics
- xkcd plays this for laughs with this comic.
- In Aptitude Test (mid-February 2013), after Rina finishes her song "Heritage", she dedicates her cover of Jonathan Coulton's "I'm Your Moon" thus:
Rina: So that's everything we know as a band. But Leo's gonna go acoustic so I can sing one last thing. It's by Jonathan Coulton. (cut to Julie in audience) This is a song for somebody.
Web Original
- Linked example in Auto-Tune the News.
- Strong Bad Email "caper":
Strong Bad: The Cheat, man. {Music begins} Where did we go wrong? It seems like just yesterday we were setting fire to Strong Sad's underwears.
Strong Sad: {offscreen} That was yesterday!
Strong Bad: This one's for you.
Cue "The Cheat is Not Dead".
- One of "hiimdaisy's" Ace Attorney parodies has Gavin dedicating a song to "all the disembarred lawyers out there": 'Forging Evidence (till the Break of Dawn).'
Western Animation
- The Simpsons:
- "Homer's Barbershop Quartet"
Homer: This next song is dedicated to a very special lady. She's 100 years old and weighs over 200... tons.Sailor: This enormous woman will devour us all! AAAAHHH!!! (jumps into the sea)Homer: ...I meant the Statue.
- "Homer's Barbershop Quartet"
- Invoked in Family Guy when showcasing how overprotective Peter is. At a concert, Peter decks the lead singer of the band they're seeing because he dedicated a song to "all the ladies out there."
- Regular Show: In "Karaoke Video", Mordecai and Rigby's performance of "We're Not Gonna Take It" is introduced with a dedication to "all you hard workers out there who get treated like dirt."
Type 2
Live-Action TV
- Friends, "The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break": after they break up, Ross calls a DJ to dedicate U2's With or Without You to Rachel. Rachel calls the station to tell them how Ross slept with someone during the break, and the dedication is cancelled.
- In "The Wire" from Resident Alien, D'Arcy calls in to a local radio station in Patience to request "Off You" by The Breeders for her best friend, Asta. However, since the D.J. is a guy she dated for five months, then stole six bottles of wine from his refrigerator upon breaking up with him, she puts on a bad Russian accent and claims to be "Sasha." Nobody is fooled.
- Subverted in Veronica Mars, when a little girl who is dying to see Logan get back together with Veronica calls a radio station and asks Nick Lachey's "What's Left of Me" to be dedicated to her, from him. Funny, of course, because neither him nor her are exactly the romantic type... and yet this cheesy song somehow rings true.
Music
- Cpop singer Landy Wen has a song, "Can U Feel It", where she sings about her anger at her lover (who she thinks does not care about her anymore) until she hears him dedicate a song to her on the radio, at which point they reconcile.
- There's a country song out there that's basically about "My girl's leaving me; I hope she hears this dedication and is convinced to turn around before she gets out of range."
Video Games
- Disco Elysium: During one sidequest, you call in to your sidekick Kim's favorite radio station to pursue a lead. After interviewing the DJ, you can request a song and a shoutout for Kim. Though Kim's too professional to dwell on it and quickly pushes you back toward the case, it doesn't take a lot of Composure to notice how much he appreciates it.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons
- "Cape Feare"
Radio DJ: All right, this next song is dedicated to Bart Simpson, with the message "I am coming to kill you slowly and painfully."
- "Cape Feare"
Real Life
- A Radio Caroline DJ in the mid-1970s:
I'd like to dedicate this next song to Lofty. And at three foot eight, what else would you call him?
- One of the local country station's morning DJs recently said to her cohost, "I finally found a song I can dedicate to you!" and played "I Pray For You":
I pray your brakes go out going down a hill / I pray a flower pot falls from the windowsill / and knocks you in the head like I'd like to...
