Songs that didn't mean what I thought they did.

Dated a girl years ago who thought Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" was saying, "...might as well face it, need a big dick to love...".

She was a class act. Sooner fan, go figure....
 
I thought Nirvana's 'All Apologies' ended with the lines:

"All alone is all we are, all alone is all we are, all alone is all we are,..."
-instead of-
"All in all is all we are, all in all is all we are, all in all is all we are,..."

That takes it from a very depressing ending to a sort of Far Eastern mystical statement, I guess.

I liked Nirvana and Cobain, but it was hard to decipher what the heck he was trying to say sometimes.
 
Last edited:
For me it was System of a Down's Chop Suey.

For decades my wife and I thought the lyrics were:

"Why'd you leave the baby on the table?
You wanted to."

Just recently I read the lyrics and was so disappointed to read:

"Why'd you leave the keys upon the table?
You wanted to."

Seriously, why would anyone care about someone leaving keys on a table? That insight ruined the song for me.

During the time the song was popular we were learning how to parent with our first son. My wife would oftem remind me not to turn my back while he was on the changing table. We surmised that might have influenced our ears.

 
Last edited:
“Born in the USA” by Springsteen is sometimes held up as a positive arena rock celebration. But its actually a pretty dark song about the poor treatment many of our Vietnam veterans received when they returned home.
 
Middle of the Road by Chrissy Hynde and the Pretenders

There's a line early on where she says: "I'm standing in the middle of life with my plans behind me."

I had always thought she was saying "I'm standing in the middle of life with my pants behind me."
 
Chop said:
Middle of the Road by Chrissy Hynde and the Pretenders

There's a line early on where she says: "I'm standing in the middle of life with my plans behind me."

I had always thought she was saying "I'm standing in the middle of life with my pants behind me."
Click to expand...

damn, this whole time I thought it was pants!
:idk:
 
I assumed Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" was, outside of a little poetic license to fit the rhyme meter, a true story of Rubin Carter's false conviction. Later I learned that at least half the song is way beyond poetic license into pure and utter fiction.
 
Statalyzer said:
I assumed Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" was, outside of a little poetic license to fit the rhyme meter, a true story of Rubin Carter's false conviction. Later I learned that at least half the song is way beyond poetic license into pure and utter fiction.
Click to expand...
I hear you. They're certainly story tellers, not historians.
 
Van Halen - Hear About it Later from the Fair Warning album.

I had always thought it was just another VH song - let's party hard, get some girls.

I'm now pretty sure it's a story about him (Dave) being a male prostitute / getting paid for it by the women. I guess it foreshadowed Dave's later Just a Gigolo song.
 
Elton John song: Ballad of Danny Bailey on Good By to Yellow Brick Road. About a gangster / bootlegger, the death of a "runnin' gun youngster in a sad restless day"

For a time, long ago, I thought EJ was singing "and now the high waist is in". I kept thinking that made no sense but perhaps had a different meaning. Finally I heard the song enough I figured it out:

It was: "and now the HARVEST is in"

I thought this was the best song on the album. Bernie Taupin wrote some incredible lyrics for EJ back in those days.
 
Queen - "We Will Rock You"

It's certainly one of their signature songs, now mostly played at sporting events. The song sort of provoked the listener by describing him/her in each verse and then chanting "we will, we will rock you." I always figured it wasn't about anything much, maybe just about jamming to rock music, or possibly street fighting gangs, or something like that.

Thinking about the lyrics some more, I think it's actually a counter-revolutionary mocking of the different phases of the lives of radical revolutionary types. (Sir) Brian May, PhD (and Conservative Party (UK) member for most of his life) must have written this one.

An aside: the album artwork on News of the World used to really creep me out.
 
Then again, I could just be reading way too much into the lyrics...

Key verse = #2:

Buddy you're a young man, hard man, shouting in the street
Gonna take on the world someday,
You got blood on your face, you big disgrace,
Waiving your banner all over the place.

If this has any meaning at all, I think he's mocking the revolutionary/protester type out there shouting in the street and waiving his banner.
 
I can see it. Who else shouts in the street and waves banners? Very perceptive.

I OTOH am so shallow I thought .38Special was singing "Hang on Lucy"
 
One intriguing song is the Beatles ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’. I see a possible triple meaning in this one: firearms, drug syringes, and anatomy. I think they penned this one (and some other songs) intentionally to have multiple meanings for different people. They existed at the tail end of a heavy censorship era in the US market, so there was much they couldn’t just come out and say.

And, of course, Charles Manson read all sorts of whacky stuff into their songs that was never intended.
 
Last edited:
I like the Stones and saw them once in concert. Some of their lyrics are pretty sick though. Just about no other band besides them, and I guess the Beatles (who were the good guys image to the Stones bad guys image), could get radio airtime with these sorts of lyrics.

Brown Sugar— This is a song about raping and whipping slave girls. They’ve played it on the radio frequently from when it first came out. Not a song about a nice interracial relationship.

Start me Up—A song about necrophilia. Not a song about riding motorcycles or sexual activity between two living people.

Under My Thumb—-Lets just say they weren’t invited to play at any NOW conventions.

When the Whip Comes Down—Not played at your local Pride parade. (Then again, maybe it is among a certain subgroup in that parade...)
 
Last edited:
Chop said:
I like the Stones and saw them once in concert. Some of their lyrics are pretty sick though. Just about no other band besides them, and I guess the Beatles (who were the good guys image to the Stones bad guys image), could get radio airtime with these sorts of lyrics.

Brown Sugar— This is a song about raping and whipping slave girls. They’ve played it on the radio frequently from when it first came out. Not a song about a nice interracial relationship.

Start me Up—A song about necrophilia. Not a song about riding motorcycles or sexual activity between two living people.

When the Whip Comes Down, and Under My Thumb—-Lets just say they weren’t invited to play at any NOW conventions.
Click to expand...
Cancel!

I always thought Brown Sugar was about heroin, so that fits in this thread.
 
horninchicago said:
Cancel!

I always thought Brown Sugar was about heroin, so that fits in this thread.
Click to expand...
Could be double and triple meanings, of course. Check out the lyrics though—on the surface, it’s clearly about a slave master whipping and raping the slave girls.

I heard one interview where Mick said he wrote it after a nasty break up with his first Black girlfriend. And that he wouldn’t write a song like this again.
 
horninchicago said:
I always thought that meant she was so hot she would make a dead man come.
Click to expand...
Your interpretation could be right, and perhaps I’m taking his last two lines too literally. It’s what he says though. It also fits with his lips growing green earlier in the song.
 
I remember when I was about 12 we went to Charleston, SC with another family. A band covered Start Me Up one night at some beach event. We giggled like little morons at the dead man come line.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Recent Threads

Back
Top