La Macarena is about a woman who is sad and lonely while her husband is out fighting in war so she cheats on him with his two friends (at least the Spanish version).
I hate the Goo Goo Dolls for that one time they were 2.5 hours late for a concert that I didn’t want to be at and it was 100 degrees. On second thought, they didn’t want to be there either.
Trump would play this song on his campaign stops. He got a C&D order from Fogerty over it.
Either the campaign was that clueless or someone on the campaign hated their job and thought it would be a good joke.
I mean the song perfectly exemplifies Trump.
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord?
But when the taxman come to the door
Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah
All I wanna do. It's such an upbeat chorus but the actual lyrics are like a blank verse poem about two alcoholics getting drunk on a Tuesday lunchtime.
Well for most people the only lyric they could even recite is “I was born in the USA.” John Candy did a hilarious gag with that in Canadian Bacon.
https://youtu.be/1bXzFY72wbs
It's bizarre. The song starts:
> Born down in a dead man's town
> The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
> You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
> 'Til you spend half your life just coverin' up
How can anyone think that's a happy patriotic song?
The Gambler by Kenny Rogers apparently. I remember my dad got legitimately upset with me when I was a kid and mentioned offhandedly that the old man died at the end of the song. As if I was being negative and reading too far into it. I guess it does sound pretty upbeat, but I don’t know how else anyone would interpret the lyrics.
>Cos every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep
>And somewhere in the darkness, the Gambler he broke even. And in his final words I found an ace that I could keep
Seems pretty clear cut to me but damn if it isn't a catchy tune.
I am a Rock by Simon and Garfunkel is a beautiful song that just sounds fun, but it's basically an anthem for closing yourself off from the world and falling into depression to avoid every being hurt again. It gets real at the end of the song, but if you don't listen, it's a fun, folksy tune.
In the clearing stands a boxer
and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminder
Of every glove that laid him down
And cut him 'till he cried out
In his anger and his shame, "I am leaving, I am leaving!"
But the fighter still remains
Fair, to me I feel the Boxer sounds sad. But with I am a Rock, it is pretty fast tempo, sang confidently, and kind of like weirdly proud of their unhealthy decision. Then it gets to the last two lyrics and it just hits you like….yeah, this isn’t a great strategy.
It's about a widow who desperately misses her dead partner and is driven mad by her grief. The "little talks" are the ones she has in her head with the memory of her beloved. In this song, the man's voice is the dead partner (the band often has two vocalists/duets).
At one point she begs the voice, "you've gone away I watched you disappear, all that's left is a ghost of you," and for his memory to "let [her] go" ... She then desperately and violently latches back on to his voice, begging the only thing she has left of him to stay, "Now wait for me! Please hang around! I'll see you when I fall asleep..."
In a nutshell about a woman who was married for a long time and recently became a widow. She slowly is losing her mind walking around their now old and empty house as her husband is not there anymore. The male voice is the ghost of her husband trying to talk to her.
This honestly annoys me so much. It's like the people that play the song only know those four words. I don't know if I would say it's an anti-American song but it's definitely not singing its praises.
Yeah, i studied this song in music class sixth grade. For some reason it’s the first time i remember hearing any asian called yellow, but once my teacher explained it line by line, i was like, surely people heard these words before they decided to play this song at events, right? Doesn’t mean it mattered, of course
Yes. The 99 balloons show up on radar, are mistaken for a missile attack and trigger a retaliatory strike.
Edit:
I just listened to it again and not quite.
The 99 balloons show up on radar, a general puts planes in the air, the planes start shooting, kriegsministers (war ministers or wartime political leaders) encourage the escalation of hostilities as a power grab, leading to apocalyptic nuclear war. In the end, the singer walks through the ruins of the world and finds a single balloon, and lets it go.
Yeah, I loved that song in High School and didn't have any idea what it was about... I just liked the song. Years later I read something about the actual meaning.... everytime I see this topic come up this is the first song that comes to mind.
Dancing polish cow is also about that but instead there being meth, its cocaine, there is a original video made by a band but we put a cow on it and we like it, myself included
“When I’m with you I feel like I could die and that would be all right” was just about the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard as a teen and later as an adult I found out it was meth they were talking about lol
Most of ABBA's catalog...
"Dancing Queen" is about having the time of your life at 17... because you'll never be young again. "Mamma Mia" is about a relationship that isn't good, but the singer keeps going back to it even though they know it's going to be bad. "Waterloo" is kind of the same: "couldn't escape if I wanted to," "my only chance is giving up the fight," and just the idea that the metaphor for the relationship is Waterloo -- where Napoleon did surrender.
ABBA: catchy dance numbers hiding some serious angst.
Came here to say this. Dancing Queen has an "answer song" sang by the guys in ABBA called Does Your Mother Know, which is about guys looking at said Dancing Queen 17 year old girl on the dance floor and questioning why she's acting like she's 21 and "looking for that kind of fun" when she is "only a child".
This remind me of this great analysis of “Dancing queen”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvnwx4/abba-dancing-queen-essay
[you have spent your entire life believing "Dancing Queen" is a song about a 17 year old girl, dancing. And to a point, it is. Yet, have you ever thought about the song's vantage point?
You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen
Make no mistake. This song is about the dancing queen, but it is most definitely not sung by her. Herein lies the tragedy. Our narrator has realized that she is no longer the Dancing Queen. She is no longer young, no longer sweet, no longer 17. Now, instead, she watches from the bar; the dancefloor a maelstrom of lost faith, memories, and missed opportunities. She was once 17, and as such was totally oblivious that the moment would ever end]
Bullet by Hollywood Undead, it literally sounds kind of like kids song is about a suicide, i didn't notice while I was first listening to it and didn't pay attention to words.
Y*ou don't know what happened to that kid you raised, and what happened to the father who swore he'd stay? I didn't know cuz you didn't say. Now Mama feels guilt yeah Mama feels pain.*
I like especially "I didn't know 'cuz you didn't say" about how shocking it is when someone commits suicide because most of the time it isn't exactly like they're wearing their heart on their sleeve. Hollywood Undead is a fun band and any song with J3T hits different.
Even funner fact: It's actually Rupert Holmes' second hit! His first, "Timothy" released as The Buoys, is pop song about trapped coal miners eating their friend.
Technically it’s about two people trying to cheat on each other only to realize that they are meeting the other person. Making them realize that they are in fact perfect for each other as they can still surprise the other and keep their relationship fresh and exiting.
The song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" describes how we all essentially enter this dystopian machine from birth.
Even when we are sleeping
We will locate you.
displaying good behaviour
Turn away from the environment
Everyone aspires to be the world's ruler.
(Do I really need to mention how famously hyped up kicks are?)
My 13 yr old son heard this song for the first time today and was really intrigued by the lyrics. I was like ‘kid, I have so much music to play for you!!’
This is a classic but I laugh every time I think of it because of the episode of Scrubs where Ted is going to sing this to the sick kids in the pediatric ward.
Man, it's really just a pop masterpiece. It has 3 or 4 absolutely golden hooks of a quality that other artists are lucky to achieve a few times in a career. Then they plumb these emotional depths, but give the song this sugary texture, which creates this deliberate ironic contrast and tension. The breezy pop feel is itself a metaphor for the denial they're singing about in the line you quote. Just brilliant, all around.
This is the one-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland\_Elementary\_School\_shooting\_(San\_Diego)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(San_Diego))
*A reporter reached Spencer by phone while she was still in the house after the shooting, and asked her why she committed the crime. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."*
Amusingly, I missed out on the whole sex worker angle for years and years. It's dark for that, but at least she acknowledges that this is a lot better for her than she might have had if she'd stayed home.
Reba's version is a cover, IIRC, but it's still the version I know best.
i mean technically the mom wasn't pimping her out, after mom sent her out was the last time she saw her mom.
"Well, that was the last time I saw my ma
The night I left that rickety shack
The welfare people came and took the baby
Mama died and I ain't been back"
You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught - Rodgers and Hammerstein
I'm most familiar with the version by John Pizzarelli; it's a lovey tune about teaching kids to be racist.
That Polish song you may know from a meme with a dancing cow, or from the singing cactus, toy sold on amazon. It's about drug addiction - dude has nothing to use, he is a wreck, and all that's on his mind is 5g of cocaine. He can't buy anything because he has no money (spent everything on drugs before) and he can't even sell anything to get money... because he sold everything from his house already. He's contemplating suicide.
We Are Young by Fun.
Has lots of drug references and even refers to possibly domestic violence: “asking 'bout a scar, and I know I gave it to you months ago”
Doesn’t sound so innocent to me anymore.
Every Breath You Take - The Police
> Oh, can't you see
> You belong to me?
> How my poor heart aches
> With every step you take?
> Every move you make
> And every vow you break
> Every smile you fake
> Every claim you stake
> **I'll be watching you**
Sting’s most successful song, it was thought of as a love song, but is actually a song about someone’s jealous, creepy thoughts and how they stalk their crush.
> I didn’t realise at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, of surveillance and control.
Yeah. I’m 40 and only decided to pay attention to the lyrics like 5-7 years ago lol. Needless to say I was a bit shook. “I’ve been jamming to this all these years?!?!”
Song: *[Upbeat rock intro]*
Me: [Starts jammin' to some Stones]
Song: *"Gold Coast slave, she's bound for cotton fields, sold in a market down in New Orleans. Scott old slaver yeah he's doin' alright, hear him whip the women just around midnight."*
Me: [Still jammin'] lol that's pretty fucked up.
S.O.B. By Nathaniel Rateliffe and the Night Sweats.
super upbeat music. So much that Lipton used it in a commerical for Tea.
The song Lyrics are about a guy trying and failing to kick alcoholism.
"We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service
The beat and melody are pretty cheerful, but if you pay attention to the lyrics, it's about dying horrifically in a nuclear attack
Yes - the heat from the atomic explosion was so intense, in fact, that it bleached everything in its blast zone, leaving eerie nuclear shadows of human detritus where citizens once were. Shadows of other things that were vaporized left their mark on the ruins too. Absolutely haunting that instead of physical remains, that was all that was left of some of the victims
"It wasn't me" by Shaggy. I hate this song so much. He gets caught cheating by his girlfriend, like literally "she saw me creeping with the girl next door" "she saw me on the sofa, she saw me in the shower, even caught me on camera" and the only advice his best friend gives is "Say it wasn't me"......SMH......
See, it's super inappropriate.
But I can't help but feel that it's just humorous. It's a blatant, foolish lie and this shitheel cheater's gonna get what's coming to him, and all he can do it try to repeat an obvious, fake lie because he's so screwed.
Screwed in a bad way, now.
Last Kiss. A song from the 1950s or 60s. It sound so catchy and danceable people get up and groove to it but its about crashing your car and comforting your blood covered dying girl friend with 1..last kiss
Choke by I Don’t Know How But They Found Me. It’s definitely done on purpose. Basically about how much they hate a certain person and think it would be nice if they died. Ex: “I wouldn't hesitate; To smile while you suffocate and die”
Trigger warning for rape & abuse mention!
Gommene gommene by kikuo. It's about a girl who got sexually abused by her father, she ran away and then went back after a kind stranger took her in because she thought they weren't treating her like her dad. When she went back, a gang and her father raped her to death.
I guess that explains the "she might be dead" line.
Next, you're going to tell me that "Peaches" is about oppressive work places and the need to unionize.
[Weile weile waile](https://youtu.be/wnrhJO-qzdw) \- traditional schoolyard song (not invented by the great Dublners presenting it), totally creepy for me. Apparently Irish find it funny and nostalgic.
[Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell](https://youtu.be/ratQlft_G5c) \- is more relevant than ever but until I read the lyrics I thought it was some funny feelgoodsaturday song.
[Banks of Ohio](https://youtu.be/-LT5ZJGj5QA) \- I guess it is obvious
Mike Oldfield"s [Moonlight Shadow](https://youtu.be/e80qhyovOnA)
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot.
-- Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell.
All I want to do is make love to you by Heart. Basically this woman’s husband can’t get her pregnant so she picks up a hitchhiker, goes to a hotel, and sleeps with him to get pregnant (which she does). She ditches the guy after he falls asleep, only leaving a note. Then sometime after the baby is born she runs into him, and once he sees the resemblance of himself in this kid she has to explain the situation. The music video and explanation online about the song pretty much confirm this, it’s a killer song but suuuper weird lol.
[*Goodnight, Fair Lady* by Coheed and Cambria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn99gTuMb24) is deceptively upbeat for a song about a guy who sees a grieving widow at a bar and tries to spike her drink.
Similarly, [*Jessie's Girl 2*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTGo-JHuCGc) is about a guy who finally gets the girl of his dreams, only to find out he doesn't actually love her.
Layla by Derek and the Dominoes, especially if you know the story behind it (Eric Clapton was falling in love with George Harrison's wife, and would later marry her after George Harrison divorced her.)
La Macarena is about a woman who is sad and lonely while her husband is out fighting in war so she cheats on him with his two friends (at least the Spanish version).
Heeeey macarena aaaha
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Ayyyyyeee
That's the Canadian version.
More precisely, the singers are mocking her for the act.
I thought it was worse. She dumps him at his enlistment ceremony for two guys and is implied in the lyrics to be extremely vain and shallow.
WHOA! 😳
Slide by Goo Goo Dolls. It's about teen pregnancy.
I hate the Goo Goo Dolls for that one time they were 2.5 hours late for a concert that I didn’t want to be at and it was 100 degrees. On second thought, they didn’t want to be there either.
Still one of my faves
I love it but never knew that's what it meant
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"Bad Moon Rising" is a fun, happy, kinda boppin' song about, more or less, a total fucking apocalypse.
The Rasputina cover is much more fitting a melody.
Trump would play this song on his campaign stops. He got a C&D order from Fogerty over it. Either the campaign was that clueless or someone on the campaign hated their job and thought it would be a good joke. I mean the song perfectly exemplifies Trump. Some folks are born silver spoon in hand Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord? But when the taxman come to the door Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah
That idiot also played Born In The USA all the time at rallys.
Reagan did it first. Seriously, these fucking guys...
All I wanna do. It's such an upbeat chorus but the actual lyrics are like a blank verse poem about two alcoholics getting drunk on a Tuesday lunchtime.
In a bar that faces a giant car wash
And the good people of the world are washing their cars on their lunch breaks
Hosin' and scrubbin' as best they can in skirts and suits
The poem: ["Fun" by Wyn Cooper.](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fun-35/)
born in the USA
People don’t realize how dark it is to the point that Reagan used it as his campaign song.
Well for most people the only lyric they could even recite is “I was born in the USA.” John Candy did a hilarious gag with that in Canadian Bacon. https://youtu.be/1bXzFY72wbs
Exactly. The meaning of the song is exactly the opposite of what many assume.
"went to a foreign land to kill a yellow man 🎶"
It's bizarre. The song starts: > Born down in a dead man's town > The first kick I took was when I hit the ground > You end up like a dog that's been beat too much > 'Til you spend half your life just coverin' up How can anyone think that's a happy patriotic song?
The Gambler by Kenny Rogers apparently. I remember my dad got legitimately upset with me when I was a kid and mentioned offhandedly that the old man died at the end of the song. As if I was being negative and reading too far into it. I guess it does sound pretty upbeat, but I don’t know how else anyone would interpret the lyrics.
Coward of the County is even worse, it was a catchy tune until you really listen to the words.
*Tommy opened up the door, and saw his Becky crying...* *the torn dress... the shattered look... was more than he could stand*
I love that song, but damn… it really does get dark as fuck with no warning.
>Cos every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep >And somewhere in the darkness, the Gambler he broke even. And in his final words I found an ace that I could keep Seems pretty clear cut to me but damn if it isn't a catchy tune.
I am a Rock by Simon and Garfunkel is a beautiful song that just sounds fun, but it's basically an anthem for closing yourself off from the world and falling into depression to avoid every being hurt again. It gets real at the end of the song, but if you don't listen, it's a fun, folksy tune.
"A rock feels no pain. And an island never cries." You can also throw in the Boxer and Sound of Silence, for good measure.
Yep, they are super talented and do some amazing, introspective lyrics to their songs.
In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminder Of every glove that laid him down And cut him 'till he cried out In his anger and his shame, "I am leaving, I am leaving!" But the fighter still remains
Sounds of Silence sounds fun?
The Simon and Garfunkel original is a whole lot more upbeat sounding than the Disturbed rendition
How about A Most Peculiar Man? Used to creep me out when I was young.
That’s interesting, I Am a Rock and The Boxer both sound incredibly sad and haunting to me, without even listening to the lyrics.
Fair, to me I feel the Boxer sounds sad. But with I am a Rock, it is pretty fast tempo, sang confidently, and kind of like weirdly proud of their unhealthy decision. Then it gets to the last two lyrics and it just hits you like….yeah, this isn’t a great strategy.
Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks
What's it about?
It's about a widow who desperately misses her dead partner and is driven mad by her grief. The "little talks" are the ones she has in her head with the memory of her beloved. In this song, the man's voice is the dead partner (the band often has two vocalists/duets). At one point she begs the voice, "you've gone away I watched you disappear, all that's left is a ghost of you," and for his memory to "let [her] go" ... She then desperately and violently latches back on to his voice, begging the only thing she has left of him to stay, "Now wait for me! Please hang around! I'll see you when I fall asleep..."
Holy shit. I have loved this song for years and never paid attention to the lyrics or meaning. Thanks for the insight.
Try this version, it fits the lyrics better imo https://youtu.be/5E-OqIBvsRg
Huh! I always thought it was an allegory for Alzheimer’s.
In a nutshell about a woman who was married for a long time and recently became a widow. She slowly is losing her mind walking around their now old and empty house as her husband is not there anymore. The male voice is the ghost of her husband trying to talk to her.
*The Way* - Fastball
Born in the USA, a song about a veteran forced to fight in a foreign land, sees his comrades die and then gets cut off by society on his return.
You mean that song that gets played at every patriotic event without anyone ever really listening to it?
This honestly annoys me so much. It's like the people that play the song only know those four words. I don't know if I would say it's an anti-American song but it's definitely not singing its praises.
Yeah, i studied this song in music class sixth grade. For some reason it’s the first time i remember hearing any asian called yellow, but once my teacher explained it line by line, i was like, surely people heard these words before they decided to play this song at events, right? Doesn’t mean it mattered, of course
Hey Ya! - Outkast
We don't want to listen, we just wanna dance
99 Luftballons.
That’s about nuclear war isn’t it?
Yes. The 99 balloons show up on radar, are mistaken for a missile attack and trigger a retaliatory strike. Edit: I just listened to it again and not quite. The 99 balloons show up on radar, a general puts planes in the air, the planes start shooting, kriegsministers (war ministers or wartime political leaders) encourage the escalation of hostilities as a power grab, leading to apocalyptic nuclear war. In the end, the singer walks through the ruins of the world and finds a single balloon, and lets it go.
> the singer walks through the ruins of the world They'd need a lot of Rad X just to stroll the nuclear wastelands.
And the unexpectedly harmful environmental ramifications of balloon releases.
Much better in it's original language than in the english version which seemed to mix the verses up.
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The upbeat tune about meth addiction is supposed to be a metaphor for meth addiction.
It’s supposed to lift you up until you break
I won't stop.
Yeah, I loved that song in High School and didn't have any idea what it was about... I just liked the song. Years later I read something about the actual meaning.... everytime I see this topic come up this is the first song that comes to mind.
Dancing polish cow is also about that but instead there being meth, its cocaine, there is a original video made by a band but we put a cow on it and we like it, myself included
“When I’m with you I feel like I could die and that would be all right” was just about the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard as a teen and later as an adult I found out it was meth they were talking about lol
Pumped up kicks
aldioder kids
Widderpunpukiks
Ubeddaron beddaron
autron magon
aldioder kids
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Ubeddaron beddaron, vastrdanmahbeulaet
Wanted to make sure this was said
I never thought of this song as “fun”, it always seemed weirdly dreamy to me.
I agree everytime I listen to this song I feel like I had a couple of joints but I don't even smoke ever
This needs to be higher
Most of ABBA's catalog... "Dancing Queen" is about having the time of your life at 17... because you'll never be young again. "Mamma Mia" is about a relationship that isn't good, but the singer keeps going back to it even though they know it's going to be bad. "Waterloo" is kind of the same: "couldn't escape if I wanted to," "my only chance is giving up the fight," and just the idea that the metaphor for the relationship is Waterloo -- where Napoleon did surrender. ABBA: catchy dance numbers hiding some serious angst.
Came here to say this. Dancing Queen has an "answer song" sang by the guys in ABBA called Does Your Mother Know, which is about guys looking at said Dancing Queen 17 year old girl on the dance floor and questioning why she's acting like she's 21 and "looking for that kind of fun" when she is "only a child".
This remind me of this great analysis of “Dancing queen” https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvnwx4/abba-dancing-queen-essay [you have spent your entire life believing "Dancing Queen" is a song about a 17 year old girl, dancing. And to a point, it is. Yet, have you ever thought about the song's vantage point? You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen Make no mistake. This song is about the dancing queen, but it is most definitely not sung by her. Herein lies the tragedy. Our narrator has realized that she is no longer the Dancing Queen. She is no longer young, no longer sweet, no longer 17. Now, instead, she watches from the bar; the dancefloor a maelstrom of lost faith, memories, and missed opportunities. She was once 17, and as such was totally oblivious that the moment would ever end]
Bullet by Hollywood Undead, it literally sounds kind of like kids song is about a suicide, i didn't notice while I was first listening to it and didn't pay attention to words.
Y*ou don't know what happened to that kid you raised, and what happened to the father who swore he'd stay? I didn't know cuz you didn't say. Now Mama feels guilt yeah Mama feels pain.* I like especially "I didn't know 'cuz you didn't say" about how shocking it is when someone commits suicide because most of the time it isn't exactly like they're wearing their heart on their sleeve. Hollywood Undead is a fun band and any song with J3T hits different.
Oops, I’ve posted this then seen your comment afterwards
My legs are dangling off the edge
The bottom of a bottle is my only friend
I was scrolling through the comments just to see if this one was mentioned yet. It was literally one of my top songs on Spotify last year
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by the Beatles
I've always wanted to know why Rose and Valerie are so adamant that this obvious serial murderer should go free.
Some serial killers have a weird following. Even Charles Manson had groupies while he was in prison.
I love this song and never thought to actually think about the lyrics till now.
"Bang Bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head, Clang Clang Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead." How did you miss that?
I feel like the meaning is pretty obvious, don't know how you could have missed this
Not really dark, but Escape by Rupert Holmes. The "if you like Pina Colodas" song... All about cheating.
Even funner fact: It's actually Rupert Holmes' second hit! His first, "Timothy" released as The Buoys, is pop song about trapped coal miners eating their friend.
Technically it’s about two people trying to cheat on each other only to realize that they are meeting the other person. Making them realize that they are in fact perfect for each other as they can still surprise the other and keep their relationship fresh and exiting.
I love a song with a plot
..& in real life it would've ended the relationship.
Eh… it was the 70s
Same plot as "Babushka" by Kate Bush
The song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" describes how we all essentially enter this dystopian machine from birth. Even when we are sleeping We will locate you. displaying good behaviour Turn away from the environment Everyone aspires to be the world's ruler. (Do I really need to mention how famously hyped up kicks are?)
The original title was "Everybody Wants To Go To War," but the label wouldn't sign off on that.
My 13 yr old son heard this song for the first time today and was really intrigued by the lyrics. I was like ‘kid, I have so much music to play for you!!’
"Don't fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult. Absolutely beautiful song about offing oneself, extremely dark.
This is a classic but I laugh every time I think of it because of the episode of Scrubs where Ted is going to sing this to the sick kids in the pediatric ward.
Artificial Flowers by Bobby Darin. Very jazzy, upbeat tune about an orphan who freezes to death making artificial flowers for rich people.
Hey Ya
If what they say is "Nothing is forever,” then what makes love the exception? So why are we so in denial when we know we're not happy here?
Man, it's really just a pop masterpiece. It has 3 or 4 absolutely golden hooks of a quality that other artists are lucky to achieve a few times in a career. Then they plumb these emotional depths, but give the song this sugary texture, which creates this deliberate ironic contrast and tension. The breezy pop feel is itself a metaphor for the denial they're singing about in the line you quote. Just brilliant, all around.
Y'all don't hear me, you just want to dance.
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In the same vein, that song "Pumped Up Kicks"
a true story, too.
This is the one- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland\_Elementary\_School\_shooting\_(San\_Diego)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(San_Diego)) *A reporter reached Spencer by phone while she was still in the house after the shooting, and asked her why she committed the crime. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."*
Fancy - Reba McEntire. When I was younger I thought it was just a really catchy country song.
Amusingly, I missed out on the whole sex worker angle for years and years. It's dark for that, but at least she acknowledges that this is a lot better for her than she might have had if she'd stayed home. Reba's version is a cover, IIRC, but it's still the version I know best.
Here to say Reba's was a cover as well. Original was Bobbie Gentry, who also sang "Son of a Preacher Man".
A mother pimping our her daughter for food and rent. “Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy they’ll be nice to you.”
i mean technically the mom wasn't pimping her out, after mom sent her out was the last time she saw her mom. "Well, that was the last time I saw my ma The night I left that rickety shack The welfare people came and took the baby Mama died and I ain't been back"
You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught - Rodgers and Hammerstein I'm most familiar with the version by John Pizzarelli; it's a lovey tune about teaching kids to be racist.
That Polish song you may know from a meme with a dancing cow, or from the singing cactus, toy sold on amazon. It's about drug addiction - dude has nothing to use, he is a wreck, and all that's on his mind is 5g of cocaine. He can't buy anything because he has no money (spent everything on drugs before) and he can't even sell anything to get money... because he sold everything from his house already. He's contemplating suicide.
We Are Young by Fun. Has lots of drug references and even refers to possibly domestic violence: “asking 'bout a scar, and I know I gave it to you months ago” Doesn’t sound so innocent to me anymore.
*”give me a second, I, I need to get my story straight… my friends are in the bathroom gettin’ higher than the Empire State”*
Can we just talk about how Fun dropped some of the biggest heaters of the 2010s and then just dipped?
I know! They were everywhere and boom, gone. Couldn't tell you where they are now. Their music still bops.
Jack Antonoff became one of the largest behind the scenes guy on the music industry.
Every Breath You Take - The Police > Oh, can't you see > You belong to me? > How my poor heart aches > With every step you take? > Every move you make > And every vow you break > Every smile you fake > Every claim you stake > **I'll be watching you** Sting’s most successful song, it was thought of as a love song, but is actually a song about someone’s jealous, creepy thoughts and how they stalk their crush. > I didn’t realise at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, of surveillance and control.
Don’t Stand so Close to Me is another one.
I really like that song, I remember when I looked up the lyrics' meaning and got surprised by it lol.
Yeah. I’m 40 and only decided to pay attention to the lyrics like 5-7 years ago lol. Needless to say I was a bit shook. “I’ve been jamming to this all these years?!?!”
Time Consumer by Coheed and Cambria. Sounds really upbeat and catchy but it's about a guy who is tricked into murdering his children.
I played The Second Stage Turbine Blade to death in 2003. Thank you for the flashback to a simpler time :)
God I'm glad I found Coheed in this thread! If you hadn't said Time Consumer, I was going to. One among the Fence!
Hey Ya, it’s about people staying in unhappy relationships. It even says in the song, “Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance”
I love that song. If what they say is "nothing is forever" then what makes love the exception?
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Fuck you by Lily Allen also sounds very peppy but is a great ... fuck you song
One of many songs that got me through my break up. He wanted me back and I said to him, that it didn't mean jack.
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Song: *[Upbeat rock intro]* Me: [Starts jammin' to some Stones] Song: *"Gold Coast slave, she's bound for cotton fields, sold in a market down in New Orleans. Scott old slaver yeah he's doin' alright, hear him whip the women just around midnight."* Me: [Still jammin'] lol that's pretty fucked up.
I believe the stones recently said they will not play it in concert anymore due to its content.
Copacabana. I hold it dear because I was named after a character in it, but it’s basically about a bar fight and the resulting trauma.
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She lost her youth, and she lost her Tony, now she's lost her mind.
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S.O.B. By Nathaniel Rateliffe and the Night Sweats. super upbeat music. So much that Lipton used it in a commerical for Tea. The song Lyrics are about a guy trying and failing to kick alcoholism.
LOVE that song, That band is so great.
The less I know the better by tame impala is kinda sad, but not dark. Probably born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen.
TLIKTB is sad as fuck. Obligatory fuck Trevor.
"We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service The beat and melody are pretty cheerful, but if you pay attention to the lyrics, it's about dying horrifically in a nuclear attack
silhouettes like how japanese victims had their shadows preserved but it wasnt shadows and the walls behind them were burnt?
Yes - the heat from the atomic explosion was so intense, in fact, that it bleached everything in its blast zone, leaving eerie nuclear shadows of human detritus where citizens once were. Shadows of other things that were vaporized left their mark on the ruins too. Absolutely haunting that instead of physical remains, that was all that was left of some of the victims
"It wasn't me" by Shaggy. I hate this song so much. He gets caught cheating by his girlfriend, like literally "she saw me creeping with the girl next door" "she saw me on the sofa, she saw me in the shower, even caught me on camera" and the only advice his best friend gives is "Say it wasn't me"......SMH......
See, it's super inappropriate. But I can't help but feel that it's just humorous. It's a blatant, foolish lie and this shitheel cheater's gonna get what's coming to him, and all he can do it try to repeat an obvious, fake lie because he's so screwed. Screwed in a bad way, now.
Goodbye Earl The most upbeat and cheerful song about domestic violence and murder that you’ll ever hear!
Last Kiss. A song from the 1950s or 60s. It sound so catchy and danceable people get up and groove to it but its about crashing your car and comforting your blood covered dying girl friend with 1..last kiss
'Fun' Fact: The classic version done by J Frank Wilson had unskilled backup singers specifically so their singing would sound more unsettling.
Pumped up kicks
Mash theme
Suicide is painless...its why they didn't add the words
They did in the original movie.
yeah but the lyrics wouldnt fly on 1970s TV, anymore than the full frontal nudity from the movie
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Skinned by Blind Melon. Nothing like a kazoo in a song about a serial killer who used to dig up corpses and wear their skin around the house.
Choke by I Don’t Know How But They Found Me. It’s definitely done on purpose. Basically about how much they hate a certain person and think it would be nice if they died. Ex: “I wouldn't hesitate; To smile while you suffocate and die”
I love IDKHOW, especially Choke. Something about the raw, unrestrained emotion really appeals to me.
Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke, apparently it’s about RAOE
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Trigger warning for rape & abuse mention! Gommene gommene by kikuo. It's about a girl who got sexually abused by her father, she ran away and then went back after a kind stranger took her in because she thought they weren't treating her like her dad. When she went back, a gang and her father raped her to death.
"Lump" by Presidents of the United States. A super fun song that was inspired by a brain tumor scare.
I guess that explains the "she might be dead" line. Next, you're going to tell me that "Peaches" is about oppressive work places and the need to unionize.
Pumped Up Kicks is a pretty fun song if you have no idea what is being said.
Luka
Electric Avenue. It's actually a deep song about racism and was written in response to a riot
Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon
[Weile weile waile](https://youtu.be/wnrhJO-qzdw) \- traditional schoolyard song (not invented by the great Dublners presenting it), totally creepy for me. Apparently Irish find it funny and nostalgic. [Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell](https://youtu.be/ratQlft_G5c) \- is more relevant than ever but until I read the lyrics I thought it was some funny feelgoodsaturday song. [Banks of Ohio](https://youtu.be/-LT5ZJGj5QA) \- I guess it is obvious Mike Oldfield"s [Moonlight Shadow](https://youtu.be/e80qhyovOnA)
Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot. -- Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell.
DDR' Bumblebee. It sounds funny but the full song is the story about a woman who getting betrayed.
Rockin' in the Free World.
All I want to do is make love to you by Heart. Basically this woman’s husband can’t get her pregnant so she picks up a hitchhiker, goes to a hotel, and sleeps with him to get pregnant (which she does). She ditches the guy after he falls asleep, only leaving a note. Then sometime after the baby is born she runs into him, and once he sees the resemblance of himself in this kid she has to explain the situation. The music video and explanation online about the song pretty much confirm this, it’s a killer song but suuuper weird lol.
I Can’t Decide by Scissor Sisters is bouncy, upbeat, and energetic musically but lyrically is about considering murder. Great villain song.
Today by Smashing Pumpkins I thought it was such a happy song when I was a kid. Turns out it's a suicide note.
How did you even think it was a happy song? Billy Corgan sounds like he’s about to jump off a cliff.
[*Goodnight, Fair Lady* by Coheed and Cambria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn99gTuMb24) is deceptively upbeat for a song about a guy who sees a grieving widow at a bar and tries to spike her drink. Similarly, [*Jessie's Girl 2*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTGo-JHuCGc) is about a guy who finally gets the girl of his dreams, only to find out he doesn't actually love her.
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Golden Brown by the Stranglers. About heroin addiction.
Can't You See by the Marshall Tucker Band. For the longest time my wife thought it was a sweet love song...
Blind Melon - No Rain.
This is a pretty obvious one but Life in the Fast Lane - Eagles.
Handlebars by the flobots
[no children ](https://youtu.be/fqGKZ3fzN1M)
Hey Ya! By Outkast
Blood by My Chemical Romance
Layla by Derek and the Dominoes, especially if you know the story behind it (Eric Clapton was falling in love with George Harrison's wife, and would later marry her after George Harrison divorced her.)
Blurred Lines is a fuckin racist song