Most works of art, especially the good ones, are based on the very real emotions of life, just warped a little, the edges polished up a bit, and sometimes put to a beat. With music, people can sometimes miss the deeper subtext of a song, or totally misinterpret the meaning of the lyrics. Have you ever been at a wedding where you hear a song played during the reception, and it's like "why in God's name would you play this?!?" I've occasionally heard "Hot Child in the City" played at malls & department stores as background music. Because a song about child prostitution is perfect for when the family is out shopping for drapes at Bed Bath & Beyond.
President Reagan's campaign famously wanted to use Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." during the 1984 campaign because of what they saw as its patriotic qualities, totally overlooking the lyrics which are about the struggles of a Vietnam vet who's lost in society. Another one of Springsteen's songs that I see people misunderstand is "Glory Days." A lot of people think of it as a "happy" song, but (if you listen to the lyrics) it's a song where a middle-age guy is basically talking about how much life sucks compared to the "glory days" of high-school.
Heart's "Barracuda" made news in the 2008 Presidential campaign when Sarah Palin used it for campaign events without getting permission, pissing off the Wilson sisters something awful. There have been some interesting interpretations as to what the song means, including the idea that it's about oral sex ("You’d have me down down down down on my knees. Now wouldn’t you, barracuda? ") However, the song is actually a response to the scumbags at Heart's record label of the time, who ran ads claiming Ann & Nancy Wilson were involved in an incestuous relationship as a way of promoting the band.
So... what are the most interesting song meanings, misinterpretations, or subtexts?
► Fleetwood Mac - "Packing up, shacking up, is all you wanna do..."
I think I could probably fill this entire diary with just Fleetwood Mac songs if I wanted to. They're an interesting band in that their most successful point came at a time when everything was falling apart. It was a situation where, out of the five members, there were two failing relationships and the band leader/drummer was about to begin occasionally sleeping with the lead singer, whose ex-boyfriend is the lead guitarist. From that, you get
Rumours, which is considered one of the best albums of all-time.
"Go Your Own Way" was written by Lindsey Buckingham and about the breakup of his relationship with Stevie Nicks. It's interesting to watch the looks both shoot at each other when this is performed in concert.
From
Songfacts:
Lindsey Buckingham wrote this as a message to Stevie Nicks. It describes their breakup, with the most obvious line being, "Packing up, shacking up is all you want to do." Stevie insisted she never shacked up with anyone when they were going out, and wanted Lindsey to take out the line, but he refused.
Stevie Nicks told Q magazine [in] June 2009: "It was certainly a message within a song. And not a very nice one at that."
Interesting enough, recently Fox's "
Glee"
covered "Go Your Own Way," but totally changed the meaning of the song. Instead of it being about a guy singing to an ex-girlfriend about the "
world" he would have given her, it became a song where a girl sings to a guy trying to convince him to dump his current girlfriend and "
go your own way."
Stevie Nicks' side of the story was "Silver Springs." However, "Silver Springs" was originally bumped from Rumours because of time considerations.
Stevie Nicks wrote this after her breakup with Lindsey Buckingham, the band's guitarist and her long time boyfriend. She wanted to make sure he would never forget about her: "I'll follow you down till the sound of my voice will haunt you." In 2009, she told Rolling Stone: "It was me realizing that Lindsey was going to haunt me for the rest of my life, and he has."
Stevie Nicks: Well, their reasons are, it was too long, and so, without asking me, or telling me, they recorded I Don’t Want to Know, and put Silver Springs on the back of Go Your Own Way, which was probably one of the most devastating things anybody has ever done to me in my life, and I remember vividly running out into the middle of the record plant studio parking lot, and screaming because I knew that Silver Springs deserved to be on that record, and that I Don’t Want to Know was really just a really fun guitar song and Silver Springs was Silver Springs was all about me and Lindsey, you know, and all- I mean, I mean, he didn’t write beautiful love songs about me, but I did write some beautiful love songs about him.
(Source)
If you fast-forward a few years down the road to
Tusk & after Mick Fleetwood & Nicks started hooking up, rumor has it the title track was Buckingham's response to the relationship. The
Tusk of the track is a
slang word for Penis, and then there's the lyrics.
Why don't you ask him if he's going to stay?
Why don't you ask him if he's going away?
Why don't you tell me what's going on?
Why don't you tell me who's on the phone?
Why don't you ask him what's going on?
Why don't you ask him who's the latest on his throne?
Don't say that you love me!
Just tell me that you want me!
Tusk!
► R.E.M. - "That's me in the corner... That's me in the spotlight... I'm Losing my religion"
Even though the
video for the song plays with religious symbols, the song is
not about religion or spirituality.
Stipe told Rolling Stone magazine: "I wanted to write a classic obsession song. So I did." In addition to calling it a song about "obsession," Stipe has also referred to it as a song about "unrequited love" in which all actions and words of the object of your obsession are scrubbed for hidden meaning and hopeful signs. The lyrics pretty clearly support this: "I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing. I think I thought I saw you try."
► Ben Folds Five - "She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly..."
Over the years, there have been some interesting interpretations of "Brick." There's a girl I know who was convinced it was about a guy who loved his girlfriend so much that he was there when she had to put her dog to sleep. I don't know how you get that from the lyrics, but okay.
When it was released, the song was taken as a standard breakup song. However, the song is really about a boyfriend taking his girlfriend to an abortion clinic.
On the album Ben Folds Live, Folds explained: "People ask me what this song's about... I was asked about it a lot, and I didn't really wanna make a big hairy deal out of it, because I just wanted the song to speak for itself. But the song is about when I was in high school, me and my girlfriend had to get an abortion, and it was a very sad thing. And, I didn't really want to write this song from any kind of political standpoint, or make a statement. I just wanted to reflect what it feels like. So, anyone who's gone through that before, then you'll know what the song's about."
► The Police - "Every breath you take..."
This is
NOT a love song, and should never be played at weddings ever again. Do people even listen to the first line of the goddamn song? ("
Every breath you take, and every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.")
This is one of the most misinterpreted songs ever. It is about an obsessive stalker, but it sounds like a love song. Some people even used it as their wedding song. The Police frontman Sting wrote it after separating from his first wife, Frances Tomelty.
In a 1983 interview with the New Musical Express, Sting explained: "I think it's a nasty little song, really rather evil. It's about jealousy and surveillance and ownership." Regarding the common misinterpretation of the song, he added: "I think the ambiguity is intrinsic in the song however you treat it because the words are so sadistic. On one level, it's a nice long song with the classic relative minor chords, and underneath there's this distasteful character talking about watching every move. I enjoy that ambiguity. I watched Andy Gibb singing it with some girl on TV a couple of weeks ago, very loving, and totally misinterpreting it. (Laughter) I could still hear the words, which aren't about love at all. I pissed myself laughing."
Although, this isn't the only song that has a habit of showing up at special occasions. The Whitney Houston version of "
I Will Always Love You" also has a habit of showing up at weddings. The song was written by Dolly Parton for her partner Porter Wagoner, and is not about a loving union that lasts forever. It's her swan song to Wagoner and marks their parting of ways.
Another song that doesn't mean exactly what you may think it means is Green Day's "Good Riddance" (Time of your life), which has a habit of showing up at graduations. While it's true the song's original meaning is about a change in a person's life, it's not in the way most people take it. The song, written by Billie Joe Armstrong, was about a breakup with his girlfriend, who was leaving for Ecuador (hence the "good riddance" in the title).
► Billy Idol - "When there's no-one else in sight... In the crowded lonely night... Well I wait so long... For my love vibration... And I'm dancing with myself"
Billy Idol swears the song is
NOT about masturbation. Instead, he claims it was inspired by being in a Japanese club that was lined with mirrors, and seeing people dancing by themselves.
► Duran Duran - "Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand..."
According to Duran Duran, "
Rio" is
NOT about having sex with beautiful women on a sailboat. In fact, it's
about the United States.
On the VH1 show True Spin, Duran Duran explained that Rio is a metaphor for America, and the song expressed their desire to succeed there, which they did. The wordplay is interesting, as Rio is sung as if it's a girl's name, and the word conjures images of the popular and glamorous Brazilian city, which goes with the exotic image the band was cultivating. The lyrics clearly state, however, "from mountains in the North down to the Rio Grande," which is the span of America. The Rio Grande river separates the US from Mexico.
2:32 AM PT: One I forgot to include:
► Electric Light Orchestra - "It's a livin' thing... It's a terrible thing to lose... It's a given thing... What a terrible thing to lose"
ELO's "
Livin' Thing" is one of the many hit singles off their multi-platinum 1976 album
A New World Record. Some have interpreted "
Livin' Thing" as being about different causes. For example, similar to how abortion activists have tried to claim Dr. Seuss' "
Horton Hears a Who!," some anti-choice groups have tried claiming the song is a statement against abortion. Others hear an environmentalist angle, interpreting the song as being about nature.
However, Jeff Lynne has stated that none of that was his intention. The "Livin' Thing" in the title is a relationship and "the terrible thing to lose" being love.