Or maybe you still love it, but now you have a different perspective.
Semi-Charmed Life, by Third Eye Blind. Basically, it’s a song about doing meth… Spent almost twenty years just singing the chorus with absolutely no idea what the rest of the lyrics were. Now, it kinda feels weird, ngl.
But it’s about how the excitement of meth, like that of a new relationship, fades and leaves the speaker wanting something more substantial while still fondly reminiscing about the good times.
The speaker thinks of the girl as a “sunburn” he “would like to save.” He describes meth as something that “will lift you up until you break.” I think these characterizations point very strongly toward nostalgic longing and away from the glorification of addiction or even that of drug use. So no reason to feel weird I think.
I think these characterizations point very strongly toward nostalgic longing and away from the glorification of addiction or even that of drug use.
There’s also an extra verse, which wasn’t in the radio edit, that I think further supports what you’re saying.
I guess you’re right, I just never gave the song much thought. It’s just that it kinda felt like some happy song and I never paid attention to what it was saying, then I looked them up one day, out of curiosity, and I guess it juat felt unexpected to me, and that’s why it felt weird. Thinking about what you said makes me want to give the song another listen with an open mind, I guess.
Not so much a song about doing meth as it’s a song about the ramifications of doing meth. “Doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break” it mentions lockjaw at the end and even talks about watching the love of his life die to an od.
I didn’t know it was about Crystal meth for a really long time because I only heard it on the radio for many many years and they only played a clean version where the phrase “Crystal Meth” is cut out in a way that’s not really obvious it was edited so I just never understood the lyrics.
“The sky was gold, it was rose, I was taking sips of it through my nose…” didn’t clue you in?
Nope. That song came out when I was ten, so I had no clue it was about anything like that until probably a decade later.
Oh. Never mind, I’m old.
Fun fact: Semi Charmed Kinda Life made it into a late '90s Disney film about surfers. They didn’t even bleep anything because, I assume, they couldn’t understand what he was singing.
Mr Brightside by the Killers. The tune was good and felt energetic when it came about, but it’s about a guy being cheated on. Having had someone cheat on me around the time it came out it hit really close to home and I just don’t enjoy listening to the song.
The problem with being in the UK is that it’s so overplayed and I just have to tune it out.
It’s not. It’s about a guy who can’t beat jealousy and believes he’s being cheated on “except it’s all in [his] head”
Ah my bad. I thought the song was written by Brandon Flowers after catching his girlfriend cheating on him in a bar in his hometown of Las Vegas.
https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/the-killers/what-is-the-killers-song-mr-brightside-about/
During lockdown in April 2020, the frontman looked back at the video and noted: “It’s just a song about betrayal. I was betrayed and I was able to turn it into a masterpiece”.
From the article “The lyric is about a man who is obsessed with a girl that is seeing another man… and the thoughts that go through his head, imagining what they’re doing behind closed doors…” I guess I was wrong, it’s envy not jealousy.
No, it’s a song about a nice guy not getting his crush.
I second one of the other commenters who says that the song is about the perception of being cheated on. It’s funny, after the first day I ever went on with my partner that song played and for a little while we considered it our song, then eventually kind of faded as they both realized the song didn’t relate to us very well. Now I can look back years later, after going through a lot of therapy and self enrichment and I can realize that those kind of paranoia really did plague our early relationship. I’m glad that we were able to move on from it
“All that she wants” by Ace of Base. I read a deep dive into the band and it seems like they may have been formed after a neo-nazi group and that song might be about Jews trying to dilute the bloodline… so yeah kinda weird now.
Oh fuck, no way.
Ok, I read thenlink and the bassist was an opely total piece of shit before joining the band but I didn’t see anyhing about the AoB songs being hidden propaganda or the rest of the band’s history. Where does the speculation come from?
https://www.cracked.com/blog/how-90s-pop-band-secretly-sold-nazism-to-america
That was my first exposure to the theory, I’ve never been able to confirm nor deny it conclusively, especially since cracked.com back in those times was only mostly satire. Like 99% of the pieces were satire, and then they’d publish something that wasn’t satire, and this could be a good example of that. Either way, I bought their CD way back when.
That seems completely serious and not satire at all.
Since I never saw the videos, my assumption was that ‘wants another baby’ was wanting to sleep around with multiple partners as in ‘I love you baby’, not having a literal baby. The six pointed stars and the cradle is pretty fucking clear it is about a Jewish woman sleeping around to have multiple babies, and yeah that is apparently one of those ‘Jews are taking over’ racist stereotypes.
Now I’m guessing that the Sign is a swastika.
Thanks for the link, I’m gonna go throw that album in the trash and feel like a jackass for not catching on earlier.
Ooof, TIL…
Their song “Happy Nation” sounds pretty questionable to me, too.
Pretty much all Linkin Park songs.
Listened to it since elementary.
Around high school, I figured the lyrics were kinda dark.
Then the vocalist hung himself.
Sadly, Chester grew up being horribly abused and then using a lot of drugs. He was super close with Chris Cornell, who had also killed himself some months prior to Chester. Chester had been sober for a time but ended up staying the night alone after traveling and drank a little and hung himself on Chris’s birthday.
Mike Shinoda has stated in interviews that when he and Chester would write lyrics, they would focus on the emotion and not necessarily just the exact experience. So the lyrics would slowly evolve until they both could sing them truthfully while relating them to their own separate lived experiences, which is part of why they can be so universally related to - because none of their songs are truly only about one specific thing, but rather about the feelings people experience.
Fuck, man, that is some depressing backstory.
I can hear that.
Staying sober at home with family can be hard enough, but when traveling, that’s hardcore mode.
That makes sense. The thing about experiences and feelings, it’s something we can all related to which is why we love their music. Chester, we will never forget you.
Richmen North of Richmond.
I love the sound, and at first it sounds like a pro worker union song (and it kinda is).
But there’s way too much dog whistle… An old soul in a new world… Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry
And then he slips in some super disappointing language about fat people on welfare.
Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry
WTF? Don’t be sorry about that!
I know it’s just sort of a reflexive idiomatic politeness, but still, it is really important to make it absolutely crystal clear how irredeemably contemptible the “lost cause” shit take is, at every opportunity. Never, ever be polite about it!
Thank you.
“The south lost and slavery is bad, kindly get fucked.”
Sorry as a Canadian and a woman I just can’t not be polite…
Oh, no. We make an exception for Canadians. We know that if you stop being polite, Geneva is going to have to cut down a forest to write new regulations.
Sherman did nothing wrong.
Yes he did. Sherman stopped before he hung the traitorous leadership.
Yeah, never leave that job half done.
Well, one that maybe went full circle for me is “bring the pain” by mindless self indulgence. At first, it just seemed like a really fun song that I loved. Then one day, a black dude was in my car listening with me, and he was like “wtf is this song about?”. That’s when it hit me that the song actually sounds REALLY racist. I looked up the lyrics and that just confirmed it for me. And then years later, I found out it was actually a cover of a method man song, and not really racist at all, I guess. But thats a weird one, maybe best not for white guys to be singing it…
The cover definitely goes hard though. I’m legitimately stunned to see MSI mentioned at all, especially at the top of a thread. I’ve been a huge fan of theirs for decades, and rarely if ever see anyone mention them.
Did you know Jimmy played a ravager in Guardians of the Galaxy?
I did. Apparently him and James Gunn are close friends. But he’s only in the second one.
I about shit when I saw him
“Vamos a playa” by Righeira carries a lightweight, upbeat tune that vacationers might hum on the way to the beach. But the Spanish lyrics reveal that it’s about the devastation left behind by nuclear armaments. And the schism between trying to live an ordinary life whilst having a nuclear Damocles sword waver over your head. That it became such a world wide hit makes it all the more ironic. I love it all the more for it.
99 luftballoons is similar.
The 80s was oddly dark.
“Opens up one eager eye” is an incredibly eldritch lyric.
Ay dios mio! I never knew this and always thought of it as cheesy vacation song.
Not sure, if I stopped listening to mainstream music around that time, but uh, both of my examples are from 2011, apparently:
- Kind of a classic response to this question, is “Pumped Up Kicks” from Foster The People. It’s got that upbeat melody, and the lyrics are this:
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You’d better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You’d better run, better run, faster than my bullet.- And my other example is “The A Team”, apparently originally from Ed Sheeran, and apparently also with an upbeat melody. I think, I only ever listened to a cover version. But yeah, it’s about drug use and sex work, and how those kind of necessitate each other…
I think pumped up kicks is actually a really poignant statement on how normalized gun violence is in the states, to the point where this song was all over radios and I’m sure all over high school dances and nobody thought twice about it. Like obviously the band did it intentionally but the fact that the point was missed so hard by everyone who sang along. It is like Hey Ya vibes to me, or smells like teen spirit for the older crowds. The point is to take these very serious ideas and use them to highlight people’s willful ignorance.
Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones. It’s a song about banging a slave, but I didn’t know that as a kid.
Similarly, watching the music video for Africa by Toto changes the entire vibe of the song. It’s about wanting to bang a black woman. Bless those rains, I guess.
Based on the lyrics I always thought it was about werewolves.
most of Rammstein, but specifically Mutter
For me it was Mein Teil. I’m used to most of Rammstein’s dark stuff, but man, this one is deeply disturbing.
Lyrics for those who are curious and not squeamish
https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-rammstein-mein-teil-english-translation-lyrics
at least it was consensual, not like Wiener Blut or Ich tue dir weh
Closing time by Semisonic I thought it was about going home with someone after a night out at the bar. It’s about the lead singers child being born.
Seriously? Well he could have made that more clear.
The period between hearing and knowing what the song was about was nearly instantaneous but “Smack my bitch up” has an incredibly catchy tune.
It’d be really nice if they released an instrumental version one day.
For what it’s worth, that line is a sample from an Ultramagnetic MCs song.
Honestly, that’s worth a fair bit to me.
Yeah, I feel like what that insight “means” is in the eye of the beholder. It’s definitely not great in the context of the original song either, but it’s a bit less in-your-face.
You might also be interested in Prodigy’s Dirtchamber Sessions which features the song https://youtu.be/7a1rkOsYn2A?t=230
I’m learning so much from these comments…
In the Summertime by Mungo Jerry. It’s such a nice catchy tune that I enjoyed until my partner pointed out:
Have a drink, have a drive Go out and see what you can find If her daddy’s rich, take her out for a meal If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel
Which, ew.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside. It’s such a fun song as the guy and girl go back and forth. Until you realize that he’s guilting her into sleeping with him. Eww!
No, it is about both people coming up with excuses for her to stay when social expectations mean staying scandalous and everyone else would gossip.
The original film the song appears (Neptune’s Daughter) in actually sings the song twice. The first one is very clearly “I want to leave” vs “but you can’t.” He literally takes the hat off of her head, and she seems very irritated throughout.
The second is a woman trying to stop a man from leaving, to the degree that he ends up putting her clothes on by mistake in an attempt to leave faster. And, as assault of men often is, it’s portrayed for laughs.
The entire song is someone refusing to take “no” for an answer. At no point does the typically female role ever make an excuse to STAY, only to LEAVE.
Edit: No idea why “the song where a man stops a woman from leaving is a bit rapey” is a controversial opinion.
I think you are mistaking the desire to leave as a personal desire and not an obligation due to social pressure.
The socond set of back and forth is all about other people’s expectations and then hesitsting.
My mother will start to worry (beautiful, what’s your hurry?)
And father will be pacing the floor (listen to the fireplace roar)
So really I’d better scurry (beautiful, please don’t hurry)
Well maybe just a half a drink more (put some records on while I pour)
Watch the damn scene. She is trying to brush him off. She wants to leave, and he is not letting her. She is politely saying no, and he is politely forcing her to stay. Even if it is due to social pressure, let her fucking leave.
“Well maybe just a half a drink more” is said when he has just snatched the coat off her back and is still holding it. Her face is a picture of resignation, not coy flirtation. She then asks “say, what’s in this drink” and puts it down with a scowl on her face.
This is flirtatious by the standards of a Sean Connery movie.
There is a version out there where they try to tone down the rapey elements. Sadly, it’s pretty clunky how they do it.
Actually there weren’t any “rapey” elements at the time. They’re only there when viewed through a modern lense, completely ignoring the culture and standards of the time.
And the version where they tried to tone down the rapey elements was in 2019, shortly after the #MeToo movement. We are also having this conversation today, and not in 1949.
If you’re saying the standards of the time make it acceptable, I say that reflects really badly on the standards of the time. By the standards of the time, black people had fewer rights than white men. I hope to fuck we can improve upon the standards of the 1940s.
When people consume media it’s important to have context. Short-sighted inability to contextualize anything outside of our current standards doesn’t help anyone at all and actually makes understanding and moving forward more difficult.
If you’re saying the standards of the time make it acceptable, I say that reflects really badly on the standards of the time. By the standards of the time, black people had fewer rights than white men. I hope to fuck we can improve upon the standards of the 1940s.
The standards were quite different that’s for sure. That’s why it’s important to understand that it was a different era. An unmarried woman willingly staying with a man was destroying her reputation at that time even if she wanted to.
I understand that the film was not problematic for the time period, and it was seen as romantic. I also understand that the fact it was not seen as a problem was a fucking problem. And I understand that the only way to overcome a problem is to acknowledge that there is one. Hindsight is a fucking benefit, and with the benefit of hindsight, that song is pretty fucking rapey.
Once again, the song was played TWICE in the movie, and the second one was sung with a man being convinced to stay. It was not about reputation. It was about not wanting to be there.
Why are you so insistent that the woman saying no actually wanted it?
Because in the context of the song, she’s saying she wants to stay. I’ve never seen the movie you’re talking about so maybe it was played differently there but when the song was released it was obviously a duet between two people who wanted to “do stuff” but were unable to due to norms and societies judgement.
Why are you so insistent on portraying the woman as a victim and the man as rapist when that’s clearly not what was intended?
…No she fucking isn’t. She never says she wants to stay.
I simply must go (Baby, it’s cold outside)
The answer is, “No” (But, baby, it’s cold outside)She says no. He ignores her. I don’t give a fuck what was intended, I only care about what was said. What was said was a violation of consent. If you want the intent to reflect in the song to a modern ear (which are the only ears we have) then change the lyrics.
The song predates that by five years. https://www.goretro.com/2016/12/why-baby-its-cold-outside-is-not-about.html?m=1
Frank Loesser’s son, John, was interviewed about the song by the Palm Bean Post in 2010 that was reprinted on the official site for his dad. From the article:
“My father wrote that song as a piece of special material for he and my mother to do at parties,” says John Loesser, who runs the Lyric Theatre in Stuart, and is the son of legendary composer Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.)
Frank Loesser’s wife, Lynn, was a nightclub singer who had moved from Terre Haute, Ind. to New York in search of a career. She was singing in a nightclub when she met Frank Loesser around 1930.
The song itself was written in 1944, when Loesser and his wife had just moved into the Hotel Navarro in New York. They gave a housewarming party for themselves and when they did the number, everybody went crazy.
“We had to do it over and over again,” Lynn Loesser told her kids, “and we became instant parlor room stars.”
Performers started to take note of the song, and record covers of it. It’s also featured in the 1949 musical comedy Neptune’s Daughter as sung by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams below. And in that movie, it takes an ironic tone since the movie takes place in a warm climate. It also earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
