Or maybe you still love it, but now you have a different perspective.
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Well, as I said, I never paid attention to the lyrics before I looked them up. 🤷♂️
Such an upbeat 90s pop song with lyrics like “doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break.”
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“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.
Their song “Happy Nation” sounds pretty questionable to me, too.
Ooof, TIL…
What!!! I wish this wasn’t a thing. But thanks for the info. Arrrrgh though…
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.
“Freshmen” by the Verve Pipe
When I loved this song as a teenager I did understand that it was about the girlfriend’s suicide, but I missed the abortion piece. I assumed the “baby’s breath” referenced wedding flowers and “shoe full of rice” was like the rice you throw on newlyweds.
Turns out the only true part of the story is the abortion, which is a rough topic but not inherently tragic. TBH these days a song about abortion could be considered wishful thinking. (Or even celebratory? Cue the Sextina Aquafina abortion song from Bojack.) The suicide is poetic license, but does make for a beautiful narrative of guilt and naïveté.
Contemporary to that one is “Brick” by Ben Folds Five…
I stopped explaining to people why they were selling their gifts, and where he was dropping her off…After a while, I felt as though I was just ruining something that made people happy.
Same with “Pumped Up Kicks” - although that one, I thought, was pretty self explanatory. I guess people just jam to the beat, and don’t pay attention to the lyrics
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.
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
No, it’s a song about a nice guy not getting his crush.
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Ok, I’ll bite.
Why are weddings stupid?
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??? Lol must be thinking of someone else. I havn’t been using lemmy for a year
Oof. That sounds rough.
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Nuttin No Go So
The original “football moves” clip went viral a long time ago, and the song goes along well with it. Took me a while to understand just how awfully reactionary the lyrics are.5 minutes alone by pantera, I mean come on…
I don’t know what the vast majority of songs I listen to are about. I have some genetic defect that makes it near impossible to hear lyrics. It all sounds like melody to me.
Do you know the name of the defect? Sounds interesting, I’d like to read up on it.
I doubt it’s a real thing that has a name. I tried asking chatGPT about it and it said it’s called melodic masking / auditory masking but I didn’t really find any information that matches my experience.
It’s not that I don’t hear the vocals, I just struggle to register it as language. It just sounds more like yet another instrument.
This song is cute and happy but the lyrics are absolutely devastating and make me cry. https://open.spotify.com/track/2E3hdMguyNDQswLXyUotYR
https://genius.com/Bloc-party-signs-lyrics
[Verse 1]
Two ravens in the old oak tree
And one for you and one for me
And bluebells in the late December
I see signs now all the time
The last time we slept together
There was something that was not there
You never wanted to alarm me
But I’m the one that’s drowning now[Verse 2]
I can sleep forever these days
Cause in my dreams I see you again
But this time-fleshed out fuller face
In your confirmation dress
It was so like you to visit me
To let me know you were okay
It was so like you to visit me
You’re always worried about someone else[Bridge]
At your funeral I was so upset
So, so upset
In your life you were larger than this
Statue statuesque[Chorus] (x2)
I see signs now all the time
That you’re not dead, you’re sleeping
I believe in anything
That brings you back home to me
I hate this song. Literally sobbing at the fear of the state my mental health would be in if my wife suddenly passed.
Harper Road from Sun Kil Moon is similar, super beautiful song but tragic fucking lyrics
My blood runs through my lonely daughter
Her eyes are mine, so wild with wonder
Be my voice, my light, my power
Be with me in my leaving hour
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 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.
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.
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, as a child, did a music class presentation on “my favourite song of the year” on this little ditty.
Whoops!
Edit: To clarify, then, much like now, I listened to the music and not the lyrics. I don’t know if that’s common at all, but the singing is basically another instrument to me, and I hardly ever pay attention to the actual words.
You’re not alone there, snoop had an album come out the year before and after that both sold as explicit but that album didn’t.
I think it’s fairly common to not always pay close attention to the lyrics. Most of the time, you hear a song on the radio, and you can’t always make out what it’s saying, but you’re still able to enjoy the music and the singing melody. Until you pay more attention or you seek out the lyrics, then you’re often surprised about what it’s saying, cause the lyrics weren’t the point when you used to listen to the song. It doesn’t mean that it’s world-changing or anything, but it just takes you by surprise.
Much of the time I can’t even make out the lyrics, so I listen to music the same way
I’m the same way, actually.
ITT: People on the spectrum
YEP.
Woo woo! Auditory Processing Disorder!
Ok, uhhhh… you are saying here that difficulty understanding the words to music is an autism thing?
I listen to music the exact same way. I will maybe pay attention to the chorus or catchy line, but a lot of lyrics are lost on me.
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.
Another fun fact is that the original radio edit that charted is different from the album version / version that is on streaming these days. It lacks verse 3
And when the plane came in, she said she was crashing The velvet, it rips in the city We tripped on the urge to feel alive But now, I’m struggling to survive Those days you were wearing that filthy dress You’re the priestess, I must confess Those little red panties, they pass the test Slides up around the belly face down on the mattress one And you hold me And we are broken Still it’s all that I want to do, just a little now
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?
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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.
I love people being surprised by this song when a verse literally says ‘doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break’.
"It won’t stop, I won’t come down
I keep stock with the tick-tock rhythm
I bump for the drop, and then I bumped up
I took the hit that I was given, then I bumped again
Then I bumped again"
That entire verse, but honestly rereading the lyrics, I’m amazed that got radio play in the Bible belt. I know it did, because I heard it uncensored in southeastern Indiana.
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Are you lost bruv?
A cute girl I knew a few years ago got the Orion Experience (group) on my radar and I learned recently that while yes the songs are clearly about a sexual deviant (which is what made them cool bruh), it’s about that kind of sexual deviant, because Orion very much likes kids apparently
That fucking ruins everything and they’re bops that I can’t get out of my head sometimes, so that’s nice
Don’t look into the story behind “My Sharona” by The Knack.
I think it’s really interesting how people interpret music completely different than other forms of art. People sometimes assume the worst instead of realizing that the singer is speaking from another perspective. So for example if a writer has a first person perspective of a killer/rapist you wouldn’t make an association that the author is anything of the sort. But if they wrote a song and sang it then people would question if they really felt that way. Polly is a great example. By many accounts (Kathleen Hanna , Kim Gordon) Cobain championed feminism and woman’s rights but the lyrics of Polly are brutal and from the perpetrator view. Randy Newman’s - Rednecks is a tough one to listen to. You can understand how it is trying to point out ignorance and racism like Blazing Saddles but it’s sung in first person and should never be played in a public setting. Oingo Bongo’s - Little Girs was always a bit creepy now seems to age poorly the more time has gone on. Minor Threat - Guilty of being white is a tough listen because you know racist people think this is a rallying cry instead of the emotionly reaction from a a teenage kid who was bullied in highschool for being white.
So for example if a writer has a first person perspective of a killer/rapist you wouldn’t make an association that the author is anything of the sort.
That does happen all the time in movies, shows, books, and other forms of art. “What kind of a person would come up with that” isn’t an uncommon accusation.
Sure but I think it is less immediate. In music we have to make a decision if they are speaking about themselves nonfiction or fiction and in a book or movie we assume they are creating fictional character.
Vladimir Nabokov got criticized and accused over writing Lolita all the time.
If you know anything about the history of punk music and east coast hardcore, Ian MacKaye was clearly one of the most principled people in the scene, and a genuinely good and decent person. So it’s really weird to hear that people ever got the weird idea that he was pro-racism or something.
Then again, The Dead Kennedys had to make “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” because they were sick of their shows being infiltrated by the wrong kind of skinheads.
Oh I know. But minor threat and black flag used to have these neoNazis show up at their shows. I think he acknowledged that once he realized they wanted to use his frustration for oppression they stopped playing it. I think it was in, “this band could be your life”. Much like X hating the fans who cheered on “Johnny hit and run Pauline” from “decline of the western civilization”. It’s crazy how people twist things.
Tears in heaven from Eric Clapton. I always liked this song, and didn’t have a special connotation. But after learning its backstory, now I just feel sadness when I hear it. :-(
