Meanings behind songs that people don't seem to know...

@Bringonthefatfurcat is mistaken about 1976 being before music videos. The famous video for Bohemian Rhapsody was made in 1975. That was probably the first hit for which the video was central to the marketing strategy and many people think that was the first music video, but music videos were around long before then. Top of the Pops frequently screened the video for I Shot the Sheriff in 1973, but even that wasn't the beginning. From the early 1960s, artists were making "filmed inserts" so that they could be screened when the band was not available to appear live.

The original 1976 video for Afternoon Delight can be seen at complete with fireworks.

Well I’m not suggesting it was anything explicit, but along the lines of the euphemisms that are often shown on TV/film for sex, eg the rockets and fireworks taking off. As you say the song came out in 1976 and I was at an age where I was quite aware of sex but in terms of it being something quite shocking or to giggle about, and I would have understood this kind of symbolism in a video. Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks with the lyrics about the ‘sky rocket in flight’, but I’m not the only poster who’s mentioned the video, so 🤷‍♀️

Even worse - I've known (and sung along to) this song ever since it came out and I've never even thought about which night/knight it is!

Straight from the horse’s mouth, as told by Dave Fenton who wrote and performed it… it’s basically a love song. The guy has been dumped and has only a picture to remind him of better times. He feels like he’s going completely crazy and is turning into someone he doesn’t recognise, as if he’s suddenly part of a culture very different from his own. BUT when the band were being interviewed in the US, where someone had come up with the muckier interpretation and asked about it, they quickly realised that scandal sells so the answer was somewhat non-committal and along the lines of “it can be about whatever you want it to be about”. That’s how the myth started, and it’s continued ever since!

Me too. I'm in shock!

Oh dear, sense of humour bypass? Nevermind, sweary words don’t offend me. Let’s hope today is a better day for you. Peace and love and all that

DS's girlfriend Nicola was having a big party for her birthday, with DS's friends singing and playing guitar. DS is a huge Prince fan, and I said "Perhaps you could sing Darling Nikki!"

" Erm...I don't think so, Mum!!" he grinned. To be fair, I'd only ever heard the title!

It’s a Leonard Cohen song, of course it’s about sex 🤣

I don’t get alcoholism from that but binge drinking on a night out and waking up the next morning after a one night stand. It’s describing knocking back shots and then the walk of shame the next morning.

I've just read the wiki page and Lennon says that was the inspiration for he song title, not that that's what the song is about. Meanwhile Paul McCartney says the song title comes from a ticket to “Ryde" on the Isle of Wight.

What?

Quite a few of his songs were about sex. Sorry to break it to you.

It is a wonderful song and yes, he was a brilliant poet.

The first promo films (aka 'music video') were made (inevitably) by the Beatles - and Bob Dylan's "Subterranian Homesick Blues" (the one with the lyric on cards). I remember the "Hey Jude" one on Top of the Pops - the Beatles were rarely, if ever, on the show - one of the reasons they made promo films.

I think there were 16 in my year, I left in 1983. One fourth year and the rest in fifth year.

We had no proper sex education but we did have a long list of contraceptives not approved by the RC church.

I was at an RC girls' school. My brother was at the equivalent boys' school, I don't think he got much either as a friend of his A thought he had got his girlfriend B pregnant.

He asked my brother if it could happen with what they had been doing, my brother didn't know so they went to my mum.

A and B were both still virgins.

Ass for video, the first one I can remember went with Bohemian Rhapsody, released in 1975.

OK back to the songs, this is a real oldie, the song 'My Old Dutch', it seemed to be sung a lot on TV in the 70s, the chorus is We've been together now for forty years, An' it don't seem a day too much.

It's portrayed as a love song, which it is, but it is about a couple going in to the workhouse where they will be separated and never see each other again.

Or a woman. Remember the domestic violence groups here being up in arms thinking it was a woman. Same with Matchbox 20s Push you around. They never heard the part "she said" and thought he was saying it.

Whole Lot of Rosie by AC/DC is also about still. I always imagined it being about a big girl called Rosie.

She actually did an interview somewhere when it came out so I knew that one. She also said she recorded it wearing a bikini to feel sexy while she sang it.

I always want to shout at the telly when there's that perfume ad that uses Sia's Chandelier - which is very clearly about alcoholism. I mean it actually has the lyrics:
Sun is up, I'm a mess
Gotta get out now, gotta run from this
Here comes the shame, here comes the shame
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 drink
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 drink
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 drink
Throw 'em back till I lose count

No it is not! It was written by Leonard Cohen and he was a poet and a deeply spiritual person for many years (not Christian though). There were many verses appearing in different versions of the song by him, many with obscure Bible references.

I hate it when people belt it out and miss the subtlety, darkness and sadness in it.

I always used to assume that the tramp referred to was the father - i.e. the singer and his siblings' deadbeat dad - and he hadn't stuck around or had any financial means to support them, hence their mum was left to do all of the parenting and caring on her own, because the child was a son of an insolvent, non-present tramp.

When I was young, I only really knew the word tramp to mean a (usually male) wandering vagrant; I wasn't familiar with the American meaning of a (usually female) prostitute.

Agreed. But the poster insinuated the ‘video’ made clear it was a ‘naughty’ song.

The concept of a 'music video' - i.e. a planned and artfully filmed and edited visual accompaniment to the song with a storyboard and choreography - may not have been the norm back then; but video cameras did very much exist. It was far from unheard of for somebody to film the artist/band on the stage, singing, playing and/or dancing, and for it to be made available for broadcast.

Not the Thin Lizzy one. The one that Top loader did a cover of, by King Harvest.

And every Sunday she receives a big bouquet of 14 roses.
And a card that reads
The greatest Mum on earth.