To have only just realised this about Norwegian Wood?

[StVincent]

This song was on the radio earlier - how have I not noticed before that it's about a man burning a woman's furniture/house as revenge for her not sleeping with him?

Tell me I'm not the only one!

He is juxtaposing "Love" in a romantic sense with "love" as a well-known euphemism for sex. It's not that cryptic!

Doesn't that mean he won't put up with it?

Back to the Norwegian Wood

It's a song about smoking dope together.

That's why they start to laugh for no reason

Isn't it good, Norwegian wood

Love it that everyone thinks it's about Scandinavian Furniture!

I always thought about it was about him burning her house down because she wouldn't sleep with him and made him sleep in the bath (has anyone actually slept in a bath - surely it would be comfier to sleep on the floor?)

You can sleep in a bath if you're stoned or drunk

"I came in and he had this first stanza, which was brilliant: 'I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.' That was all he had, no title, no nothing. I said, 'Oh yes, well, ha, we're there.' And it wrote itself. Once you've got the great idea, they do tend to write themselves, providing you know how to write songs. So I picked it up at the second verse, it's a story. It's him trying to pull a bird, it was about an affair. John told Playboy that he hadn't the faintest idea where the title came from but I do. Peter Asher had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine really, cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, Cheap Pine, baby...
So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek. She led him on, then said, 'You'd better sleep in the bath'. In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge. It could have meant I lit a fire to keep myself warm, and wasn't the decor of her house wonderful? But it didn't, it meant I burned the fucking place down as an act of revenge, and then we left it there and went into the instrumental."
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

If you arranged your duvet,blankets and pillows in the bath it wouldn't be too bad would it?
(disclaimer -I've never tried this)

I thought it was about smoking dope??

Ha! I was right then.

He wouldn't be fucking someone else 'for love' though would he?
He would, as in to get love/be loved, if she stops giving him enough love or attention, he won't seek it elsewhere.

You guys are just making it up & haven't got a clue.
I hate fucking poetry. Why can't anyone say exactly what they mean?

"screwing around" * = messing up, wasting time, deliberately pissing people off, in American English. There are at least 3 other meanings in American English besides having casual sex.

*Technically I never heard that lyric, bad enough that poems are written in metaphors but then people slur when they sing the fucking metaphoric poem & almost nobody knows what the lyric was, anyway.

Meatloaf should sensible ducked out of public eye after Rocky Horror, imho.

There are other meanings, but the cheating one is the only one that makes sense with the other lines she's singing tbh. The song is pretty straightforward by the end, it just takes ages to get to that point.

@ making it up!

It's all about context, like any comprehension. Lots of words and expressions have more than one meaning, how on earth do you manage? More baffled by that response than the song.

Clearly, he goes round to a woman's house, she is slightly intimidatingly sophisticated, I've never been quite clear as to whether she turns him down or uses him for sex and kicks him out, then in the morning he sets her flat on fire.

I think I was about 27 when I realised why my suggestion as to which Beatles song we should sing at the school summer concert in P5 was rejected in favour of Yellow Submarine.

Why would anyone sing a song saying "I love you so much I'd do anything you wanted me to except fuck around on you": that makes no sense too. I guess she can only orgasm if she watches him shag someone else?

@Satsuki: I get along ok with word meanings IRL but online people come up with meanings of words I never thought of and that have nothing to do with what I meant. It's like Emily Thornbury's whitevan + Union Jack scene with a caption that almost literally read "Something I saw today.". This meant ZERO to me, but was obvious evidence of outrageous prejudice to many. I think people made that up, too, they just found an excuse to hate somebody (ET).

W.r.t. Meatloaf - isn't it a standard part of "the script" that the cheating partner just couldn't help themselves because they were so in love (with the OW)?
So he would do anything for love except use it as an excuse to cheat on his current partner.

No, because it's a duet it's just like 'will you do this for me' 'of course' 'will you do this for me' 'of course' 'but I know how these things go, you'll end up cheating on me or leaving me' 'no, I won't'. Seriously I don't care if you don't like the song, I am just baffled at your insistence that it's somehow cryptic

If it said 'I would do anything for MY love' or 'for you' then that would be more nonsensical. But love isn't a person.

Have none of you listened to Maxwell's silver hammer?

This is tame by comparison!

I love Maxwell's silver hammer! ...when she's getting ready to go, a knock comes on the door....

Indeed, Run for your life is also pretty dark!

That's not what it's saying though; for "love", not for "a particular woman" as chase explains. She is not asking him to shag around for her so she can watch

If she only demands that he sleep around at the very end of the song, why is he saying "but I wont' do that!" from the beginning of the song.

There are long threads on T'internet by others who find the Meatloaf song baffling. For once, I am one of millions.