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

[Arlanymor]

Do you remember the Real Fires advert with the dog kissing the cat and the cat kissing a mouse? My mum brought it up the other day as one of their neighbours has just got a dog that looks identical to the one in the advertisement. Awww!

I couldn't quite remember the song that was the soundtrack so I looked it up later... it's Will You Love Me Tomorrow by The Shirelles and I brought it up on YouTube to listen to it. It's about a one night stand isn't it? I had no idea until now... there I was thinking it was a lovely warm anthem for chaste kisses between pets!

By the way, not remotely making a judgement about the topic, I've a had a few 'Shirelles' nights of my own in the past... I just never knew what it was about before. Have you had any similar revelations?!

It was - the plane was named after the pilot’s mother.

When Elvis recorded Shake, Rattle And Roll, he was told to change the line "Get outta that bed" to "Get outta that kitchen". But they kept the line " I'm a one-eyed cat, peeping in a seafood store" !

DH never listens to lyrics and initially put Cyndi Lauper’s Sally’s Pigeons on our wedding list “because he liked the tune”.

He couldn’t understand my confusion until I pointed out it’s about a teenage girl who dies during an illegal backstreet abortion. He was horrified and agreed to take it off the list. I don’t think he has played it since.

Thank god one of us likes to sing along!!! 😭🙈😂

My favourite is the wedding and funeral special by Green Day - Time of your life (good riddance) - more that most people don’t realise the full title 😂 or that it was written as a break up song.

I think it was banned by Saturday morning TV at the time because it was assumed it was about being gay. Could have remembered that incorrectly though it’s been a few years 😆

‘I had a brother at Khe Sanh, fighting off the Viet Cong.
They're still there; he’s all gone’.
Most poignant of lyrics.

Yes sorry, that's right

"Rock Me Gently" by Andy Kim (not so well-known now, but a favourite of student discos in the 70s) isn't actually about dancing - it's about sex.

Another disco classic from the same era was "December '63 - Oh What a Night" by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. It wasn't until decades later, when I saw the stage show "Jersey Boys", that I realised the whole song is about loss of virginity.

what is it about? always wondered

Well, I grew up in a council flat in EE, been brought up by a single mother and never been around drugs. Oh, and we didn’t have education on drugs either other than hearing about them and my mum saying ‘drugs are bad for you’. The closest I ever came was when I was 18 leaving a night club with a group of friends and someone asked if we ‘wanted stamps’ … one of the girls was completely confused as she worked for the post office and was wondering why stamps were sold on the street.
So me not knowing has f all to do with my priviliged upbringing.

Run isn't about drugs... Where did you get that idea from?

Yes, but you don't live under a rock. Don't you read?

We've been nowhere near drugs, ever..but I know about them and cultural references etc

Betterman by Pearl Jam is not a love song, it's about Eddie Vedder's mum being trapped in an unhappy relationship with his stepfather, but I've seen so many people misinterpret the 'can't find a betterman' line!

Yes, I wondered if it was a criticism of young (well, now middle-aged) people "thank god for mom and dad for sticking through together cos we don't know how", but I was more bothered when I heard the actual words for Let's get it started, especially as that was an insult that got thrown at some members of my family back then.
Chainsmokers Paris is the song that I didn't understand properly the first time I heard it.

I obviously live under a rock then as I've no idea what drug references mean.

You can't know about something if you've never heard of it.

Well that was a bit rude

I read. Not about drugs though. Why? Are you implying I should?

I've learnt from this thread that the line is Cake by the Ocean. I always thought it was Camped by the Ocean, so a song about a nice holiday. Although I guess sex could happen in the tent as well as on the beach.

I also originally thought that Golden Brown was about autumn leaves, although was corrected in my late teens about that one.

Yeah it was written as Bruce was coming out of a period of depression and a mini breakdown.

Do people really think Springsteen's songs are about glorifying the USA? You'd have to be pretty ignorant about the man or his music to think that. Most of them are the exact opposite, in fact, though some are more hopeful than others.

Ticket to ride by the Beatles? I've just read the lyrics 3 times and can't see anything in them to suggest it means that? Surely it's just about the singer's wife/girlfriend leaving him?

I read that initially as a big Sister, ie a senior nun. Then I realised......

She’s got a ticket - ie a free pass - to “ride…”

Apparently John Lennon said it described cards indicating a clean bill of health carried by Hamburg prostitutes in the 1960s - so a Card to Shag rather than a Ticket to Ride 😉

I am absolutely howling at this 😂

But why does that necessarily refer to a prostitute? Surely it works just as well - and makes a lot more sense in the context of the rest of the lyrics - if it's a couple breaking up, where she's left him and she now has her freedom from exclusivity with him, so she can go and date other men?!

...In fact, maybe he was the one whom she suspected might have cheated and given her something. Even if the Ticket to Ride is referring to a clean bill of health from the GUM clinic, it might just mean that she's celebrating being free from him and hasn't got any nasties from him.

John Lennon wasn't particularly known for respecting women, so I could well see how he could blame her for him having an affair (maybe the 'Jealous Guy' was constantly accusing her of imaginary affairs on her part) and subsequently for leaving him - no doubt going off with all of her fancy men and putting it out 'like a prostitute' and (in his mind) validating all that he accused her of.

I've probably massively over-reached there in my assumptions; but just postulating a potential explanation.