to get disproportionately angry when songs do not make sense

[WTAF]

In the car today, radio on, and they start playing All Around The World by Lisa Stansfield. Instantly I felt the rage creeping up.

'Been around the world and I, I
I can't find my baby,
I don't know why, why he's gone away '

YES YOU FUCKING DO, LISA! Allow me to refer you to your own words, not 30 seconds ago, when you said (and I quote):

'We had a quarrel, and I let myself go
I said so many things, things he didn't know
And I was oh, oh so bad'

And then, and then, LISA, you go on to say

'I did too much lying, wasted too much time'

So you do know, you know exactly why he's gone away, so you should just STFU and concentrate on finding him to apologise. Not singing that bullshit trying to make us feel sorry for you, when clearly it is all YOUR FAULT.

I feel better for that. Anyone else?

Now I love the much-mocked Levellers (I was a 90s crusty after all) but their anti-war song 'Another Man's Cause' has always bugged the hell out of me:

Your daddy well he died in the Falklands
Fighting for another man's cause
And your brother he was killed in the last war
And your mother well she's lying home alone

Total British casualties of the Falklands - 255. Total of Desert Storm (presumably the 'last war' referred to: 47). MAN, that's an unlucky family. And THEN, in the final verse, he decides to join up himself! Really, with that sort of genetic luck, wouldn't you be looking for a nice bullet-free office job?

Ha ha ha - this thread is genious.

As for snow in Africa, well of course - but it gets worse:

"And there won't be snow in Africa this christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow
Do they know it's christmas time at all? "

Um, yes, things grow, there's rain and there are flowing rivers BUT
YES "they" bleedin will know it's Christmas, esp if we're talking Ethiopia, given that Ethiopia is one of the most ancient Christian kingdoms in the world...

Of course normally "things grow, there's rain and there are flowing rivers" BUT there was a fucking DROUGHT at the time which is what this song was written about. And people were starving and dying of famine - I doubt that Christmas was much on their minds, which is the point being made there. Some people here seem not to understand the context of this song. Perhaps they are too young to remember it.

This song has always been infuriating to me:

I'll never be Maria Magdalena

You take my love
You want my soul
I would be crazy to share your life
Why can't you see what I am
Sharpen the senses and drawn the knife ( help!)
Hold/hurt me and you'll understand

I'll never be Maria Magdalena (who wants you to be her anyway? )
(You're a creature of the night)
Maria Magdalena
(you're a victim of the fight)
(you need love)
Promised me delight
(You need looooooooooove)

Why must I lie
Find any prize
When will you wake up and realize
I can't surrender to you
Play for affection and
Win the prize
I know those party games too ( what kind of party games, charades?! pass the parcel? )

I'll never be Maria Magdalena
(You're a creature of the night)
Maria Magdalena
(you're a victim of the fight)
(you need love)
Promised me delight
(You need love)

love the intro though, and the whole 1980s vibe. Wonderfully bad Euro 80s trash

"Whats she gonna look like with a chimney on her? " apparently is referring to giving her a black eye. something to do with being american slang for one.

G'wan then, someone explain "Brimful of Asha on the 45" - that's always seemed deliciously odd to me!

Asha and 45rpm, what vinyl singles were played at...

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow is the bit that's always made me go

Thanks Tabulah!

Oh - I heard that a "chimney" was a knife to the artery in the neck.

So, what's she going to look like with a fatal stab wound releasing her blood all over t'place.

Not so jolly now, is it?

Percy, sorry, is not a joking matter. Not to detract from the devastating famine in Ethiopia (itself the result of war and politics). Yet the lyrics are still wrong. E.g., despite what you write, they (Ethiopia is a majority Orthodox Christian country) really would have known it was the time of Jesus' birth - faith is much all many had at the time :(
Anyhow I won't go on, since the song achieved much good, and this thread is supposed to be about Lisa Stansfield and stuff.

"I only knew you for a while
I never saw your smile
Till it was time to go, time to go away"

Now that is a glorious 80s song, but really - can't have been much of a relationship if she only smiled at you when you were leaving, can it, Phil Oakey?

Also there is a line in a Spice Girls song that has wound me up for years - "throwing far too much emotions at me" - if you just sang "emotion" it would make perfect sense, FFS.

I have always felt irked by 'The Lion Sleeps tonight' which starts 'in the jungle, the mighty jungle'

Do Lions live in jungles?

I've just cried my way through this thread! Can't even think of any silly examples myself because i'm still singing a mixture of Alanis Morrisette, Oasis and christmas songs in my head!! Brilliant!!

Like the idea of throwing emotions at someone: here, take sadness, rage, elation, the despair that only Leonard Cohen can evoke- BAM!

"Twas light years of time since his journey did start" in "the spaceman".
A light year is a measure of distance, not time. It makes the vein in my forehead throb when I hear it

Every morning at 7am Nick Jr is on in our house. The song starts:

"Wake up, wake up, no matter what you're doing"

...well if you're telling me to wake up presumably I can only be doing one thing - I am asleep!

'Cause we love our love,
in different sizes
I love her body, especially the lies
Time takes it's toll, but not on the eyes
Promise me this, take me tonight'

This doesn't amount to anything- what the bleedin' heck are you going on about? This song is beyond stupid

notjustamummy I know! I always laugh at that bit-
'a great baboon by the light of the moon was combing his auburn hair!!!!!'

Seriously, does ANYONE understand the meaning of of "A Whiter Shade of Pale"? Beautiful song, but truly baffling!

We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, 'There is no reason
and the truth is plain to see.'
But I wandered through my playing cards
and would not let her be
one of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might have just as well've been closed

Googling has thrown up this interesting article, Poppy. It seems that it is a load of pretentious nonsense- who'd have thought, eh?

wow Lettletown, and and all this time I thought they were just stoned!

I think you could throw rage quite far, but confusion would float about, it'd be like trying to throw candyfloss.

Thanks whoever mentioned 'The Reflex'....back in my head after years of keeping it at bay, my maths teacher used to sing it when we were doing angles. Ugh :)

I thought "what's she gonna look like with a chimney on her" was a big gay wizard of oz reference to the fact that she was a witch. At least that's what my tall slim gay friend told me.....