Seemingly fun jovial songs with serious lyrics/subject matter

[Floogal]

Over the years there's cheery sounding songs which either have heavy lyrics or later you find out what the song is about.

1. Embarrassment by Madness is apparently about teenage pregnancy and racism. Apparently a lot of their songs have serious undertones
2. Beds are burning by Midnight oil sounds funny but it's about Aboriginal Australian rights
3. Oliver's army by Elvis Costello.
4. I might be wrong but that song moving too fast by Artful Dodger. I think it's about sexual harassment.
5. Bump and grind by R Kelly, now knowing what we know, I think is about rape from the perpetrators point of view

Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos is about FGM ☹️

Maggie May is pretty creepy. About a school boy's affair with a middle aged woman.

Poor Alfie. That song's going to follow him. I read an interview with her where she said she doesn't perform it anymore and hasn't for years out of respect for her brother.

Also wasn't the La's "There she goes" rumoured to be about heroin?

There was a thread on here at the time The Weekend released that song Take My Breath Away and I was quite at what it’s really about. They have it on all the time on our cheesy local BBC radio station (boss insists on having it on at work) and I just think, oh dear…

There's a whole sub-genre of folk music called "Murder Ballads"

That reminds me of the wonderful Kate Rusby, who will often joke about 'getting the obligatory murder ballad out of the way' early on!

One of her songs is called 'The Game Of All Fours' and once, when we saw her live (at a family-friendly folk festival), she introduced it by saying something along the lines of "Now, children, this song is about a man and a lady who are good friends and they play a lovely game of cards together, and that's all!" - before giving a massive conspiratorial wink to the adults present

We once knew a nursery teacher who would regularly sing the chorus of 'Sit Down' by James to encourage the little ones to gather together in the corner and sit nicely, ready for story time.

I wonder how many of the young children went on to hear the full song when they were older, expecting to recall fond memories of innocently sitting and listening to rhyming kiddie books - and then got quite a nasty shock to discover that it's actually about an extremely depressed/bipolar/suicidal person thinking of ending it all?!

I heard Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai again yesterday. Strangely prescient.