Ever wonder how the subject of songs feels about them?

[Juells]

Fairly lighthearted thread, sparked by my knee-jerk reaction when a Cat Stevens song was served up by Spotify.

www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/catstevens/wildworld.html

I must be a nasty cranky bitch, because it seems like a load of paternalistic shit to me - unfortunately wrapped in an earworm I keep humming. Would I have felt the same way when I was eighteen? I doubt it, I'd have hummed along happily and not noticed all the references to her being like a child. No wonder she left.

I wonder what Patti Boyd/ Harrison/ Clapton/ Weston feels about Something in the Way She Moves, Layla Golden Ring and Wonderful Tonight

Kathy Mary Etchingham was very pleased and flattered by The Wind Cries Mary

As well she might be. It's beautiful and not schmaltzy like the Patti Body songs (although to be fair Golden Ring did have Clapton showing some insight into their relationship)

Toto's Rosanna was an amalgamation of girls not Rosanna Arquette even though she was dating one of the band at the time - they all apparently went with the press story, extra publicity I guess.
My favourite song about an ex goes to Lily Allen's 'it's not fair' although she claimed the ex in question was so arrogant he had not the glimmer of recognition that said song was about him being crap in bed.

Delilah from Hey There Delilah has said in interviews that she's freaked out by the song. She's a semi famous athlete and was engaged to someone else/ didn't know the writer of the song that well

Not why why why Delilah then?

size I had no idea. It really is Eww (for anyone else curious they met in 2002, she had a bf already, he wrote song to impress her, 6 years later she agreed to go with him to the Grammys in 2008 when it was up for song of the year. It lost to Rehab thank fuck).

My first thought: "Oh no! Did I lead Tom on?" I became anxious. I was with Will. I'm still with Will to this day. Tom and I had a friendly relationship and I wondered if he misconstrued my actions. He put so much effort into the song. I felt guilty, like, "I'm such a wench!"

I didn't want the spotlight. I was nervous that I'd let Tom's fans down. They'd be disappointed to hear I have a boyfriend. Every girl would want a song written about her, and they'd think I was ungrateful and rude to deny Tom. I felt pressure to live up to those expectations.

When I'm at the gym, it's playing; when I'm at the pool, it's playing. Part of me wants to scream at the top of my lungs that it's about me. Another part of me wants to cower and say it's not.

Jamiroquai - little L was about Jay Kay's break up with Denise Van Outen. She wanted to get married, he didn't. Rumours of infidelity on both sides but he allegedly had a coke problem to boot. What a catch.

Little L encompasses one day of my relationship with Denise. Not the whole thing. 'You make me love you with a little L, I can't understand what you want from me.' Which is what it was like with Den," Jay Kay explained to Esquire.

"With Den it seemed like I couldn't do any right. She's a great girl, but you've got to hunt for what you really want, and we had slightly conflicting ideas about what that was. I'm a real long term guy. I really wanna be with someone to love them and have kids with them. Marriage, just because everyone else is doing it, does not come first. You don't need to marry me, 'cos you can have me, all of me. I've got so much love to give, to the right woman. And I don't think I'm a bad lad really ... It's not about buying rings; it's about offering love and being treated like the guy I really am, and that didn't really materialize."

Sorry. 'It's not about the break-up. It's about a day in the life of a relationship which is falling apart.' That's okay then.
Sample lyrics:

There you were freaking out, trying to get your head around the fact that me and you and love is dead.
We're finished now cos you can't decide what you really want from me. There you are shouting now Cranking up your altercation Getting upset in your desperation.
Screaming and hollering How come this love became so paper thin.

Charming.

You're So Vain - apparently it's about David Geffen but for years everyone thought it was Warren Beatty.

McArthur Park - isn't the cake supposed to represent someone's love? It's an amazing song but it's deffo one of the "this is your lyrics on drugs"

PP mentioned ABBA's does you're mother know - that song is super creepy but I like to think he's pointing out to her that she's too young and should go away. I hope.

Of the hit song Little L that Jay wrote following their break-up, Denise says:

“People Rage just think he wrote this really bitter song about me, but he also wrote some lovely songs about me, like You Give Me Something.''

I don't know that one

The Hey there Delilah lyrics are really creepy in the context of her not being, never had been and was never going to be , his girlfriend.

Indeed. Also most odd that he felt 'he had to bring her that night' to the Grammys, given they both had respective partners. I guess it was a gesture/publicity/he somehow felt indebted.

“I met a girl named Delilah in 2003 in Chicago,” Higgenson told me. “She went to school in New York City, so when she went back to school, I gave her a CD, and I joked with her that I had a song about her.” In reality, there was no such song—so when Delilah asked to hear it, Higgenson had to backtrack. “I actually [had] to write this song. So I starting writing it, and I got through the first few lines, and I’m like, ‘Wow, this is really good.’” Higgenson and Delilah ended up falling out of touch. “But I kept going with the song, thinking, if I was with this girl in this long-distance relationship, what would I want to say? That’s how I wrote the rest of this song.”

Cool story bro

He's 40 now. His son Lennon will be 9.
He also wrote 1,2,3,4 for Angie Chavez.

I have had three poems written for me in my lifetime. Spoiler: they weren't that good

I always want to know which ex Taylor Swift’s songs are about

but for years everyone thought it was Warren Beatty
Including Warren Beatty

Hermione Dear John was about John Mayer, apparently. He was really upset by it, Paper Doll is allegedly the reply.

The old Cliff Richard favourite Livin' Doll
Got myself a cryin', talkin', sleepin', walkin', livin' doll
Got to do my best to please her just 'cause she's a livin' doll
Got a roamin' eye and that is why she satisfies my soul
Got the one and only walkin', talkin', livin' doll

Take a look at her hair, it's real
If you don't believe what I say, just feel
I'm gonna lock her up in a trunk so no big hunk
Can steal her away from me

Which I remember being sung by my aunties at parties... despite the 10-15 year jail sentence crime proposed in the chorus.

Last kiss/forever and always/holy ground - Joe Jonas
Back to December - Taylor Lautner
Dear John - John Mayer
We are never getting back together/The last time - Jake Gyllenhall
Trouble/out of the woods/Style - Harry Styles

tayto r ever

Okay, am ouuta here, need to get a life

John Mayer thought it was a low blow as she called him out on the age difference. I think the general consensus is that John Mayer sucks!

Oh and let's not forget Ed Sheeran's Don't, alluding to Ellie Goulding using him (she did remove his hand from her thigh at an awards show as soon as the cameras were on them which led to the word 'shamefuck' being introduced to my lexicon....)

Ok. Step away from the computer, rage

I've had this happen to me

Listening to a song about yourself in Starbucks is a very weird experience!

He sent the song to me about a year before it came out and I've kept the email with it attached... might be a money maker one day if I'm desperate!

Here's a Britpop-era one!

Justine Frischmann (Elastica/ very early Suede) used to date Brett Anderson (Suede). Then they broke up and she went on to have a long term relationship with Damon Albarn (Blur). Albarn and Anderson apparently hated each other.

This floppy-haired, Adidas trainer wearing love triangle inspired songs (and in Blur's case, whole albums) each band:

• 'Never Here' on Elastica's debut album, was by Frischmann about Anderson, and isn't very flattering at all: We were sitting in waiting/ And I told you my plan/ You were far too busy writing/ Words that didn’t scan

• 'Animal Lover' on Suede's first album, was by Anderson, about Frischmann and Albarn, who were apparently seeing each other behind Anderson's back. The story goes that it was inspired by Anderson seeing scratch marks or love bites on Frischmann that Albarn had left there:

^I see you're moving see you're moving like wildlife from the waist But when your name's scratched in on a shiny ring Your waist is my resting place And around my neck and around her neck hangs everything you are I know you've been inside but what were you in for?^

• A lot of Blur's album '13' was written after Albarn and Frischmann split up- notably 'Tender' and 'No Distance Left to Run'

Another juicy story is the affair between PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, which inspired a lot of 'The Boatman's Call'. I always wondered how Cave's wife and Harvey felt about that album.

On the flip side, Beautiful South's "Song For Whoever" is mildly satirical about the whole thing:

"I love you from the bottom of my pencil case
I love you in the songs I write and sing
Love you because you put me in my rightful place
And I love the PRS cheques that you bring

Cheap, never cheap
I'll sing you songs till you're asleep
When you've gone upstairs I'll creep
And write it all down
Down, down, down...

Oh Shirley, oh Deborah, oh Julie, oh Jane
I wrote so many songs about you
I forget your name (I forget your name)
Jennifer, Alison, Phillipa, Sue,
Deborah, Annabel, too (I forget your name)
Jennifer, Alison, Phillipa, Sue,
Deborah, Annabel, too (I forget your name)"

etc.

I thought Blur’s ‘Beetlebum’ was about Justine during her hard drugs period too

Almost certainly, BernardBlacksWineLolly!