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.

Bruce Springsteen's I'm On Fire is an interesting one. The video for it shows him having a crush on a woman but ultimately leaving her alone and not acting on it.

Paul Anka has publicly named the "Diana" in his song, who I believe was a babysitter he had when he was very young. As far as I know, she has never commented about this and was never in touch with Anka after the song came out.

Back to Freddie Mercury, "You're My Best Friend" is about his former fiancee Mary, who really was his best friend and inherited a large proportion of his fortune when he died. He loved her to bits but not in a sexual way.

Rage I really liked John’s music, which is why I read about all this when it happened, but whenever I read he has a girlfriend all I can think of is ‘poor woman’.

And I agree with Taylor too, if you’re 35+ and go out with a teenager, you probably should be called out on it.

There may be blondes or brunettes that are hard to resist,
You surpass them like a queen
You’ve got those lips that were meant to be kissed
And you’re over sweet sixteen

I don’t find that too bad to be fair. As long as the woman is legal all is good. I think acknowledging that is good, be better if more men knew the ages of the people they want to sleep with.

Leonard Cohen has a lot of songs about real people.

My university roommate had a popular local band write a song about her. Her boyfriend, with whom she'd just broken up after several years, was really good friends with them. I guess he must have poured out his grief.

She had mixed feelings about it, but I think she was flattered. She bought the cassette.

There was a lovely story in the papers about Kathy from Paul Simon's Kathy's Song when she died. They stayed friends over the decades and he used to come and visit her and her husband in their home in Wales. She couldn't handle the fame when she went to the States with him so came home. I think it says a lot about him that he stayed in touch with her and wished her well.

Yes, Leonard Cohen wrote a lot of songs inspired by women.

Chelsea Hotel #2 was about Janis Joplin – he went through a long phase of introducing the song with a little story about her at concerts, but then later conceded it wasn’t very ‘gentlemanly’ of him and dropped it (the story, not the song). She had already died when he wrote it.

Take This Longing and One of Us Cannot Be Wrong were about Nico from the Velvet Underground, one of the few women who turned him down.

And of course, Marianne Ihlen, who inspired Bird on the Wire, So Long, Marianne and many others. She struggled with being his ‘muse’, and also muse to other partners in her life. Nick Broomfield is releasing a documentary about them both that looks fascinating, that looks into what it’s like to be the focus of a song that captures are particular time in your life, and if/how you can move on from it.

southwark really sorry if it sounded in anyway critical of you lovey, I was admonishing myself to get off MN as I was addicted to looking at pop trivia this morning In fairness to him, I haven't heard his music, too busy I was hoiking up my judgy pants when reading sleb twaddle! What's his best song iyo and I'll give it a listen

Rage no no no, I didn’t think you were having a go at me. Sorry if it sounded like it!

I did like him before I knew he was a twat though - 20-ish years? Continuum is a good album, all of it (if you like his type of music, I suppose!).

Definitelyrandom and WhatTheWatersShowedMe

Thanks both for the lovely trivia.

@Sarahjconnor but at least in Somebody I Used to Know it's a duet, so the woman gets to explain her side of the story which trashes his. Like Need a Little Time by the Beautiful South., The power of both songs imo is that you hear both sides of the argument.

I will say, generally I don't think songs about romantic feelings or lusts needs to be fair or explore both sides.

Take a song lie You Oughta Know. It's a great song, very angry, very nasty too. It makes the man sound like an utter jerk. Would he have something to say from his POV? Probably he would, that's just how this stuff goes.

But it beautifully captures a very relatable sense of rage that you get in that kind of situation. It wouldn't improve the song to hear that AM was a nasty girlfriend or picked her nose or whatever, even if it was true.

WhatTheWatersShowedMe

Loved Suede!! I’ve no idea if these Suede lyrics were inspired by Albarn and Frischmann but I suspect they were:

With ice in her blood
And a dove in her head
Well, how does she feel when she's in your bed?
When you're there in her arms
And there in her legs
Well, I'll be in her head

'Cause that's where I go
And that's what I do
And that's how it feels when the sex turns cruel
Yes, both of us need her, this is the asphalt world

Genius

Hazard by Richard Marx

… I swear I left her by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound
I need to make it to the river
And leave this old Nebraska town…

I would imagine Mary doesn't feel anything about that song given she's dead same as Jenny in The Killers song...

Back to Freddie Mercury, "You're My Best Friend" is about his former fiancee Mary, who really was his best friend

John Deacon wrote that song about his wife...

Fair point Rage

Is she definitely dead though? I thought it was a bit erm open ended on that issue?

Thismonkeysgonetodevon

Ooh those lyrics are from one of my all-time favourite Suede songs- I think I cited it in an essay I wrote at A Level many, many aeons ago. Dogmanstar is an amazing album. It really evokes an atmosphere of being miseriable, in a bedsit, in a decaying Brutalist housing block, in the constant rain.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if those lyrics were about Frischmann and Albarn, Anderson was on serious drugs at the time that album was written and probably still broken-hearted/ humiliated.

'This Charmless Man' by Blur was rumoured to be a diss track about Anderson.

It's amazing how creatively fruitful that love triangle was!

Freddie allegedly wrote "Love of my Life" about Mary.

I gather that pink's husband was not too thrilled about so what. to be fair she has a lot of songs where if she posted on relationships board I would tell her to get out of such an unstable relationship as half of the songs are lovely and then half the songs portray the man she is singing about as a complete bastard.

There's a song about me by an ex. It's rarely heard these days, but on the odd time I've heard it, it simply confirms I was right to dump the selfish, cheating and vocally mediocre man who was absolutely carried by the far more talented members of 'his' band.

I believe he was last heard of doing admin in a motor spares warehouse. 'His' band went their separate ways and have done very nicely over the years. Apparently he wrote a song about 'his' band ditching him and the 'trauma' of it all.

we need to know the song!

WhatTheWatersShowedMe

It’s one of my all time favourite songs on an all time favourite album too. Great that you managed to cite the lyrics in an essay - hope you got top grades!

Have you read Anderson’s biography? In it he writes Suede would not have ever been successful if Frischmann hadn’t dumped him - that the heartbreak and self-loathing misery that followed was all poured into the drug-fuelled lyrics!

I don’t think Blur were a patch on Suede

Thismonkeysgonetodevon

I got an A for English Literature thanks to that essay so yep, it definitely helped me out!

I haven't read Anderson's biography- I'll stick it on my Amazon wishlist for Christmas time.

And year, Suede were a far superior band to Blur! I was a miserable little goth teenager in the suburbs in the 90s. The weirdo bands like Suede, Mansun, Placebo, Pulp and early Manics were much more appealing to me than Blur- they were far too happy to be alive.

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, nooooo

When Donna Summer sang this it was rumoured that leaving a cake out in the rain was a euphemism for losing your virginity - hence the never having that recipe again.

But -

I've just gone and googled it and IF this is true, it's quite intriguing!
www.songfacts.com/facts/richard-harris/macarthur-park