# Did you actually listen to the words of the song? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 15, 2007, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712 "2007-08-15T19:41:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HelloKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecccb3/32.png) [@HelloKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelloKitty)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2007, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/21 "2007-08-15T23:11:13Z")
I listened to the lyrics of _Waiting for the World to Change_ by John Mayer the other day. I had never listened to the song the whole way through before, and I liked the melody. I get the impression that Mayer is one to make “calls for change” so I expected it to be about “while we’re waiting for the world to change we’re going to take a stand, buck the system”, etc. Nope. It’s just about how he and his friends are just going to sit there and wait for the world to change before they do anything. Sample: > [@](#): > > it’s not that we don’t care, > we just know that the fight ain’t fair > so we keep on waiting > waiting on the world to change So, they don’t like what’s going on but since they “don’t think it’s fair” they’re just going to do…nothing!! Yeah, it’s better to just “wait for things to change”. and > [@](#): > > one day our generation > is gonna rule the population > so we keep on waiting > waiting on the world to change Great, your bunch of slacker friends are going to rule the world one day. I’m sure that future president’s policy of “waiting for the world to change” will be an effective one! :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/22 "2007-08-15T23:47:11Z")
Locally, a radio station did a whole promotion built around “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats. Contest, promos, the whole thing. Come the Monday it was supposed to begin, no mention of the contest or the song. I think they listened to the lyrics over the weekend. It’s about a mass shooter who killed a bunch of people one Monday at school. ---
**Author:** ![MissGypsy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@MissGypsy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissGypsy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/23 "2007-08-16T00:31:03Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01] For me it was All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You by Heart. I loved that song for years and then actually paid attention to it. Brief synopsis for those that haven’t paid attention…Girl can’t get pregnant by her husband (boyfriend or something, it isn’t specified), so she goes for a drive and picks up a random stranger literally off the street. They go to a cheap motel, screw all night and she leaves before he wakes up. Turns out he knocked her up that night. Later she goes back with her man and her baby and tells him he’s the dad, thanks for the sperm..now have a nice life. Oy! [/QUOTE] :eek: I never noticed that before, and that song was part of the background soundtrack to my teen years. I read the lyrics, and you’re right, but what an odd thing to write a song about. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/24 "2007-08-16T01:17:50Z")
One of our TV stations used “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed as a promo. I was quite surprised they included the lyrics: > [@](#): > > I thought I was someone else, > Someone good. Didn’t seem quite the happy upbeat message they were going for. I guessed they were hoping people would stick on the line “you made me forget myself”. A friend of mine used to often sing “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”, including the (word perfect) lines > [@](#): > > Plucked her eyebrows on the way > Shaved her legs and then he was she - she said: > > Hey Babe, take a walk on the wild side, > Said hey honey, take a walk on the wild side. Without ever realising that the song was about a transvestite. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/25 "2007-08-16T02:11:36Z")
Okay, it’s a little more forgivable that some of the previous examples, but there’s one that really used to bug me. I attended at least two (Catholic) baptisms where the parents had chosen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s _Pie Jesu_ for the ceremony. Yes, it’s very beautiful. Yes, it’s a prayer. No, it’s not appropriate for weddings or baptisms, because it’s written for funerals. I understand that your Latin may be a little rusty (so is mine, I assure you). But God’s isn’t. And the plea “grant them eternal rest” (_dona eis requiem sempiternam_) is one you just might not want granted at that particular moment. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/26 "2007-08-16T02:20:25Z")
“Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen gets used more inappropriately than any song I know in widespread media. It is used as a patriotic song when it is clearly about the brutalities of the Vietnam war and what it did to draftees. "Got in a little hometown jam And so they put a rifle in my hands Sent me off to Vietnam To go and kill the yellow man [chorus] Come back home to the refinery Hiring man says “Son if it was up to me” I go down to see the V.A. man He said “Son don’t you understand” I had a buddy at Khe Sahn Fighting off the Viet Cong They’re still there, he’s all gone He had a little girl in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms ---
**Author:** ![bathsheba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@bathsheba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bathsheba)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/27 "2007-08-16T05:33:51Z")
Using Babybird’s “You’re Gorgeous” to advertise baby products. Yikes people, just yikes… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/28 "2007-08-16T06:33:05Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen gets used more inappropriately than any song I know in widespread media. It is used as a patriotic song when it is clearly about the brutalities of the Vietnam war and what it did to draftees. "Got in a little hometown jam And so they put a rifle in my hands Sent me off to Vietnam To go and kill the yellow man [chorus] s [/QUOTE] To be fair, the lyrics are a little hard to understand but the chorus is clear and easy to remember. I do wince when dudes think it is a patriotic song, however. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/29 "2007-08-16T06:46:26Z")
[QUOTE=wheresgeorge04] Sorry, can you elaborate on the first two? Never heard that MJ song, and am not so familiar with the lyrics of that Doobie Bros. song… Joe [/QUOTE] “What a Fool Believes” is about self-delusion. Here’s a few apposite lines: > [@](#): > > What a fool believes he sees > A wise man has the power to reason away > What seems to be… > > As she rises to her apology, anybody else would surely know > He’s watching her go… ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/30 "2007-08-16T06:58:37Z")
The second I heard it on the radio a few months ago, I knew it would go wrong: Death Cab for Cutie’s song _I Will Follow You Into The Dark_, while romantic, is not a good wedding song. The song is about the guy’s promise that he’ll kill himself if his lady dies. And yup, my sister attended a wedding a few weeks ago and this was the song for the First Dance. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/31 "2007-08-16T07:00:46Z")
I remember a car commercial that showed a happy suburban family, golden retriever, piling into their minivan while the soundtrack played: _Our House Is a very very very fine house doo-do-do-doo-do-dooo…_ I guess they bought the music rights and shot the actors before somebody realized there were supposed to be “two cats in the yard”. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/32 "2007-08-16T07:21:05Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen gets used more inappropriately than any song I know in widespread media. It is used as a patriotic song when it is clearly about the brutalities of the Vietnam war and what it did to draftees. [/QUOTE] But why wouldn’t a politician want to use a song that basically sounds like this… [incoherent rambling] I WAS BORN IN THE USA! YEAH! I WAS BORN IN THE USA! [more incoherent rambling] [more incoherent rambling] YEAH! I WAS BORN IN THE USA! YEAH! [a bit more incoherent rambling] BORN IN THE USA! The patriotism kinda sells itself in that case, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/33 "2007-08-16T07:25:23Z")
Martina McBride’s \*Independence Day \* always gets played around the 4th of July, and I heard it a lot in the days after 9/11. I guess people heard the first line of the chorus and saw the title and didn’t really pay attention to the fact that it’s about murder and arson. Drives me a bit crazy, it does. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/34 "2007-08-16T08:22:06Z")
If I purchased or was given the CD after asking for it, I’ll listen to the words of each song closely. When I was younger (about 10 to 14, or until I spent more time at extracirriculars than listening to music) every new CD meant popping out the lyrics sheet and listening to every song while reading along. And if the CD didn’t include lyrics- most of my Weird Al CDs don’t- I’d look the lyrics up online. Since then, the only CDs that get that treatment are Christmas gifts, since I’ve got enough free time to do it then; otherwise I only look at the lyrics sheet if there’s something I can’t hear well. For songs that I just hear on the radio or in passing, I’m not likely to listen closely to the words the first time around, and if I do it hear a second time it depends. But if it’s used as a plot point in a show (“I Can’t Decide” in the Doctor Who finale this year, for instance) I’ll listen to the words closely. This doesn’t always work out the way it should- I was given a copy of the Rent Original Broadway Cast Recording, but it was without lyrics insert, and for the longest time I thought the line was “let he among us without sin be the first to come down” (like from a high; instead of “condemn”) because it fit with the attitude of La Vie Boheme better, in my opinion. (Mostly because Benny and Roger do some condemning in that song, and neither of them is sinless.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/35 "2007-08-16T08:44:33Z")
One commonly misunderstood song is “When a Man Loves a Woman”. If you listen to the lyrics it’s clear that the singer is saying women abuse the men who love them. It’s one thing when a male singer like Percy Sledge is singing it. It gets bizarre when a female singer like Bette Midler sings it. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/36 "2007-08-16T09:11:47Z")
Here is a link to the lyricswiki article on [What a Fool Believes](http://lyricwiki.org/Doobie_Brothers:What_A_Fool_Believes), and [Got To Be There](http://lyricwiki.org/Michael_Jackson:Got_To_Be_There). ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/37 "2007-08-16T10:53:08Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Locally, a radio station did a whole promotion built around “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats. Contest, promos, the whole thing. Come the Monday it was supposed to begin, no mention of the contest or the song. I think they listened to the lyrics over the weekend. It’s about a mass shooter who killed a bunch of people one Monday at school. [/QUOTE] Worse yet, it’s based on a true story of a 16-year-old girl who uttered the song’s title as her only explanation for her acts. > **[I Don't Like Mondays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_don%27t_like_Mondays)** > > "I Don't Like Mondays" is a song by the Irish new wave band the Boomtown Rats about the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego. It was released in 1979 as the lead single from their third studio album, The Fine Art of Surfacing. The song was a number-one single in the UK singles chart for four weeks during the summer of 1979, and ranks as the sixth-biggest hit of the UK in 1979. Written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers, the piano ballad was the band's second single to reach n Accordi... ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/38 "2007-08-16T11:39:04Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen gets used more inappropriately than any song I know in widespread media. It is used as a patriotic song when it is clearly about the brutalities of the Vietnam war and what it did to draftees. "Got in a little hometown jam And so they put a rifle in my hands Sent me off to Vietnam To go and kill the yellow man [chorus] Come back home to the refinery Hiring man says “Son if it was up to me” I go down to see the V.A. man He said “Son don’t you understand” I had a buddy at Khe Sahn Fighting off the Viet Cong They’re still there, he’s all gone He had a little girl in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms [/QUOTE] I wonder if people would have understood the meaning of the song better if it had been released in its original form. A demo of the song was recorded at Springsteen’s home on his 4 track machine at the same time as the songs in the “Nebraska” album and had a similar acoustic sound. The demo was later released on the “Tracks” box set. It has a sparer and more mournful sound than the recording that came on the “Born In the USA” album and would not have been taken for an anthem in its original form. President Reagan was the one who wanted Springsteen’s endorsement in 1984 and mentioned him as an example of a patriotic American in a campaign speech in New Jersey. A few days later Springsteen was performing in Pittsburgh and made this comment prefacing the song “Johnny 99”: “The President was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta been. I don’t think it was the Nebraska album. I don’t think he’s been listening to this one.” ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/39 "2007-08-16T12:02:01Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01] For me it was All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You by Heart. I loved that song for years and then actually paid attention to it. Brief synopsis for those that haven’t paid attention…Girl can’t get pregnant by her husband (boyfriend or something, it isn’t specified), so she goes for a drive and picks up a random stranger literally off the street. They go to a cheap motel, screw all night and she leaves before he wakes up. Turns out he knocked her up that night. Later she goes back with her man and her baby and tells him he’s the dad, thanks for the sperm..now have a nice life. Oy! [/QUOTE] I remember being at a party where everyone spent about an hour explaining the lyrics to this guy who said it was his favorite song. Afterward he claimed we had ruined it for him. However, if I have ever done anything that makes Heart less popular, I’d just consider that a good deed. I also had a friend who was gobsmacked when she figured out that Madonna was singing about being knocked up in Papa Don’t Preach. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712/40 "2007-08-16T12:23:16Z")
Lola by the Kinks has surprised many a listener who finally paid attention. not sure how to do spoilers: “Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man, but I know what I am and that I’m a man, so is Lola.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-actually-listen-to-the-words-of-the-song/415712.md?page=3)