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:
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
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:
: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.
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.
“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
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.”
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.