(Or, 'The Things Martini Enfield thinks about at 1:45am in the morning when he has insomnia and can’t sleep)
I was listening to Hotel California on the radio the other day when my fiancee asked what the song was actually about.
I told her I was pretty sure the song was about Heroin Addiction, which then started a long and interesting discussion about the deeper meanings of songs and music, and caused me to wonder aloud: “Do all songs have to have some deeper meaning or extra level to them?” In other words, is it possible for a song to have NO “themes”, not be a metaphor for the Artist’s drinking problem, nor be a satire/social comment or whatever, but instead just be a piece of music played because it sounds good, with no “added extras”?
(BTW, I know most Dance/Rave/Techno music has no “Deeper Meaning” because it’s all about the beat- I’m thinking more of Rock, Rap/RnB, and Pop music here)
Not really. There are plenty of great songs without any deeper meaning that “I love you.” Take most of the Beatles, for instance; while there are a few songs in their later period that refer to something (and even most of those are just a reference, not a deep meaning: “Martha My Dear” was inspired by Paul McCartney’s dog, “Sexy Sadie” was about the Maharishi), all of their early works are straighforward love songs.
There is no deep meaning in most Rolling Stones songs, either.
Further, the songs that do have meaning usually make their message loud and clear. The idea of deep meaning in the subtext of any song (or other work) is a fiction made up by English professors in order to get tenure.
To the OP: Every rock/pop/R&B song, at least from the 60’s & 70’s, is really about
(1) drugs,
(2) death (especially, Paul being dead), or
(3) doing the nasty.
my favorite band, Rasputina, has loads of songs that are about some crazy odd thing… the fans end up discussing what they’re REALLY about, arguing at length, and then the leader of the band comes out and says, “it’s about exactly what it says it’s about.”
I think it’s done mostly to tease the fans. And I must say, it’s rather hilarious to watch people debating over the meaning of a song about a love affair with the abominable snowman, or the endless “it’s about vampires!” “no it’s not, it has to have a deeper meaning!” “no, stupid, read the lyrics- it’s about vampires!” debates
When I was younger, I used to think that most songs were meaningless. As I got older, I realized that I wasn’t understanding the lyrics to some of them right, or, a lot of songs use metaphors and imagery, and if you try to listen to them literally, they sound like gibberish.
On the other hand, there are songs that are complete nonsense. Burning Down the House by the Talking Heads for example. A bunch of sentences, which, on their own, mean something, but when strung together for the song, makes it meaningless.
Well, it’s always nice to be delusional and see things that aren’t there, but by and large, most songs have nothing more to them than what is written in the lyrics. There here are certainly exceptions, but rarely do those sort of songs become popular.
I’d like to see what examples you’re willing to give to support your case, since I was willing to give them to support mine. Or are we supposed to accept this just on your say-so?
You gave (very) general examples of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, ignoring the fact that many of the Stones’ best songs DO in fact have a deeper meaning and story…Sympathy for the Devil in particular comes to mind.
I didn’t feel as if that general and generic of a reply deserved counter-examples.
I never called you delusional, that’s your term. I simply said I disagreed with your opinion.
For what? It’s just a straigforward song about Mick pretending to be the devil. Nothing particularly deep about it. There’s nothing deep about Street Fighting Man, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Satisfaction, Gimme Shelter, Jumping Jack Flash or any other Stones song I can think of. (Maybe Paint it Black, since that’s about death, which isn’t in the lyrics, but it’s hardly deep).
There are people who can think there’s deep meaning in anything.
For Beatles songs without deep meaning, there’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” “Help,” “Something,” “Little Help From My Friends,” “When I’m 64,” “Yesterday,” “Paperback Writer,” “From Me To You,” “Hey Jude,” and the entire White Album. All great songs, no deep meaning to any of them.
Now, you can play games and find deep meaning in “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep,” if you like, but that’s your delusion; it has nothing to do with what’s in the song.
I always thought that was a perfect example song that pretended to be deep without having any actual depth.
No, songs don’t have to have depth to be great. Many of the great songs ujst make their point and go on their way. I think going for layers of meanings works in literature, but often fucks up songs and causes songwriters to lose their heads up their asses. (See Waters, Roger.)
I think my favorite Beatles song is “I Am the Walrus,” and that’s not about anything at all. Like a number of John’s best efforts, it’s just word salad. Supposedly, he wrote “Walrus” to confound people who insisted on reading deeper meanings into Beatles songs.
“Deeper meaning” implies there’s two ways to understand a song - on the level where the lyrics mean what they say, and on the level where they stand as an allegory for something buried or hidden.
So, if the literal meaning of the lyrics can convey an emotion or experience in a vivid, affecting, and unique manner, without resorting to cliches or triteness, why would there need to be an additional “deeper” level of meaning?
One of my favorite songs is Wilco’s “Via Chicago.” The lyrics paint a picture of a complex and troubled individual, and the images are almost cinematic in their precision, but I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily another “layer” of understanding there. It’s a “deep” song, but it doesn’t have a “deeper” meaning, and I think that’s an important distinction.
Once in the late 1960s I spent several hours listening to the jabbering of several stoned college students on the subject of whether or not Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff, the Magic Dragon” was a drug allegory. Sheesh, people, sometimes a song is just a song. The fundamental things apply as time goes by, and all that.
Well, if you’re going to try to find songs with ‘deep’ hidden meanings, the ripest fruit is no doubt found in the meanderings of stoned hippie artists of the 1960’s. So ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ is as good a candidate as any.
I think that deep and hidden are separate things entirely. Just because the theme or message of the song is not obscured, does not make the meaning not deep, or to use another word, profound. Maybe if we restate it in Latin then it can be deep, “Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.”
