Has knowing the backstory of a song ever changed the way you felt about it?
The song I’m thinking about is “Come Dancing” by the Kinks. It’s an upbeat yet nostalgic number about the singer’s memories of his older sister going out on dates to the local dance hall (the palais).
The last verse is:
Now I’m grown up and playing in a band
There’s a car park where the palais used to stand
My sister’s married and she lives on an estate
Her daughters go out, now it’s her turn to wait
She lets them get away with things she never could
But if I asked her I wonder if she would
Come dancing
C’mon sister have yourself a ball
Don’t be afraid to come dancing
It’s only natural
Unsurprisingly, the song was inspired by Kink’s frontman Ray Davies’s older sister Renee, who loved dancing and dance halls.
But what I didn’t know until recently was she was in an abusive marriage, she had a bad heart and she died of a heart attack at the Lyceum dance hall at age 30.
Every since I learned that, the last verse of that cheery upbeat song makes me sad, because he’s singing about the life she didn’t have.
Have your feelings about a song ever changed because of the backstory?
Or is there a song you didn’t like until you heard the story behind it? Is there a song you liked until you heard the backstory? Please share.
Whenever I hear “Take It To the Limit” by The Eagles, I now think about how much Randy Meisner hated singing it in concert and how it contributed to him quitting the band.
For 37 years, “Sweet Caroline” was a nice song about a guy’s girlfriend. But now we know it was about an 11-year-old, and it’s just too creepy to listen to.
In contrast, knowing that “Same Old Lang Syne” is a true story makes it so much sweeter.
Well, sorta. He saw a picture of her riding a horse, and that was the inspiration. OR it is about his wife Marcia.
On December 21, 2011, in an interview on CBS’s The Early Show , Diamond said that a magazine cover photo of Caroline Kennedy as a young child on a horse[6] with her parents created an image in his mind, and the rest of the song came together about five years after seeing the picture.[7] However, in 2014 Diamond said the song was about his then-wife Marcia, but he needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody.[7]
So, it is not creepy. It is not about a little girl he had a infatuation of a a relationship with.
Diamond, 66, said he was a “young, broke songwriter” in the ‘60s when he saw a cute photo of Caroline Kennedy in a magazine. “It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony,” he recalled. “It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there.”
Oh, this is reminding of a classic Frazier episode, starring Emma Thompson as children’s entertainer Nanny G, who also happens to be Frasier’s first wife - the one he neglected to tell Lilith about.
Frasier is trying to convince Lilith that’s there’s nothing between them, even though she’s obviously still attracted to him.
Then Nanny G starts to sing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to Frasier’s son
Lilith - Why is she looking at you, Frasier?
Frasier - She isn’t looking at me, she’s looking in the general direction of our loving family
Lilith - I think she’s singing to you, Frasier
Frasier - Oh, you’re being paranoid. She’s singing a lovely song to a two year old child.
And at that moment, Emma Thompson as Nanny G belts out “The first time ever I LAY with you…….
Hysterical episode, Emma Thompson is brilliant. I wasn’t able to find a clip, but I found a script so the dialogue I quoted isn’t paraphrased.
Billy Preston wrote “You Are So Beautiful” with one of his regular collaborators, Bruce Fisher.[4] Preston’s inspiration was his mother, who worked as a stage actress. According to his friend Sam Moore (who had assumed it was a standard love song), Preston was appalled to learn that Moore was using the song as a means to attract young women each time he sang it in concert. In Moore’s description, Preston told him: “That song’s about my mother!”[5]
Although initial listeners may have interpreted it as a song about a broken relationship, Gates revealed that it was written in memory of his father who died in 1963 before he achieved his success with Bread.[3] According to the book 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, at his father’s funeral, a friend took David Gates aside and said, “Your dad was so proud of what you were doing.” David agreed, “My success would have been so special to him as he was my greatest influence. So I decided to write and record ‘Everything I Own’ about him. If you listen to the words, ‘You sheltered me from harm, kept me warm, you gave my life to me, set me free’, it says it all.”[4] "
" In Your Eyes " is a song by English rock musician Peter Gabriel from his fifth solo album So (1986). It features Youssou N’Dour singing a part at the end of the song translated into his native Wolof. Gabriel’s lyrics were inspired by an African tradition of ambiguity in song between romantic love and love of God.[3]
One interesting backstory is for Ticket to Ride by the Beatles.
Another very interesting story is the meaning behind the name. The prostitutes working in the city of Hamburg had to have a bill given to them by the authorities declaring that they were clean and safe to pursue their profession. So ‘Ticket To Ride’ was actually a naughty rendition of the hookers in Hamburg!
I have some doubts, but it did change how I heard that song.
I’m pretty sure that was an episode of Cheers. At the end of the episode Nanny G leaves Frederick a doll that sings a song giving Frasier her phone number.
For me it’s the song “She Loves The Sunset”, and the back story is more about how the song was written rather than what the song is about. Rhett Miller and his girlfriend had to flee their lower Manhattan apartment on 9/11 with little more than the clothes on their backs. They eventually made it to her parents’ house.
Every time I hear the song I imagine him with that silly little marionette.
Yeah, generally it makes me like the song more. I’m not a fan of East 17, but their song Stay Another Day is more moving when you know it was Tony Mortimer writing a song about his brother, who committed suicide, and changing some words to make it into a love song that would sell (he was a working musician, after all).
“Good Riddance” by Green Day is a classic example of this. When Armstrong sings “I hope you had the time of your life” listeners generally think he’s saying something along the lines that he’s wishing the person he’s singing to well and hoped they enjoyed the experience they shared.
But the reality is Armstrong wrote the song about a woman who broke up with him and he was still bitter. What he meant by the line was that he was hoping that the woman would eventually look back at their time together and realize it was the best time of her life and everything had been downhill since.
Neil Young’s “Long May You Run”, I really liked that song. Sort of a ‘we’ve had a good ride, it’s over, but hey, long may you run’, kinda vibe. I liked the sentiment.
Then I learned it was about a hearse he drove, a lot of miles, in his starting out days, when he still had to schlep his own equipment around.
The singer is saying that the girl has been living with him. But she has now decided that the relationship isn’t working out and so she’s going away (using her ticket to ride). This is not a relationship between a prostitute and a client.
Both. On Cheers Lilith referred to her as “Nanny G-Spot.” This is where she sang to him. On Frazier she was played by Laurie Metcalf and delivered the immortal line: “Do you know what it’s like to play the same character for twenty years!?”