This is one of those songs I’ve listened to forever. I got into the group in the '80s with “Heart”, followed on with “Bad Animals”, and eventually dug up their other albums.
This song is played frequently on the radio. Unfortunately, the copy of the cassette I bought didn’t have the lyrics in the liner notes. So I’ve been singing along without really knowing the words for nearly 3 decades.
So anyway, the song came on the radio, I realized I’d never looked them up, so I dug out my smartphone and pulled up the lyrics.
Okay, I get that “barracuda” is being used as a metaphor for the lying bastard. Lying low in the weeds isn’t quite right for that metaphor - fish don’t lie down - but at least the meaning is clear. But then the line about “you met the porpoise and me”. Is the porpoise supposed to be Nancy or something?
I know the background on the song. The album cover for Dreamboat Annie had Ann and Nancy presented in a way that suggested they were lesbian lovers, and their record company ran an ad in Rolling Stone Magazine with a provacative caption suggesting the same.
I just don’t follow the metaphor.
Oh well, at least I can sing along the right words now.
I try to forget songmeanings.net exists- otherwise I just want to Pit them.
It’s a great idea for a website, there are countless songs that people are curious about. But all I’ve ever seen are idiots offering unresearched baseless speculation and misinformation (and that is IF the page contains anything other than the lyrics).
If there’s any Mission Statement from the site founders, I can’t imagine it’s anything other than “Hey, here’s a website idea that could sell some ads!”
They had a video back in the video era that was sort of suggestive along those lines, too. I dismissed it as my dirty mind working overtime, I had no idea they were pushing that angle. Lesbian sisters, that’s a little oogy.
Agreed. It’s the worst of the “ultra high rotation” songs on most classic rock stations. And it really is on ultra high rotation on most stations - I bet three or four times a day, easy.
IIRC, Ann Wilson said the song’s about the record industry creeps who used to hit on her and Nancy because they were women. They were never initially taken seriously in the music business.
I did read that. It mentions several variations of the story I told in the OP, and was my source for what I posted. As bienville states, that cite is not an authoratative source of the song’s meanings (cite’s to the author, quotes from band members, etc), it’s just rumor, speculation, and half-remembered things from long ago passed through a Chinese Whispers filter.
They weren’t pushing that angle, as far as I understand, it was by the promotions people, not the Wilson sisters. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (What do you mean, there is something wrong with that?)
Ann Wilson wrote most of the lyrics to this song on a bar napkin in a matter of minutes. Their record company had started a rumor that the Wilson sisters were also lesbian lovers (in what has to be one of the sleaziest, most disgusting and idiotic publicity stunts of all time). This came to Ann’s attention when a man asked her how her ‘lover’ was after a concert.
Understandably shocked and outraged, she scribbled out most of the lyrics to ‘Barracuda’! “No right, no wrong, selling a song…” and “If the real thing don’t do the trick, you better make up something quick!” make a lot of sense in this context.
A lot of the lyrics and imagery are metaphors…and temporary insanity helps explain the rest of the song!
But the Heart song lyrics that really freak me out are from “Wild Child”-
“Push button play thing You make my back door ring
You’re fighting fire with a little fire baby
You oughta know you make this little girl sing”
Since the origins of the song have been explained I’ll just offer that I always took the reference to a porpoise as Nancy being, a sweet, gentle creature as opposed to the barracuda (aggressive, ruthless) of the song title. I just saw a recent interview with the Wilson sisters and Ann said of the incident in question that she stormed off to write the song, while, had Nancy been there she(Nancy) would have slapped the guy’s face, so I may be way off.
