Surprised no one has mentioned The Smiths yet (unless I missed it). Many of their songs move along nicely and make you want to dance and the actual content of the songs is easy to not pay attention to. Usually if you tell someone to make a point of listening to the lyrics being sung they get a real “WTF?” moment.
Here are a few with some of the lyrics:
I’ve been too busy to babysit my own thread, but…
Ha! We got put in our places, did we not?
Weird Al doesn’t count. You lose!
I’ve not heard this song, but those lyrics do strike me as fucked up. I’ll listen on LaLa later.
I’m not here. I’m working… Nobody saw this… (Disappears in a cloud of smoke)
God that would have been fantastic. I mostly know about the show because I heard the song played a few times on Sirius/XM’s Broadway channel(late at night) and it broke my heart and I couldn’t place it. I had to do a fair bit of research to learn what was up. Tenderloin was a bit of a flop, so there wasn’t much written about it, and the Darrin cover eclipsed the original(which is what I heard on the radio) by a huge margin. Most people who talk about the song are talking about Darrin’s cover, and stylistically it’s night and day different.
I tell you, when I found out the whole thing was just a con, not only did it make my day, but it’s become one of my favorite bits of musical theatre that I’ve never seen. I can just imagine Tommy crooning this song and the girls of the temperance movement starting to cry and the guys lips trembling, and the catharsis that the anti-hero evokes so he can get into the girls pants and betray the good reverend.
And they’re totally buying it. In fact during the bridge from the second to third verse the preacher makes everyone stop what they’re doing and come listen to the song. And it’s all bullshit, total bullshit that this sleazy bastard is using to worm his way into the movement and into the girls bed. Fabulous bit of musical storytelling.
Enjoy,
Steven
That was the first one that leapt to my mind, but I couldn’t remember the title or album, heh.
How about “American Woman” by Guess Who. The singer used this woman for sex, and now he’s telling her that he’s not interested in having any sort of relationship with her, and he doesn’t want to see her anymore. And yet, many women like this song, and seem to think that the singer is in love with the eponymous woman.
As for “Imagine,” I tend to think that it owes its continued popularity to John Lennon’s untimely death. If that song had been sung by anyone else, it would have been consigned to clearance bins [del]years[/del] decades ago.
Huh… it always seemed obvious to me that the song wasn’t really about a woman, it was about America, using “temptress” as a metaphor.
How about the swingin’ teen-angst trilogy of the 1960s, It’s My Party (and I’ll Cry If I Want To) and Judy’s Turn to Cry by Lesley Gore, and Johnny Get Angry by Joanie Sommers (also Shelley Fabares)?
Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone / But Judy left the same time / Why was he holdin’ her hand / When he’s supposed to be mine? . . . You would cry too if it happened to you!
'Cause now it’s Judy’s turn to cry, / Judy’s turn to cry, / Judy’s turn to cry, / 'Cause Johnny’s come back to me!
Johnny I said we were through / Just to see what you would do / You stood there, and hung your head / Made me wish that I were dead . . . Oh, Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad / Give me the biggest lecture I ever had / I want a brave man, I want a cave man / Johnny, show me that you care!
Cha-cha-cha!
I sang it in a church, but it was for a funeral service, so I guess that makes sense.
“Copacobana” by Barry Manilow. I’d heard the first verse pretty often, and I thought it was a fun, happy song about a dancer until I looked up the rest of the lyrics. :eek:
And “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats.
My favorite rock musician is Richard Thompson, so I can name a whole bunch. I guess my all-time favorite in this category is “I Feel So Good”. Or maybe “Turning of the Tide”.
The Cardigans have a few - Rise and Shine has a particularly upbeat sounding chorus, while being about depression, and probably suicide.
I think someone has to mention “The Beautiful South”. Masters of this trade I reckon.
To give you a flavour try “woman in the wall” A jaunty ditty with lyrics that are…well…sort of…
he was just a social drinker
but, social every night
He enjoyed a pint or two or three or four
She was just a silent thinker
Silence every night
He’d enjoyed the thought of killing her before
Well he was, very rarely drunk but,
very rarely sober
And he didn’t think the problem was his drink
But he only knew his problem
When he knocked her over
And when the the rotting flesh began to stink
Nitpick.Its just "Lawyers,Guns,and Money
The song was recorded in 1999,three years before Warren was even diagnosed.He made several other songs after that one.
That’s a New Order song? I had no idea, I’d only ever heard it done by Oysterband.
Gilber O’Sullivan’s “Claire.” Nothing like an unbeat song about pedophilia.