You do know Sting wrote that from the perspective of an overly possessive, potentially violent boyfriend, right? And then backed it with some soothing music to create cognitive dissonance between a pleasant melody and this dude who is continuously monitoring some poor woman.
We’re meant to be creeped out.
It’s always seemed bizarre to me that people took it to be some kind of tender love song.
Nah, I hear it all the time both locally and on satellite radio.
So what?
The protagonist is a gruff, probably uneducated brut and that’s the way a guy like that is going to talk both back then and today.
According to Wilson Bryan Key they were actually singing “Who got sucked off”.
I don’t buy it either but that’s too ridiculous not to share.
Did anyone mention “Johnny are you Queer” yet? They used to play it all the time around here. Now nadda.
Whats up with all the ‘Johnnys’??
In Men at Work’s “Be Good”…there’s a line to Johnny “What kind of boy are you??”
But again, its not autobiographical. But delivered from some sort of authority figure.
He is an A-hole, but I love that song!
“She’s a Rainbow”…“Ruby Tuesday”…etc…
Horst Wessel Lied. aka “Die Fahne Hoch"
Now, I don’t speak German, I don’t even know a little German (but I do know a tall German, born in Berlin Dec 7, 1941. Bad timing, dude!) and I don’t go around singing Nazi National anthems.
So, since the title in German is different than the…title in German, as it turn out, I thought the title was something of an American translation of a subtitle. The song would have lyrics like:
Horst Wessel said the Jews were our friends
Horst Wessel lied!
Horst Wessel said the Russians were our friends
Horst Wessel lied!
We killed that traitor Horst Wessel!
Hey, what do I know? And wer zum Teufel ist Horst Wessel?
The Deutschlandlied is still performed as Germany’s national anthem, but without the historically Nazi-tinged first and second stanzas.
The music is Haydn, and has been quite popular for centuries. With different lyrics, it used to be the national anthem of Austria as well.
Like “Watch on the Rhine,” the “Deutschlandlied” predates the Nazi era considerably.
As for Horst Wessel, he was a typical low-life Brownshirt who was killed in a streetfight with Communists and became a martyr to the Nazi cause.
Quite right. I should have double-clicked it. My apologies.
And the alma mater of Columbia University.
Not only did I find that line creepy, like the guy is trying to groom the kid, the video is creepy too. The man has his tongue tucked down into his lower lip. Maybe he was trying to do a Brando Godfather homage. It’s still creepy.
The melody of my alma mater is “God Save the Czar.” 
Which is odd, because it’s supposedly a Scottish Presbyterian college. Couldn’t they have picked “O Flower of Scotland” instead?
Gesundheit!
Danke schön!
Bitte!
For decades I’ve led the fight to make “Open the Door, Richard” socially unacceptable. I think it’s working because I haven’t heard the song, or refences to it for a long time, but it might be because it’s just a shitty old song.
Ninja’d but yes you are supposed to be creeped out. Just because some people misinterpreted the song and played it at their wedding doesnt mean it’s Sting’s fault.
Don’t you dare go after one of my Fallout earworms.
“Big Bottom” from Spinal Tap’s Smell the Glove album would never fly today.
Why not?
Baby got back, I like big butts and I cannot lie.*
*not really, but for purposes of this thread…