Daniel, by Elton John (and Bernie Taupin) was about a blinded Viet Nam veteran returning home, only to feel ostracized and therefore skipping out to Spain. There was even an original verse in the song about this, but it was removed either for political reasons or to fit the more familiar radio time constraints of the day.
Have You Ever Seen The Rain, by CCR was a John Fogerty song about his feelings regarding his brother Tom leaving the band just when they were reaching popularity and acclaim: “Have you ever seen the rain, coming down on sunny days?”
I keep pulling this one out but I think it’s good…
The actor Trevor Peacock, who plays a bumbly old man in The Vicar of Dibley wrote Herman Hermits’ “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” among other songs. That was his biggest hit, tho.
It was once believed that Eno’s Here Come the Warm Jets referred to the act of urination, but it seems that was just a rumor propagated by Eno himself, which is a relief (ha!)
Back in the early 90’s, Belly released “Slow Dog”.
You wouldn’t know it to look at the video but, back in college, I read a short interview with Tanya Donelly where she said that the inspiration for the song was a custom in some parts of rural China where an adulterous woman was punished by being made to wear a dead dog over her back until the corpse rots off.
I’ve no idea if the custom actually existed or not but that’s where the song comes from.
“Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” was something a girlfriend of Cobain’s spray painted on a squat wall as a joke. It was the name of his ex’s perfume and she smelled it on his clothes. He didn’t know, and thought it was a compliment on his attitude.
EDIT : BTW, for all you useless trivia fans, www.songfacts.com is a cool site. About the same timesink factor as Wikipedia or tvtropes
Close…it was actually Kathleen Hannah of the band Bikini Kill, and later Le Tigre, and teen spirit was a popular deodorant at the time. She meant it as more of a jokey “Curt has cooties” or “Curt smells like a girl”-style joke, but he hadn’t heard of the deodorant…and the rest is history.
I’m not sure if you’re serious or just pulling our legs, but…
Peter Yarrow, who WROTE the song, still insists that it IS exactly what it seems to be, a sad song about the end of childhood. "Puff’ is about the stage when kids start to grow up and leave behind their toys and their imaginary playmates.
Yarrow and the song are both so old now that it would be safe for him to admit the truth, IF the song were really about marijuana. As it is, he always says, “If I’d wanted to write a song about marijuana, believe me, I’d have written a song about marijuana.”
Snopes supports Yarrow’s account, for whatever that’s worth.
Chip Taylor, who wrote “Wild Thing,” made famous by the Troggs, and “Angel of the Morning,” made famous by Merrilee Rush, is the brother of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight and is also the uncle of Angelina Jolie, another Oscar winner. His real name is James Wesley Voight.
That’s only part of the story… thing is, the guy didn’t die. Cash wrote the song, and gave the man the royalties from it, so he (the man) would not tell the police who shot him.
The Metallica song One is about a book Johnny Got Your Gun, about a young soldier who was hit by a mortar and loses all his senses and both his arms and his legs.
If you start the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon at the same time you start the movie Wizard of Oz…well you just have to do it and see it for yourself, pretty crazy. It’s kinda complicated to sync it up right so best to google for instructions.
