Most pop songs, hell, most songs in general, are about a few topics - boys/girls/love/sex, cars, loss and music itself. There are some that are about things that don’t usually get the lyrical treatment. Some examples:
Gary Gilmore’s Eyes - a song about getting serial killer Gary Gilmores eyes as an organ transplant. This is the one that inspired the thread.
I have never heard this song before, but without even looking at the link I have a mental image of the song being sung to the tune of “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes.
“He’s got Gary GIIIIILmore’s EYEEEEEESSSS…”
There’s always that every-popular dittty from 1971 called “Timothy” that is about trapped cave miners resorting to cannibalism to survive.
Two of my all-time favorite songs are about non-conventional subjects by most standards, but the subjects are WHY I love them.
‘Shannon’ by Harry (Henry?) Gross is about an Irish Setter that drowned. Love it but can’t listen to it without tearing up.
‘Run for the Roses’ is about a Thoroughbred horse and the Kentucky Derby. I had heard the song several times before I listened to the lyrics, and the moment the lightbulb went off for me (“The sun on your withers, the wind in your mane”) I was like… 'a horse! He’s singing about a horse!
They used that song in a tribute to Secretariat when he died, and now it brings me to tears as well.
Birdhouse in Your Soul immediately springs to mind when these questions are asked, it being about a nightlight talking to a painting of a lighthouse.
Similar but less grotesque than Timothy, New York Mining Disaster 1941 by the Bee Gees is a pretty odd topic - no obscurity though, it does what it says on the tin.
As far as I can make out, So Says I by The Shins is about the inherent fallacies of Communism.
How could I have forgotten (Nothing But) Flowers by Talking Heads, in which a man bemoans a bucolic future and wishes there were Pizza Huts where the flowers now are. I can’t work out if it’s ironic, doubly ironic or triply so. Awesome song though.
Speaking of eyes. Al Stewart, who often writes about historic subjects, had fun with Eyes of Nostradamus, about the so-called prophetic writings of said 16th century seer.
And then there’s his Small Fruit Song, about an apple hoping that the orange will “kiss me to the core.”
In both cases, there are very long intros, something like 2:30 in the first, which is a 9 minute song, and 1:30 in the second, which is a 2 minutes song.
A few that spring to mind are Thomas Dolby’s “One of our Submarines is Missing”, REM’s “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”, based on an incident in which Dan Rather was assaulted by a deranged man in New York City, and The Tragically Hip’s “Fifty Mission Cap”, concerning the disappearance of Toronto Maple Leafs player Bill Barilko during a flight in his light plane.
I always thought that Space Oddity by Bowie and Rocket Man by Elton John had an interesting subject choice.
Someone mentioned Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might be Giants earlier. I think that’s a little bit of a cheat tho - most of their songs are about weird shit.
Particle Man, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), The Statue Got Me High…
Yeah, not so normal.
What about Cake? Sheep Go to Heaven is a great song. Although in fairness, he’s another who tends to do weird topics/song subjects.
Taking a small trip into Mondegreen territory, towards the end of the song I always thought he was saying “Do you wanna buy a submarine?” An interesting take on why the submarine is missing.
I would imagine anything by the Insane Clown Posse would be excluded since they have songs about having crabs, a person who steals or collects dead bodies, and a game show in which the prize is getting to take a woman’s virginity. Ok, so the last one was about sex.