I think I was the last person in the known universe to figure out The Kinks’ Lola.
I’ve mentioned in another thread about when I was little and singing Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” to myself in the car one day. My mom gave me heck and told me to stop singing that rude song. What? It’s about exercising. 
One thing that got me in countless songs was the frequent euphemistic way of referring to cheating in a relationship. When I was a teenager I never knew they were referring to infidelity.
An example is in Steve Miller’s “The Joker:”
When I listened to this song at 14, I thought he was saying people were spreading rumors that he was just not being nice to her and being a jerk to her in general, and he was denying this. I had no idea “doin’ you wrong” meant “cheating on you.”
“This One Goes Out to the One I Love” by R.E.M.
I was an adult before I realized that it’s not a love song. The singer is just using the girl for sex, and doesn’t love her at all. “A simple prop, to occupy my time” is how he really feels about her.
Until I read this I thought the same thing. Now perhaps you can explain “I really love your peaches , wanna shake your tree” 
**The Who - Squeeze Box ** It’s a catchy tune. Did not realize until I was a teenager that it’s not an accordion we’re talking about.
Another one that always gets mentioned in these discussions is “More Than Words” by Extreme. It sounds like a sweet love song until you pay close attention to the lyrics and realize the guy is basically begging for sex.
Well, duh. The object of the singer’s affections is an orchard farmer and he is explicating his avid taste for his favorite fruit. Don’t know how you missed that one.
Another one that was a revelation to me at some point, that isn’t a unique line from any particular song but a very common idiom, is some variation of “you drive me crazy” or “what you do to me” or something like that. When I was a teenager, Saturday Night Live had a skit with George Wendt that parodied children’s singer Raffi as “Graffi,” a guy who was going back to adult music, and he sang a song that included the line “what you do to me, baby,” and of course there was Fine Young Cannibals’ big hit, “She Drives Me Crazy.” At the time it sounded to me like the singers meant that the woman was being annoying or frustrating in general, the way an exasperated parent might say to their kid who was being a brat “you’re driving me crazy.” I didn’t get the concept of sexual frustration/being a tease.
A very old one, Poison Ivy by the coasters I didn’t realize until at the last year what the need for an ocean of calamine lotion was caused by…
Aaah, those crazy fruit analogies. Another one I learned from the old bluesmen was “Let me roll your lemon, 'til the good juice comes.”
Prolly not talking about lemonade here, are they? lol
“Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield is about the same kind of thing.
From the non-sexual department, Rush’s “The Trees” is about U.S.-Canada rivalry.
As far as I know *Lola *is about a transvestite that the singer falls for (and the object of his desire apparently returns the feeling), while Jessie’s Girl is just a garden variety song of unrequited love. If you know something we don’t know you need to tell us. Unless the point is moot.
Also, I was joking about not getting the "peaches’ line in The Joker. When we were young my brother and I thought that was just* the nastiest* line and it gave us such glee to sing along with it. To this day we’ll sing it as a joke.
Nah - the prize goes to “Safety Dance” - everyone assumed it was about condom use, but it was actually a rather pathetic attempt to recreate a dance craze (like the twist was.)
How is this song misinterpreted? Seems fairly straightforward. A woman who apparently has never heard of sperm banks goes out and gets some careless young idiot to (oh, be still my nausea filled stomach) “walk in the garden and plant a tree”. Because apparently if you’re looking for a surrogate dad, then picking up some schmuck from the side of the road will practically ensure genetic fitness. Especially if they’re good in bed.
It’s not a good song. It might be the sappiest piece of dreck ever to contaminate Top-40 radio and it destroyed any fondness I ever had for Heart, but there’s no possible way anyone could misinterpret that song unless they were fortunate enough to smash their radio before they got to the diabetes inducing denouemont.
Anyway, to get back to songs you didn’t understand until adulthood – I never had a clue what was going on with Brewer and Shipley’s “One Toke Over the Line”. I suspect many people, like myself, thought it was “One Toe Over the Line”.
Yeah, I just re-checked the lyrics of “Jessie’s Girl” and I’m not seeing any references to transvestism/transexuality. nearwildheaven, is that a whoosh?
I know. Now that you mention “The Joker” again, I’m reminded of another line in that song, which is another common idiom I didn’t understand until adulthood: to “show you a good time.” Like “drive [one] crazy” or “the things you do to me,” I took it more literally. I thought it meant he planned a really fun date, maybe surprised her with some fun activity she really enjoyed, like tickets to a concert of her favorite band, and she really liked the restaurant he took her to for dinner.
The lyrics to “All…” are quite obvious, but only if you pay attention to them. :dubious:
As for “One Toke…” that has to get the award for Most Unlikely Song Ever To Be Sung On Lawrence Welk. If you watch it, be sure to watch Mr. Welk’s comment at the end.
And "Jessie's Girl"? I have always heard that the line "Where can I find a woman like that?" is indeed a reference to Jessie being a transvestite. :confused:I’m still not following. He’s asking “where can I find a woman like Jessie’s girl?” Jessie is a man (admittedly, with a nonstandard spelling) who has a girlfriend–Jessie’s girl. The singer wishes he himself could be with Jessie’s girl instead. How does that imply Jessie is a transvestite?
I was wondering the same thing.
Well to be fair the video clip featured her exercising so it’s a bit ambiguous.
Clearly you are correct that it is not a simple love song, but I don’t know about “using the girl for sex, and doesn’t love her at all”. I have always seen it as someone who is rather cynical and ambiguous about their own feelings. There is no mention of sex. The protagonist says over and over that the other person is “the one I love” and the song “goes out to them”. But at the same time, clearly the protagonist is doubting enough about themselves to consider their lover a prop who has merely occupied their time. I see the protagonist as a psychopath (in the non-sensationalist clinical sense).
"Not long after the song had begun its chart ascent, Michael Stipe told Rolling Stone that “it’s probably better that they just think it’s a love song at this point,” but by the following year, he’d changed his tune a bit, telling Musician, “It’s very clear that it’s about using people over and over again,” which would seem to be a polite way of hinting that you’d have to be pretty stupid to view it as any sort of legitimate declaration of adoration.
Just for the record, though, “The One I Love” wasn’t written about anyone in particular, as Stipe underlined to Q Magazine in 1992. “It wasn’t directed at any one person,” he clarified. “I would never write a song like that. Even if there was one person in the world thinking, ‘This song is about me,’ I could never sing it or put it out."