People hear: “I hope you had the time of your life” and put it in their graduation proceedings. Nah. BTW I heard that there are multiple interpretations of “House of the Rising Sun,” which surprises me.
Neither of those is correct. It isn’t about breaking up because of emotional distance, and it isn’t a demand for sex. It’s a statement that people need to demonstrate love, not just say it.
Songfacts: Did any relationships that the band members had at the time serve as an inspiration for the lyrics of “More Than Words”?
Nuno: The sentiment was more from Gary’s side, as far as that part of it goes. But I don’t think it was anything specific, other than just writing a really nice message. It wasn’t related to a specific person or a specific relationship - it was a belief that we had.
It was something that we always knew from being guys. Everybody throws the word “love” around like confetti. Like, “I love my dog.” “I love this dress.” “I love this food.” The word “love” itself gets really diluted, so we just wanted to say, “It’s not really about saying it,” because everybody gets really worked up when somebody says that to each other. They say, “I love you,” and everybody goes, “Oh my God! It must be serious. It must be heavy.” It’s like, “Eh… it’s easy to say that.” It’s really about showing it constantly and continuously in a relationship. We knew that was the message.
I don’t think that one is misunderstood exactly - I think it’s more that the lyrics are ambiguous. You couldn’t possibly read the lyrics to “Born in the USA” and think it’s a good song for a commercial but you can read the lyrics of “Good Riddance” and just think it’s a bittersweet song that could be about any change in your life, from a breakup to leaving high school.
Bullshit is probably the wrong term. What I mean is that I think Springsteen made a decision to release it as a single and probably expected people to not get its meaning. When you hear a song on the radio most people don’t analyze the lyrics. If that is your main connection with the song the chorus is what is going to stick in your head.
I’ve always been pretty bad at following or even understanding lyrics (my mind’s on the music) but even I picked up on “sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill the yellow man” on the first listen or two. In fact, for 36 years, it’s the only part I understood until I looked at the lyrics yesterday because of this thread.
So was CCR’s “Fortunate Son”.
Also, I’m surprised no one’s mentioned this yet but it seems few people (including our current commander-in-chief) have bothered to listen to the lyrics of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World”.
There was a phenomenon in the late 60s/early 70s where popular bands wrote songs that were explicitly about drugs, but would (to avoid getting banned from the airwaves) insist in interviews that it was about everything but drugs. Lennon was the very definition of this. The Cowsills broke up over an internal dispute over whether they could use drug references or not. I cringe when I hear Blue Swede’s “High on a Feeling.” I’d like to think John Prine is made of sterner stuff, but ultimately, what do we know about the guy?
The classic came when Lawrence Welk thought “One Toke Over the Line” was about Sweet Jesus.
[quote=“jtur88, post:68, topic:851049”]
The classic came when Lawrence Welk thought “One Toke Over the Line” was about Sweet Jesus.
[/QUOTE]Whenever I write sketch comedy with sexual themes, I try to include a Bible verse. Same reason.
Je Ne Regrette Rien
So often it’s taken to be about unapologetic defiance (and if memory serves that’s the theme of the standard English translation). But in the original it’s about not caring what’s been *done to *the singer in the past, because now everything starts again with a new love (very Piaf).
Oh, and Noel Coward’s * Don’t Let’s Be Beastly To The Germans*, which caused a minor fuss in WW2 among the professionally outraged who didn’t bother to actually listen to it.
Handel took verses from all over the Bible to create the Messiah – Christians read Hebrew texts as prefiguring Christ and Christianity. Revelation is often cherrypicked in just the same way. The reign of God, in Christian theology, has many layers in time – that which always was, that which was fulfilled in Christ, that which will come at the end of the world that exists in time (our world).
There really isn’t a misinterpretation, just a specific use of the text.
I recall Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” - a paean to drug-excess - as advertisement for a cruise ship.
As a child who’d never heard of Marlene Dietrich but who knew that some plants shared their names with women, I heard Suzanne Vega singing about a climbing plant on the side of the house. And I’d seen old war-recruitment posters at the library and at school, so every soldier passing was literally the column of (WW1) troops passing the gate, marching off to war.
I was quite upset in my late teens when I heard her tell the story! If I’d have examined the lyrics I’d have realised I was wrong, but my internal imagery was fixed in place by then so the examination never happened.
And Puff, the Magic Dragon being about drugs.
Spirit In The Sky, by Norman Greenbaum. Greenbaum is Jewish, so he wasn’t writing a Christian faith-based song. His inspiration came from a combination of something Porter Waggoner sang on his TV show and a Hopi greeting card Greenbaum saw. Cite. The song is clearly tongue-in-cheek, IMO.
The title “Good Riddance” puts that spin on it for me before the first note.
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road (Here we go again)
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go (He doesn’t have a choice)
So make the best of this test and don’t ask why (he’s unwilling but it doesn’t matter)
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time (again, no choice)
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind (how should we remember things)
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time (nostalgia?)
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial (or unpleasant/unfinished business?)
For what it’s worth it was worth all the while (no choice…try to see it in positive light)
Overall, it was inevitable so “Good Riddance”—glad this is over. But if you had a good time, more power to you.
Your mileage may vary.
I’m calling bullshit on this. As has repeatedly been pointed out, Springsteen was perfectly aware of the meaning of his song. If you know anything about Springsteen you would know the message he was trying to get across was what was in the lyrics. Your argument with regard to Springsteen’s intent is absurd.
Sure- but you have to remember that most people using it for graduations, etc wouldn’t even know the title - it was almost always referred to as “Time of Your Life” on the radio and by people who weren’t actually Green Day fans. If that’s the only title you know, the lyrics are definitely ambiguous.
Yes, but as I think I remember it, at the time “people over 30” who apparently didn’t really listen to the lyrics assumed it was a counterculture pro-drugs song. Didn’t notice it was pointing out that the older/straight people also had their own drug abuse problems.