The song was also used as a farewell for the Seinfeld series, while they showed a bunch of nostalgic clips and photos. Wrong choice, or very right?
Ok, thanks, I can see that the older generation was blind to the hypocrisy pointed out in the song.
Do you mean “Hooked On A Feeling” written by Mark James?
Happy Together was sooo about staplers. So was I’ll Take You There by the Stapler Singers.
I’ve heard more than a couple of artists not only tell disingenuous stories about the meanings of their songs including Pearl Jam, CCR, Joni Mitchell but then go on to laugh about it later. Also there have been a few artists who lie about meanings because it was about taboo subjects.
Not offering an opinion on this particular song, just saying a writers public explanation can’t always be taken as gospel.
Everything I Own by David Gates
Brandy by Scott English (later processed to anodyne mush by Barry Manilow as “Mandy”)
An urban legend believed by me for many years, anyway.
Finally, and partially, The Bewlay Brothers by David Bowie
So however you interpreted it, you’re wrong.
j
I would just like to apologise for the seriousness and lack of imagination in this post.
“3am” by Matchbox Twenty was also a memorial song, in this case Rob Thomas’ mother.
I actually had no idea this version existed. Very interesting. Nice and dark, with the point of the song very clear in the atmosphere of the song. That said, I do like the cutting irony of the more bombastic version that sounds like it’s an “AMERICA FUCK YEAH” kind of patriotic hymn, but subverts it completely with the lyrics.
Who are you by the Who is partly about Meher Baba.
"I know you walked where love falls from the trees " is about the Meher Center in Myrtle Beach, a place I visited 2 times. Anyone can visit there.
I had a friend and coworker that said she always heard it as a sleazy guy singing to some girl in a van to get into her pants.
When the very first words screaming out of Springsteen’s mouth are:
I don’t care how anthemic the chorus sounds, the intent of the song is pretty f-ing clear. This isn’t a happy or traditionally patriotic song.
Some time back in the '80s someone in the New Jersey legislature proposed making, by law, “Born to Run,” the state song. Now, as a born-and-bred New Jerseyan, I kind of supported the notion, but only because the song really captured how I was feeling about my home state at the time. Clearly, the legislator in question listened to, “Born to Run,” about as closely as some people listen to, “Born in the U.S.A.,” but in neither case can you blame The Boss for the cursory listening habits of some people.
Last Friday NPR’s Fresh Air re-ran an old interview with Adam Schlesinger, since he died of COVID-19 last week. While this might not be the kind of misinterpreting the OP was thinking of, in the interview he mentioned that people mistakenly assume that when a songwriter writes a song from a first person point of view, it must be the songwriter confessing his innermost thoughts. Most of the time it’s just a character the songwriter created and is telling a story from that character’s perspective.
The specific song they were talking about in the interview was “Leave the Biker”, and the fact that Schlesinger wrote it doesn’t mean that he himself was a shy guy who couldn’t get a date to the prom. But that same thing could apply to lots of songs. Many people mistakenly think Johnny Cash was actually an inmate in Folsom Prison because he wrote a song from the point of view of an inmate there. And Dire Straights did a song from the perspective of a working class appliance store employee who calls the drummer he sees on MTV a “little faggot” – that doesn’t mean Mark Knopfler was literally calling anyone that.
My take is the “Born in the USA” version significantly changes the meaning of the song from “America did me wrong” to “the government did me wrong, but I still love being an American”, a pretty common attitude. The song, especially that goofy “cool rocking daddy” line (which isn’t in the original version) is delivered with way too much enthusiasm for me to totally buy the strictly ironic interpretation of the song. It’s kinda like how omitting the “private property” verse of “This Land Is Your Land” totally alters the meaning.
Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight by Spinal Tap.
A few years ago, Sir Paul de-bunked Lennon’s assertion about Lucy. He said, essentially, that of course it was about LSD. One still has to wonder about Peter Paul, and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”, though.
Assuming one knows that it parodies a genre, what is to misinterpret about that one??
Songs are 80% music and 20% lyrics. A happy song can have a sad lyric and vice versa. It is about how it makes you feel not how the song writer was feeling when he wrote it.
I believe him. Also puff the Magic Dragon.
But I am dubious about Lake Shore Drive (song) - Wikipedia.
I love John Prine, and in the spirit of “no news is good news” I hope he’s recovering since he was moved out of intensive care.
But I heard an interview in which John stuck to his story that he always had “this weird little smile”, and just decided to write a song about it. Somehow it just never occurred to him that the lyrics might suggest another interpretation.
Now pull the other one. C’mon, there’s just no way in hell that a song about one’s peculiar, unique, idiosyncratic habit of smiling at things that don’t provoke smiles from Normals would inspire lyrics that just happen to perfectly capture the harmless euphoria experienced when using an illegal substance.
Even though John doggedly sticks to this claim, I could practically hear the wink in John’s voice during that interview.
The only thing ironic in Alanis Morrisette’s song is the title, but that seems lost on most of the people I hear misuse the word regularly.