I’ve heard this rumor and was skeptical of it in the past, so I just checked out the lyrics. The very last lines show that yes, it’s a very plausible argument:
And when I awoke I was alone This bird had flown So I lit a fire Isn’t it good Norwegian wood?
Reminds me of The Doors’ ‘Moonlight Drive’-- it sounds like a happy, romantic love song, but there’s a dark twist at the very end that’s easy to miss if you’re not listening to the lyrics closely:
Gonna get real close Get real tight Baby gonna drown tonight Goin’ down, down, down
Even the damn video is creepy as hell. At the beginning, when creeper is at the door and the girl’s father is telling him to leave her alone, I’m wondering why dad isn’t stomping creeper’s guts out.
On a larger scale, I think most people learn the chorus of a pop song pretty quickly, due to the repetition and simpler sentence structure, but may never understand the words, much less their meaning, of most of the verses. So, ref Springsteen, their entire impression of the song comes from the chorus, or maybe just the “tag line” within the chorus. Whatever bit of lyric gets the most repetition is the essence of the song and its meaning.
At least for me there are many pop songs where the only part of the lyrics I’ve understood are the tag line. E.g. Eagles’ Life in the Fast Lane. As a kid growing up pre-internet, and only hearing it played at random on the radio, with no rewind or do-over ability, 100% of the lyrics were a mystery other than the repeated words “Life in the Fast Lane”. Everything else may have been scat singing for all my inability to convert any of the other vocals into words, much less coherent sentences.
I actually learned the words to the song, and thereby finally understood its meaning, just a few years ago when I discovered lyric vids on YouTube. Now when I play it, I can understand the words well enough to remember most of them. But not until I could read them first.
My inability to understand lyrics through the music long predates any hearing loss.
The whole point of this thread, of course, and you are absolutely right.
I generally like the Eagles, but i will turn off the radio if this comes on. However, the tune/chorus and the lyrics are not at odds. Sad song all the way.
My take on that line is “I have to work in the morning” is a classic shutdown move, meaning any extracurricular date activity is out. As in “crash here if you want to, but not in my bed, and no funny business-- got to get up early”.
I really think you’re reading it backwards - it’s telling you that there is going to be a judgment day, and your pride and your excuses aren’t going to cut it when that day comes.
Foster the People’s “pumped up kicks” sounds like a catchy pop song, about a school shooter. And Outkasts “Bombs over Baghdad” is an anti war song that came out 3 years before the Iraq war.
Oh, that reminded me of another one. The Boomtown Rats “I Don’t Like Mondays” is often taken as as a song about what a drag it is to restart working after the weekend, but actually it’s about a teenage school mass shooting.
