# Songs that sound upbeat but have darker meanings **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 16, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485 "2013-05-16T03:57:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/41 "2013-05-16T15:44:48Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Extreme’s “More Than Words” gets played at weddings. If you really listen to the words, it’s a dude telling his girlfriend that she’s history unless she has sex with him. :rolleyes: I think that’s a possible interpretation, but I don’t think that’s the only interpretation. I personally think it’s more generally about showing someone you love them (if you interpret that to mean “sex,” that’s you) than simply saying “I love you.” ---
**Author:** ![Flip\_Pancake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f1d935/32.png) [@Flip\_Pancake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flip_Pancake)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/42 "2013-05-16T15:54:39Z")
_Copacabana_, Barry Manilow ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/43 "2013-05-16T15:56:57Z")
> [@Flip\_Pancake](#): > > _Copacabana_, Barry Manilow My fondest memory of this song was hearing it on a shuttle bus after an R.E.M. concert, and everyone on the bus sang along. And speaking of R.E.M., my username is my favorite song by them, which is also not quite as cheerful as it seems on the surface. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oC7er_6dpsI/hqdefault.jpg "R.E.M. - "Near Wild Heaven" (Official Music Video) [This Film Is On Version]") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC7er_6dpsI) ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/44 "2013-05-16T15:58:36Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Ah! > > Cherry Hill Park by Billy Joe Royal. A peppy little ditty about a girl who regularly “plays games way after dark” with “all the guys”. Yes, she is happily, voluntarily gang-banged by all the guys in the neighborhood until she is ‘bought’ by a guy with money. The singer is sad this disturbed young woman isn’t around to service them any more, and is disappointed that she’d stop giving it away for free - but would stoop to taking up with “a guy with money”. A girl who probably was severely sexually abused as a child and is acting out has the nerve to leave them, to become a paid whore! The nerve! I decided to check this song out, because I found your post fascinating. Turns out, there is no evidence for the assumption that Mary was abused. She may just be a young lady who loves sex with lots of guys. I didn’t find the song dark. I will submit “[Scary](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGzGJBZT7n0)” by Bjork. It is about a couple who are probably made for each other but one or both of them seem to lack the courage to go for it…so they end up unhappy and the love never happens. It has that sweet, innocent sound to it and the music can make you think you are singing a happy song instead of a song about fear and heartache and ultimately, loneliness. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/45 "2013-05-16T15:59:35Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > LOADS of Springsteen songs sound upbeat but have really bleak lyrics. > > “Glory Days” SOUNDS like a happy sports-themed song, which is why so many pro football and baseball teams play it over the loudspeakers during breaks… but lyrically, it’s a downer of a song about how quickly our youth passes, and how soon we turn into boring, nostalgic, drunken old farts with nothing but memories. The video softens that a bit…showing Bruce’s character goofing around with his kids and throwing a baseball with his son, as if to say that maybe those times have passed, but these days have their rewards too. ---
**Author:** ![MegaBee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/46 "2013-05-16T16:03:42Z")
Most of the songs by 10,000 Maniacs. ---
**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/47 "2013-05-16T16:25:43Z")
“[I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fAp2dJxycw)” by the Bee Gees about a man about to be executed for killing his wife’s lover. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/48 "2013-05-16T16:47:45Z")
Another Springsteen song. I can’t help but shudder a bit when I hear “Thunder Road.” It sounds like an invitation for one last ride in a fast car and maybe a little love-making before they are both too old. But listening to the words it’s just as easy to read it as an invitation to the solution to slowly fading away - suicide by car. Either interpretation, in spite of the soaring chorus, is pretty depressing. A comment about “Jeremy” - I hear it “Jeremy’s spoken. Bless the dead.” But I haven’t seen it on lyrics sites. Then again, lyrics sites sometimes get it wrong. And this board has certainly demonstrated how varied our ability to hear lyrics can be. I was out for a drive a couple of days ago and really listened to Green Day’s “I Hope You Had the Time of Your Life.” Hadn’t realized that it was a song about a relationship ending. That certainly made it sound less upbeat to me. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/49 "2013-05-16T16:53:03Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > A comment about “Jeremy” - I hear it “Jeremy’s spoken. Bless the dead.” But I haven’t seen it on lyrics sites. Then again, lyrics sites sometimes get it wrong. And this board has certainly demonstrated how varied our ability to hear lyrics can be. As freakin’ eerie as your version is, I don’t think there was ever much controversy on this one. It’s, “Jeremy spoke in class today.” ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/50 "2013-05-16T17:18:36Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > “You Are My Sunshine” Great answer. I sing this all the time to my kid - but just the chorus. > [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > As freakin’ eerie as your version is, I don’t think there was ever much controversy on this one. It’s, “Jeremy spoke in class today.” Yup. It’s actually one of Eddie’s clearer lyrics… ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/51 "2013-05-16T17:47:43Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Is it? Dude, they aren’t so depressing that Jeremy is one of their more upbeat songs. Yellow Ledbetter is more upbeat than that one. Agreed… Yellow Ledbetter is a song about someone receiving a letter informing him of his brother’s death in the war: (I learned the full meaning in 2008 at a Vedder solo concert in Newark NJ): > [@](#): > > (audience member shouts “what are the words to Yellow Ledbetter”) > > wait, this is a little, kinda an intense moment here right now… let me gather my… after all this time, are you telling me there are words to that song? this is new information, I am trying to accept it… > you know, I guess it’s… uh, I can’t remember how it goes… it’s… where’s Mike McCready when you need him? you know, uh, “they don’t wave,” something about “they don’t wave,” “I see them on the front porch, but they don’t wave”… > > so, what it was about.. this was written during the Gulf war… this is papa Bush, and uh, it was about a guy who’s brother went to fight in the first Gulf war, and he was kinda an alternative looking guy, like we were with our shorts and tights and long hair, whatever we had going on… but you know, activists and artists and good young people of Seattle, and smart people, weren’t all drug addicts, you know… and so it is a story about his brother being killed over there and then he gets a yellow letter in the mail, saying “your brother was killed”… and so he tries to take a walk, he’s walking this off, in this little suburban neighborhood, and his mind is racing and he doesn’t know what to do, and he feels like he can’t take a step without falling into a deep abyss… so he’s walking and walking and walking, and he sees a couple on a porch with an American flag, and he waves to them, like “you know, my brother”… and then the people look at him like "you f\*cking scumbag” you know what I mean… “who are you” like they don’t know, they don’t know the inside, they’re judging him by his cover… and um, so, um, that’s what the thought was ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/52 "2013-05-16T18:00:10Z")
Dionne Warwick’s “Walk On By” is the peppiest, perkiest agonized breakup song I know of. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/53 "2013-05-16T18:24:06Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > That’s pretty much the formula for “thoughtful” hit songs - music Up, lyrics Down. > > John Lennon/The Beatles - Help, I’m a Loser > > The Police - lord, Sting’s entire body of work - King of Pain, Man in a Suitcase, There’s a Hole in My Life, Message in a Bottle… I call _Every Breath You Take_ the “stalker song”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/54 "2013-05-16T18:34:48Z")
Pretty much all of Oingo Boingo’s catalogue. I’ve always thought of Danny Elfman as a version of David Byrne whose parents kept him in a broom closet until he was 15. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/55 "2013-05-16T19:01:12Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > The song that goes “Oh where oh where can my baby be…” > > I was enjoying it one day when I started actually listening to the lyrics - it’s about a fatal car accident. > [@pulykamell](#): > > “Last Kiss” by Wayne Cochran. The oldies version most well-known is probably the one by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers. And it’s “WELL where, oh where”, not “Oh where, oh where”. Unless you only heard the Pearl Jam version. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/56 "2013-05-16T19:01:43Z")
Phil Ochs’s “[Outside of a Small Circle of Friends](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta_iKeH4tsg)” is a boisterous, bouncy little ditty inspired by the death of Kitty Genovese. He really pushes to OP’s idea about as far as it can go for effect. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/57 "2013-05-16T19:22:52Z")
Pat Benatar’s “Promises in the Dark” is pretty uptempo for a down song. ---
**Author:** ![Sahirrnee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sahirrnee/32/13937_2.png) [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/58 "2013-05-16T20:46:50Z")
_Cell Phones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead._ Wille Nile ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/59 "2013-05-16T21:17:03Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > REM’s “The One I Love”- a shallow view of the song might make you think it is a traditional love song-it most certainly isn’t… What’s it about then? ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485/60 "2013-05-16T21:27:19Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > What’s it about then? To me it’s about a relationship in which the singer doesn’t really give a shit (“A simple prop, to occupy my time”) and has no problem leaving (“This one goes out to the one I’ve left behind”) but likes keeping the other person around for amusement. He then discards them and moves on to another one (“Another prop, has occupied my time”). Just one opinion, I guess, but clearly not just a torch song. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-sound-upbeat-but-have-darker-meanings/658485.md?page=4)