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.”
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.
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” 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.
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.
Most of the songs by 10,000 Maniacs.
“I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees about a man about to be executed for killing his wife’s lover.
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.
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.”
Great answer. I sing this all the time to my kid - but just the chorus.
Yup. It’s actually one of Eddie’s clearer lyrics…
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):
Dionne Warwick’s “Walk On By” is the peppiest, perkiest agonized breakup song I know of.
I call Every Breath You Take the “stalker song”.
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.
And it’s “WELL where, oh where”, not “Oh where, oh where”. Unless you only heard the Pearl Jam version.
Phil Ochs’s “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” 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.
Pat Benatar’s “Promises in the Dark” is pretty uptempo for a down song.
Cell Phones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead. Wille Nile
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.