…until Bad Manners covered it in 1982.
That’s a good point. You can’t always tell if the innuendo really is intentional, but sometimes the effect is just inevitable. As an example, Susanna Hoffs covering “Maggie May” without lyrical changes gives the song a whole other dimension:
Kris Kristofferson claims the Bobby McGee being revealed as a woman at the end was as a goof on the listener thinking it was a man. Soooooo … you wanted it to be a homo-erotic song about two guys being intimate on the rails?
Has anyone ever had the thought that Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps” is really about everyone in the bar playing a joke on the singer? That Linda Lou and her BF are all play acting on the new guy? They get him to piss his pants and run screaming, and then after the song ends, everyone is laughing and the “jealous boyfriend” buys everyone a round?
Carrie Underwood’s song Before He Cheats is about a woman who finds outs her boyfriend is cheating on her with another woman … but it’s really not.
They had one date and he decided not to ask her out again because she is crazy AF. Her interpretation of the solitary date was different; they’re going to get married and have babies. So a couple of weeks later after he’s been ghosting her, she sees him on a date with another woman and goes all Jerry Springer on his truck.
“She’s Leaving Home” is sung from the POV of the daughter’s dead mother, who now wanders the world as an invisible spirit. That explains (1) how she’s able to narrate the daughter’s escape in such detail, and (2) why she describes the daughter’s parents as “Father” and “his wife” (= his second wife).
Paul Simon’s song Cecelia is told from the POV of a cat.
He is initially sitting with his owner Cecelia getting attention. Then he suddenly tires. He gets up to wash his face. Later he comes back looking for more attention but finds Cecelia canoodling with her new boyfriend. He is jealous.
That song is so unhinged I’m 100% with you on that one.
As I recall, Bo Burnham claims that the overstuffed burrito in his “Can’t Handle This” song is not meant to be a metaphor for his mental health. But come on! He works this bit back into the song after he starts breaking down and it is simply perfect. All the things that have happened to him can be represented by a burrito that has exceeded maximum burrito capacity and that would have led to him making different choices. So he may not have made it a metaphor on purpose but the metaphor is right there! The audience even cheers when the burrito comes back because they get it even if Bo Burnham doesn’t!
I don’t know if the Tragically Hip have ever said what the meaning is behind “Fireworks” but to me it is the story of a high school aged Canadian boy falling in love with a Russian exchange student. There’s a lot of Cold War references in the song and the line about “the country of me and you” tells me the couple come from different backgrounds that are supposed to be in opposition to each other.
Geez, according to Wikipedia, there are at least 20 different songs titled “Candyman”. I’m sure that at least some of them are about drugs.
Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats”.
I listened to the lyrics and what the main character does and says about “her man”'s date. No it’s not about a guy cheating on his girlfriend. They went out on one date and maybe he rode the crazy but that was it. He never called her again because she is psycho af but according to her side of the story they’re going to get married and have babies together. So here it is a few weeks later and she sees him out with another woman.
Chicago, California Dreaming
The real lyrics, I see, is that the singer stops into a church, and “I pretend to pray.”
I think the song is just as well served with “I begin to pray.” Okay, either way, doesn’t really make much difference. Either way, the preacher sees the singer is going through serious self-reflection, and won’t much care to disturb that. ISTM.
I love this.
Cough The Mamas & the Papas Cough
Interestingly, according to the wikipedia article on the song, while the correct lyrics are “pretend to pray,” Cass Elliot actually sang “began to pray” on the original recording, and continued singing it that way on tour until Michelle Phillips corrected her.
I knew that. Argh.
In this case, the writer has owned up to the truth of the matter, so it’s not like I’m insisting I have a different interpretation than the writer. But Tom Higgenson, who wrote “Hey There Delilah,” wasn’t madly in love with Delilah with whom he was in a long-distance relationship. They barely knew each other, and at the time she had a boyfriend not named Tom Higgenson. He was probably crushing on her, but mostly, he was just inspired to write a song, and I suppose that Delilah having three syllables, with the accent on the second, informed the rhyme and meter of the song.
Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is about this chick who’s a regular fuck machine. I’m talking morning noon and night, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick. Then she meets this John Holmes motherfucker, who provides serious sexual activity…
I laugh out loud when I hear it at weddings, there is nothing pure or wholesome about that song at all. People get confused because there is a Jesus word in it.
Regardless of what Carly Simon has said since, I think there’s a nontrivial chance that she simply didn’t realize at the time that hey, wait a minute; that’s not vanity; it’s just accuracy…
Remember 1974’s “My Girl Bill”?
Bill walked me to my door last night
And he said, Before I go
There’s something about our love affair
That I have a right to know
I said, Let’s not stand out here like this
What would the neighbors think?
Why don’t we just step inside
And I’ll fix us both a drink
There’s no indication until the last line that there should be a comma in the title,
But you’re gonna have to find another
'Cause she’s my girl, Bill!
Oh the height of uncomfortable sexuality and deception in the homophobic 70s!