# Songs you thought were about one thing but actually weren't
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 12, 2003, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131 "2003-09-12T04:10:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/1 "2003-09-12T04:10:50Z")
Posting into the thread about rock songs which have to do with starting, continuing and breaking up relationships… well I was gonna put one song in but I figured I should check the title of it. Imagine to my surprise when the song was not in fact about a broken relationship, but was about a friends suicide instead. I never realized that and I had heard this song _numerous_ times as it’s an older song and not completely uncommon.
So what songs did you not realize that they were actually about something else?
[sub]And for the curious the song I mistook was actually [Fire and Rain](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/SongUnid/A52EE74D15C8FFF448256915000D716F) by James Taylor[/sub]
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### Author:  [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/2 "2003-09-12T05:51:42Z")
Actually, “Fire and Rain” is about three different things–one for each verse (a suicide, heroin addiction, and the breakup of a band).
I thought Ben Folds Five’s “Brick” was about a young woman who’s teminally ill and she’s taking it better than her boyfriend is.
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### Author:  [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/3 "2003-09-12T06:19:01Z")
Devo’s _Whip It_ was thought to be about sadism (presumably purely from the title), but is in fact a critique of corporate life, mission statements, et al.
REM say they’ve often been told “I fell in love to your _The One I Love_”, which they think is weird as it’s quite a creepy song about twisted people.
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### Author:  [@Already\_in\_Use](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Already_in_Use)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/4 "2003-09-12T06:22:24Z")
Well, to be fair, the video for “Whip It” did involve sadism.
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### Author:  [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/5 "2003-09-12T07:12:51Z")
“You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon.
I thought that it was about ME!
But it’s not.
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### Author:  [@The\_Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Griffin)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/6 "2003-09-12T11:03:26Z")
No it’s actually about me.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/7 "2003-09-12T12:44:53Z")
You probably thought it was about you.
“Every Breath You Take” is often considered a love song. It’s actually a song about a stalker.
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### Author:  [@The\_Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Griffin)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/8 "2003-09-12T13:03:05Z")
Does anyone know if Rape Me by Nirvana is about rape or about how Kurt felt the media or the fans were “raping” him?
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### Author:  [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/9 "2003-09-12T13:15:28Z")
Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes is apparently about masturbation, not sunburn.
And there was a sort of rockabilly pop song called Poison Ivy that was popular when I was a small child; I can’t find out who by. Years later I found out it was about VD not stinging plants.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/10 "2003-09-12T13:27:57Z")
Hmm. I remember getting Blister in the Sun the first time I heard it; ditto SheBop. Maybe I should get out more . . .
Most of Kate Bush’s songs evolve in meaning for me over time, so I could say it of almost all of her stuff.
Peter Gabriel’s The Family and the Fishing Net took me a while to figure out, as did Jane Siberry’s song cycle When I Was a Boy.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/11 "2003-09-12T14:59:56Z")
Dr Rieux, I’ve heard that BRICK was about a couple coping with having an abortion
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### Author:  [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/12 "2003-09-12T16:11:54Z")
When I was kid, my dad and I would listen to ZZ Top (either albums or on the radio), and I never though twice about the song [“Pearl Necklace.”](http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~harel/cgi/page/htmlit?Pearl_Necklace.html) Now, thanks to more “worldly experience” and of course, internet porn, I’m sure it’s about something entirely different altogether :D.
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### Author:  [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/13 "2003-09-12T16:28:59Z")
Well, I was so shocked when I found out what [Turning Japanese](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=114329) was really about that I went into labor!
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### Author:  [@Ivar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivar)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/14 "2003-09-12T16:55:17Z")
Alison by Elvis Costello.
I thought it was a love song, but it’s about a stalker, and he kills her at the end of the song.
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### Author:  [@Ender\_Will](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ender_Will)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/15 "2003-09-12T16:59:50Z")
HIM’s “In my Arms”
My friend and I both thought it was a heroin reference, but it’s…uhh…not. Surprise, surprise.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/16 "2003-09-12T18:16:45Z")
I don’t listen to country music much so I heard this one only once and I don’t know the title or who it was by. It’s a guy singing to his wife and kid, being sorry that he’s leaving them “but it has to be this way” – your typical country divorce song until the last refrain where it turns out he’s phoning from an aircraft. It’s never said explicitly, but it is presumably flight 93.
I had to pull over and bawl for a couple minutes. In fact I’m tearing up as I type this (I’m such a wuss) and it demonstrated the power of a simple song to get you right in the gut, sometimes.
DD
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### Author:  [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/17 "2003-09-12T18:51:23Z")
I thought Brand New Pair of Rollerskates was about sex – you know, I’ve got skates, you’ve got the key so let’s try them out and see-- and I found out it was about rollerskating.
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### Author:  [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/18 "2003-09-12T19:47:52Z")
Going back a bit, my sister thought Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning” (about the displacement of Australia’s native peoples) was about hot sex.
Nitpicks:
“Poison Ivy” was by the Coasters, a R&B group (“You’re gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion.”)
“Alsison” is not a happy song, but it’s not about a stalker or a killer. For that, you want Elvis’s “I Want You” or “Watching the Detectives,” respectively. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/19 "2003-09-12T19:49:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Biggirl \*
> \*\*I thought Brand New Pair of Rollerskates was about sex – you know, I’ve got skates, you’ve got the key so let’s try them out and see-- and I found out it was about rollerskating. \*\*
Another rumor was that it was about drugs. Cocaine, I believe.
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### Author:  [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-thought-were-about-one-thing-but-actually-werent/201131/20 "2003-09-12T19:52:29Z")
Urk, I meant “Alison.” Apparently my aim is not true.
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