# Songs you used to like until you really listened to the lyrics **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 6, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470 "2011-06-06T02:52:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/81 "2011-06-09T04:51:49Z")
> [@Edwardina](#): > > As for “Possum Kingdom,” I thought that song was about a vampire. Not that different from a serial killer, I suppose, they’re both gonna kill ya. But at least with the vampire you (may) have eternal “life” to look forward to afterward. That’s the way I’ve always interpreted it. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/82 "2011-06-09T06:18:10Z")
**Billy Thorpe** ’s _Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy_. Loved it (and suited the artist) until the last line. > [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > John Lennon’s _Imagine_. At first, it sounded like a bit of idealistic optimism. Then I realized it’s just a Communist Manifesto masquerading as pop music! > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Same here. I used to like the song until I started paying attention to the lyrics. It’s pretty obvious the song is an ode to communism. ☹ Well yes, but if anything to the idealistic vision of early communist thought, not as it panned out to “communist” dictatorships. It’s basically wishing that everyone got on with each other and didn’t feel a need to subject themselves to authority, whether nationalistic, theistic or militaristic. Unrealistic hippy idealism, yes, but in no way condoning communism as practised. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/83 "2011-06-09T08:26:35Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > John Lennon’s _Imagine_. At first, it sounded like a bit of idealistic optimism. Then I realized it’s just a Communist Manifesto masquerading as pop music! As a Communist, I’m offended at being lumped in with that daffy utopian! 😛 Seriously, though: George Michael’s “Father Figure” would be so much cooler without the phrase from the title. But I later came to understand what he was getting at. “Jenny (867-5309)” is not commonly understood to be as creepy as it is. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/84 "2011-06-09T09:50:25Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Re: “Spirit in the Sky” > > If it makes you feel any better about it, there was no serious religious intent behind the song. Norman Greenbaum apparently just wrote it [to see if he could write a “gospel song”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_in_the_Sky#Original_version_by_Norman_Greenbaum) – it could be taken as a sort of parody of none-too-deep religious pop music. > > The song’s narrator says he’s not a sinner and that he’s never sinned, while Evangelicals are generally big on the idea that everyone is a sinner and thus doomed to suffer hellfire unless they open their hearts to Jesus. I think almost every Christian denomination would disagree with the narrator’s claim that he has never committed a sin. > > By denying that he has ever sinned the narrator may actually be committing the “unforgivable sin” (in some denominations, at least) of rejecting the redemption offered by God. If he does not believe himself to be a sinner, then he’s presumably not repenting of or asking to be forgiven for his sins. Here is how it was explained to me by my ultra-Christian church: The blood of the lamb [Jesus] is so powerful it washes away our sins _as if they never were._ When he says that he has never sinned it is because he accepted Jesus as his savior and his sins have been _wiped clean_. As I no longer believe, I won’t debate the interpretation, I’ll just pass on what was told to me at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/85 "2011-06-09T10:33:50Z")
> [@Edwardina](#): > > As for “Possum Kingdom,” I thought that song was about a vampire. Not that different from a serial killer, I suppose, they’re both gonna kill ya. But at least with the vampire you (may) have eternal “life” to look forward to afterward. Me too. I liked it much more when I thought it was about a vampire asking his sweet angel to join him among the undead. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/86 "2011-06-09T13:43:10Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > As a Communist, I’m offended at being lumped in with that daffy utopian! 😛 > > Seriously, though: > George Michael’s “Father Figure” would be so much cooler without the phrase from the title. But I later came to understand what he was getting at. > “Jenny (867-5309)” is not commonly understood to be as creepy as it is. I wonder if my wife’ll ever scroll through the contacts on my phone… and wonder that I’ve got one just listed as “Jenny”. Could be trouble. (Since my wife never listens to lyrics, I don’t think my heartfelt plea of “But just\* look\*-- her number’s _867-5309_!” will help my case…) ---
**Author:** ![filling\_pages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9bd4f/32.png) [@filling\_pages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filling_pages)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/87 "2011-06-09T18:40:19Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > :rolleyes: This is the very last time I’m going to harp on this, but…this is just absurd. > > 1. Forty years ago, it was unheard of for any girl, no matter how rich, to pay, out on a date. (exception: a couple in a real, intimate relationship, who arrived at an arrangement, not just casually dating, and she might slip him a few bucks under the table.) 2) It just didn’t happen, no matter how much the hippie guys wished for handouts from a rich girl. Who weren’t even hanging around with hippie guys, they were out dating rich boys. They may have gone slumming on occasion with a poor guy, but even so, they did not take him to the country club, hand him a menu, and say, “order anything you want, Daddy has an account here”. 3) Any self respecting man forty years ago would feel like an impoverished loser, letting some woman pay. > > Which leads back to: “if her daddy’s rich, take her out for a meal”. He will spend money on a date at a restaurant with a rich girl, because he wants to look like a nice young man who knows how to show a girl a good time. That - showing his daughter a good time - will also impress her rich Daddy, and that will come in handy should thoughts of marriage or a job offer at rich Daddy’s business crop up in the future. Rich Daddy will be more inclined to welcome him to the family or give him a job. That would NOT happen if rich girl ponied up for the both of them, he would be seen as poor, shiftless, a leech, and a lazy bum…So the poor girl doesn’t get money spent on a restaurant meal - because he doesn’t have to ingratiate himself with her poverty stricken father! The poor girl should just be grateful she’s got a date at all, getting out of her shabby house, right? 40 years ago my dad and all his friends were shiftless, poor hippies. To hear them tell it, they regularly went out with girls whose parents had plenty of cash, and those girls were paying for dinner, drinks, etc. Dad wasn’t trying to look like a nice young man or get a job. He was trying to get someone to buy him a sexpack and a lid of weed and, if he was lucky, throw him a little action. That was why those gals were going out with dirty hippies (and, in the case of my dad and his friends, rock’n’roll musicians) - to piss off their parents and to feel like part of the cool scene. When they went out with fellow poor hippies, they hopped in someone’s car and rode down to the beach or all went and drank out of coolers at the drive in because they couldn’t afford to go out on the town. Maybe I’m off the mark. Could well be. But that’s exactly what that song’s always sounded like to me. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/88 "2011-06-09T19:27:05Z")
“Under My Thumb,” eh? I never knew that song was misogynistic until people told me it was. It had always given me the sense of that sick bit of triumph you feel when the lover who used to jerk your heart around is now your bitch. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/89 "2011-06-09T19:43:47Z")
My usual contribution, which I still haven’t beaten in terms of WTF-ness, is Sugar’s [“A Good Idea”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5cPlRV4pPc). It starts out with a guy and a gal taking a walk down to the river, and deciding it’d be ‘a good idea’ to lay down in the water. Chorus plays, and then the second verse starts thus: > [@](#): > > He held her head high in his hands > He held her down deep in the stream > He saw the bubbles and matted hair > Mixed in with seaweed > She started to scream :eek: Yup, that rockin song is about a guy murdering some girl. I still really like the song, though it probably wouldn’t be a karaoke night pick! ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/90 "2011-06-10T09:42:10Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > My usual contribution, which I still haven’t beaten in terms of WTF-ness, is Sugar’s [“A Good Idea”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5cPlRV4pPc). It starts out with a guy and a gal taking a walk down to the river, and deciding it’d be ‘a good idea’ to lay down in the water. Chorus plays, and then the second verse starts thus: > :eek: > > Yup, that rockin song is about a guy murdering some girl. > > I still really like the song, though it probably wouldn’t be a karaoke night pick! Don’t know this song, but river, stream…seaweed? MiM ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/91 "2011-06-10T14:30:52Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Re: “Spirit in the Sky” > > (…) it could be taken as a sort of parody of none-too-deep religious pop music. > > (…)I think almost every Christian denomination would disagree with the narrator’s claim that he has never committed a sin. Just wanted to give yet another endorsement to this interpretation. Is it deliberate parody? I wouldn’t be surprised, but imagine that Greenbaum wanted the ambiguity. The charm is the way he doesn’t tip his hand, just puts out his blatantly incorrect theology with a proud voice… but without winking. The notion that he’s singing after having his sins washed away is a possibility, but doesn’t really match up with the idea that he has “never been a sinner.” And even after the purification, you accumulate new sins almost immediately. And of course the central idea of “going up to the Spirit in the Sky” is a unique explanation of the Christian afterlife. Again, it seems like Norm’s just tossing out anything that occurs to him, without a care how true or untrue it is. Great song. ---
**Author:** ![NotBob13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e19b73/32.png) [@NotBob13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotBob13)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/92 "2011-06-12T02:37:36Z")
My two cents on _in the Summertime_. Veronica will snerl her nose at you if you suggest you grab a slaw burger at the drive-in, then wonder over to the river and watch the sun set. Betty is accustomed to similar low cost entertainment, probably. And Mr. Lodge is a bigwig’, a VIP, probably freinds with the sherriff, and stiffnecked. Betty’s dad is protective of her, but a cool guy, you’d share a beer with him, if the comics code would let you. That’s always been my interpretation. In other words, you take out rich girls, you hang out with poor girls. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/93 "2011-06-12T04:17:42Z")
> [@Miss\_Mapp](#): > > Me too. I liked it much more when I thought it was about a vampire asking his sweet angel to join him among the undead. Me as well, and wiki claims that it’s based on folklore from where they grew up. Vampires are part of folklore, are serial killers? It’s more subtle than say “[Closer](http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858739041/)” by Kings of Leon but vampires make sense. Corpses rot, vampires stay beautiful forever. I guess I like “Bone of Contention” by Spirit of the West a little less for knowing what it’s about, but that’s the only song I can think of like this. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/94 "2011-06-12T20:48:54Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Re: “Spirit in the Sky” > > If it makes you feel any better about it, there was no serious religious intent behind the song. Norman Greenbaum apparently just wrote it [to see if he could write a “gospel song”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_in_the_Sky#Original_version_by_Norman_Greenbaum) – it could be taken as a sort of parody of none-too-deep religious pop music. Doesn’t matter what his religious intent was, he wrote it as a gospel song. And that’s what gospel songs are. So he screwed up the theology a tad - that comes from being an outsider and not caring too much. It’s still a gospel song. And I can’t take it as a parody. > [@MeanOldLady](#): > > “Under My Thumb,” eh? I never knew that song was misogynistic until people told me it was. It had always given me the sense of that sick bit of triumph you feel when the lover who used to jerk your heart around is now your bitch. Yep. “The change has come, she’s under my thumb.” That Siamese Cat of a girl is now his bitch - my the tables have turned. ---
**Author:** ![Peace\_Rises](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de0a6/32.png) [@Peace\_Rises](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peace_Rises)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2017, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/95 "2017-02-05T08:40:08Z")
I used feel the same way. Then I read this opinion. Changed my mind on the meaning. [Barbarabythesea: HALLELUJAH ~ An Ah-Hah Moment.](http://barbarabythesea.blogspot.com/2016/09/halleljah-ah-hah-moment.html) ---
**Author:** ![Peace\_Rises](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de0a6/32.png) [@Peace\_Rises](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peace_Rises)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2017, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/96 "2017-02-05T08:51:44Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I don’t dislike the song, but I stopped wanting to sing it for church when I looked up the lyrics for _Hallelujah_ by Cohen. I used feel the same way. Then I read this opinion. Changed my mind on the meaning. > **[HALLELUJAH ~ An Ah-Hah Moment.](https://barbarabythesea.blogspot.com/2016/09/halleljah-ah-hah-moment.html)** > > I learned something new this morning. (Sorry this is so long, but I felt the need to share) I've heard the song HALLELUJAH several way... ---
**Author:** ![Peace\_Rises](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9de0a6/32.png) [@Peace\_Rises](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peace_Rises)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2017, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/97 "2017-02-05T09:01:41Z")
> [@Tranquilis](#): > > _“Follow Me”_ by Uncle Kraker. > > Nice catchy song, good hook. But then I really listened to the second verse. Killed it for me. I had to go look it up. WOW, had no idea “I’m not worried 'bout the ring you wear 'cause as long as no one knows Then nobody can care,” pretty sucky, I agree! ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2017, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/98 "2017-02-05T13:17:35Z")
The Zombies had a few songs with questionable lyrics. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/99 "2017-02-05T19:38:43Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > The classic example for me will always be “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O’Sullivan, where a man laments his crappy life before jumping to his death, all to a snappy beat. > > ETA: Although I admit I still liked the song even after learning the lyrics. I’m sick. I realize this is old, but along those lines, “Jump” by Van Halen - really upbeat song about commuting suicide. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470/100 "2017-02-05T19:49:24Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > It’s pretty clear, to me, that it’s about a man who’s fallen in love with another man who was unsure, then began to return the affections, then got scared. Also lines " Too late to save myself from falling I took a chance and changed your way of life But you misread my meaning when I met you Closed the door and left me blinded by the light." “Changed your way of life”, “misread my meaning” can be interpreted that way pretty easily. But they are vague enough to apply in a lot of situations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-used-to-like-until-you-really-listened-to-the-lyrics/584470.md?page=6)