That’s the way I’ve always interpreted it.
Billy Thorpe’s Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy. Loved it (and suited the artist) until the last line.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…)
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.
“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.
My usual contribution, which I still haven’t beaten in terms of WTF-ness, is Sugar’s “A Good Idea”. 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
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.
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.
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” 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.
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.
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.
I used feel the same way. Then I read this opinion. Changed my mind on the meaning. Barbarabythesea: HALLELUJAH ~ An Ah-Hah Moment.
I used feel the same way. Then I read this opinion. Changed my mind on the meaning.
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!
The Zombies had a few songs with questionable lyrics.
mmm
I realize this is old, but along those lines, “Jump” by Van Halen - really upbeat song about commuting suicide.
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.