You know how you’ve grown up with a song and you “know” it, enough to sing or hum along, but you learned it too early to really think about it?
The other day I’m listening to Scarborough Fair and coincidentally enough, tying a quilt as he sings
“Tell her to make me a cambric shirt…without no seams nor needlework–”
Waitaminute that’s impossible! Listened to the rest, yep, impossible tasks.
:smack:
And yes, I thought Every Breath You Take was a nice love song too.
Others?
Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” is really, really naughty, despite the happy-go-lucky sound.
It took me awhile to figure out what “Scarborough Fair” was about as well. I only got that earlier this year when I went looking for the lyrics. I don’t have any other examples of this for you, but I’ll think on it some.
Since you brought it up, I wanted to pass on this great Youtube clip I found of Simon & Garfunkel appearing on (what I suppose is) the Andy Williams show. A wonderful performance. It’s almost as odd as the Bing Crosby/David Bowie pairing on “The Little Drummer Boy”. . .and, perhaps, even better in the result.
Although I was always aware that the Stones’ “Brown Sugar” was not exactly PC, up until a couple of years ago I thought it was just about a guy who fancies young black girls.
I showed my sister the lyrics to Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy the other day.
She siad she didn’t know what she was singing when she sang along but those lyrics certainly aren’t it.
ZZ Top’s “Pearl Necklace” and Andrew WK’s “It’s Time To Party” are both about pretty much the same thing. The former is a bit clever, the latter is pretty blunt and involves a group.
I’d heard both songs many times before I figured them out. ZZ Top because I was young and Andrew WK because I just wasn’t listening carefully to some of the lyrics.
“Invisible Touch” by Genesis is so freaking peppy that I never listened properly to the lyrics, but when I did I realized it’s not about the kind of relationship you want to have.
Styx’s “Light Up.” I was in my mid-twenties before that light bulb went on.
I didn’t realize until recently that Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam was about Puerto Rican immigration to NYC. But then, I don’t usually pay much attention to lyrics anyway…
That was awesome.
Man, that takes me back.
For those who only know the Simon & Garfunkel version - which is two songs, an abbreviated version of a 19th century-style Scarborough Faire and an original Simon composition, Canticle, hence the name that nobody ever gets right, “Scarborough Faire/Canticle,” here’s what Wiki has to say.
As for Rolling Stones lyrics, I’ve been listening to them since 1965 and I still can’t figure out what they say, ever, in any song. Somebody needs to translate Mick into English.
**Come Out and Play **by The Offspring is actually about gang violence in schools.
I had always thought Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” was about a woman who had an inappropriate relationship with an underage man. Turns out it’s about her uncle who died young. Ooooookay.
Okay…now you tell me, cause i still think that!
Similarily with me and the The Stranglers “Golden Brown.” Made more sense when I finally beheld tar heroin.
It’s an homage to the United States
On wikipedia, someone edited the article to argue that the song “How to save a life” by the Fray was actually about the breakup of Czechoslovakia.
he said:
:dubious:
Not even once, in the 60s, for twenty minutes. I don’t think so.
And from Wiki:
I didn’t know that Joni Mitchell’s Little Green was about giving her child up for adoption or that Troubled Child was about her own mental breakdown. It helps to know that she likes to address songs to herself in the second person.