Maybe because I couldn’t understand a single lyric.
Oh come on, it’s easy:
la la la la ler lay la lee la lee le ler, da da da da day doo dee da dee der day, and so on so forth.
Not a song, but last year or so, after hearing Life in the Fast Lane for the millionth time, it finally dawned on me what Henley actually meant when he sang that “there were, lines on the mirror”:smack:
Exactly the song I was going to mention. After hearing the song for almost 30 years I finally figured it out a couple years ago when I heard it on the radio at work. In addition to the line you mention, there’s also “Call the doctor, I think I’m gonna crash / Doctor says he’s comin’, but you gotta pay him cash”.
Another, more obscure song is Rush’s 20-minute epic from 1975, “The Fountain of Lamneth”. When I first heard the song at the age of 15, I just heard it as some kind of fantasy adventure story. Reading the lyrics again in my late 30s, it finally dawned on me: it’s the story of the narrator’s life, from birth to death. Each section of the song relates to a different stage of his life:
I: Birth, infancy, and early childhood
II: Adolescence/teen years
III: Twenties/getting out on his own and discovering that life is hard
IV: Settling down with a wife
V: Middle age/retirement - successful and comfortable
VI: Old age/death
I’ve never really thought about that line before. Also, for a long time, I had a hard time making out all of the words in that line.
Oh, I just remembered another one. The Hall and Oates song One on One. I was a little kid when I first heard that song and though it was about…well, it’s embarrassing, but let’s just say, it took way too long for me to figure out it was about sex. Although not nearly as long as it took me to figure out Life in the Fast Lane.
I find it kind of amusing that my wife loves Billy Joel’s “Always a Woman” but refuses to believe me when I start to spell out the lyrics tell her what kind of a woman he’s describing. Maybe, just maybe, I think she’s a bit of that kind of woman herself, and refusing to believe what I’m saying about the song is just the kind of reaction a woman like that would have . . .
Also, upon seeing the video, I was very surprised to find that George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” was actually about living a monogamous life.
Aha, but do any of you know what The Whole Of The Moon by The Waterboys is about? A quick reminder.
I have it even easier…
For some reason, many songs with enormously upbeat rythms or catchy melodies have lyrics that aren’t exactly what you’d expect at a meeting of the local chapter of the Franciscan Order.
I often get requests from someone to translate their favorite song. This has led to my I-won’t-touch-drugs-ever (after spending a month in prison for Posession With Intend To Distribute) cousin discovering that his favorite rap touted drugs, to people realizing that Every Breath You Take is definitely not a nice love song…
Recently my teetotaler brother (he even got the priest at his wedding to give him communion as the bread only) asked me what was Rehab about. I translated only one sentence, that was enough to elicit a groan. He and several friends had been arguing about the meaning and Bro was the one who’d been understanding it correctly. And yes, she does call her husband both “Baby” and “Daddy,” which Bro finds absolutely horrendous.
[Ron Burgundy] “This Song is about Afternoon Lovemaking… The Naughty Type.”[/Ron Burgundy] 
“House of Fun” by Madness is about a 16 year old trying to buy condoms from the chemist on his birthday, in case you hadn’t guessed…
And failing miserably, since he’s 16 and too bashful to ask for them outside of a ridiculous code. >_>