# Well, duh! Suddenly realizing what a song is really about **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 20, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820 "2011-12-20T04:58:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/1 "2011-12-20T04:58:51Z")
So I’m driving down the road, listening for the umpty-zillionth time to Jackson Browne’s _Running on Empty_ album. The song “Rosie” begins, I’m kinda-sorta listening to the familiar lyrics… And suddenly, for the first time in the decades I’ve been hearing it, I get what the song’s really about. 😕 :eek: :smack: All right, go ahead; point and laugh. But I’m a female of 1949 vintage, raised in rather a, shall we say, sheltered milieu, in which Good Girls were not made aware of certain Facts of Life. So, what blinding realizations about a song have you had? ---
**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/2 "2011-12-20T08:07:14Z")
“Love In An Elevator” by Aerosmith I thought it was about sex in an elevator, so I wasn’t too far off. But apparently, there is no elevator involved in the process of “going down”. ---
**Author:** ![Janetda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@Janetda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Janetda)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/3 "2011-12-20T08:59:54Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > So I’m driving down the road, listening for the umpty-zillionth time to Jackson Browne’s _Running on Empty_ album. The song “Rosie” begins, I’m kinda-sorta listening to the familiar lyrics… > > And suddenly, for the first time in the decades I’ve been hearing it, I get what the song’s really about. 😕 :eek: :smack: > > All right, go ahead; point and laugh. But I’m a female of 1949 vintage, raised in rather a, shall we say, sheltered milieu, in which Good Girls were not made aware of certain Facts of Life. > > So, what blinding realizations about a song have you had? Ha! My husband and I did the same thing on a road trip years ago while listening to Rosie. I remember the first time I REALLY listened to Lola by the Kinks. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/4 "2011-12-20T09:12:10Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > So, what blinding realizations about a song have you had? “[Brand New Key](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_New_Key#Controversy)” by Melanie _Melanie has acknowledged the possibility of reading sexual innuendo in the song._ Ya think? _Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates You got a brand new key I think that we should get together and try them out you see_ ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/5 "2011-12-20T12:58:11Z")
I myself have pondered the hidden meanings buried in the lyrics of “Inna Gadda Da Vida”. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/6 "2011-12-20T13:52:44Z")
There is nothing to match the sudden realization that “You’re So Vain” is about Warren Beatty. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/7 "2011-12-20T14:43:32Z")
Tequila. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/8 "2011-12-20T14:54:11Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There is nothing to match the sudden realization that “You’re So Vain” is about Warren Beatty. Funny. I always thought it was about me. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/9 "2011-12-20T14:59:20Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There is nothing to match the sudden realization that “You’re So Vain” is about Warren Beatty. Not even Warren Beatty is vain enough to think he’d look good in an apricot scarf. QED. ---
**Author:** ![Mixolydian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Mixolydian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mixolydian)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/10 "2011-12-20T15:15:51Z")
Someone told me about “Rosie”, but I figured out “Red Neck Friend” (_For Everyman_) on my own. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/11 "2011-12-20T18:40:14Z")
Any chance in these posts you can say what the song actually means for the non musically inclined (read: me) I don’t know what Rosie is about (although based on the color and context of the posts I have a guess) Or Tequila (unless I’m being wooshed) ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/12 "2011-12-20T19:00:30Z")
To learn the REAL meaning of the song “Tequila,” I had to watch Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure. I had to buy the shoes, too. 😛 [Tequila](http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2688) ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/13 "2011-12-20T19:05:51Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > I don’t know what Rosie is about (although based on the color and context of the posts I have a guess) _Under Adam Block’s Secret Subjects of 15 Pop Songs, “Rosie” is said to have been co-written with a roadie named Donald Miller. Rosie Palm or Rosie Palms is in fact a colloquialism for masturbation. Sometimes she is said to have a friend named Jill; the J is made with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, the I is the middle finger and the other two fingers make the L’s._ Source: [Songfacts: Rosie by Jackson Browne](http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=20320) ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/14 "2011-12-20T19:09:39Z")
_Yellow Ledbetter_ by Pearl Jam is about a guy trying to deal with learning his brother died (via a yellow letter)… transcribed from an Eddie Vedder concert in Newark NJ, when asked “what are the lyrics to Yellow Ledbetter”: > [@](#): > > "wait, this is a little, kinda an intense moment here right now… let me gather my… after all this time, are you telling me there are words to that song? this is new information, I am trying to accept it… > > you know, I guess it’s… uh, I can’t remember how it goes… it’s… where’s Mike McCready when you need him? you know, uh, “they don’t wave,” something about “they don’t wave,” “I see them on the front porch, but they don’t wave”… > > so, what it was about.. this was written during the Gulf war… this is papa Bush, and uh, it was about a guy who’s brother went to fight in the first Gulf war, and he was kinda an alternative looking guy, like we were with our shorts and tights and long hair, whatever we had going on… but you know, activists and artists and good young people of Seattle, and smart people, weren’t all drug addicts, you know… and so it is a story about his brother being killed over there and then he gets a yellow letter in the mail, saying “your brother was killed”… and so he tries to take a walk, he’s walking this off, in this little suburban neighborhood, and his mind is racing and he doesn’t know what to do, and he feels like he can’t take a step without falling into a deep abyss… so he’s walking and walking and walking, and he sees a couple on a porch with an American flag, and he waves to them, like “you know, my brother”… and then the people look at him like “you f\*cking scumbag” you know what I mean… “who are you” like they don’t know, they don’t know the inside, they’re judging him by his cover… and um, so, um, that’s what the thought was” ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/15 "2011-12-20T19:11:12Z")
I was fourteen when the Stones released their cover of “Little Red Rooster.” I was embarrassed by how many years passed before I realized it wasn’t a song about a chicken. . ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/16 "2011-12-20T19:14:24Z")
It used to amuse me that when _Every Breath You Take_ was in common rotation, everyone treated it like a romantic slow-dance song. I actually attended a wedding where the married couple had their first dance to it, b/c it was “their song.” > [@Sir T-Cups](#): > > Any chance in these posts you can say what the song actually means for the non musically inclined (read: me) Lola’s a MAN, baby! ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/17 "2011-12-20T21:18:35Z")
That reminds me of a couple more: The Who: Squeezebox (not about an accordion) Bull Moose Jackson: Big Ten Inch Record (not about a vinyl recording) Dinah Washington: Big Long Slidin’ Thing (not about a trombone) The Toppers: Baby Let Me Bang Your Box (not about borrowing a piano) ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/18 "2011-12-20T22:38:29Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > It used to amuse me that when _Every Breath You Take_ was in common rotation, everyone treated it like a romantic slow-dance song. I actually attended a wedding where the married couple had their first dance to it, b/c it was “their song.” Heh. A cousin of mine did the “our song” dance at their wedding to “YMCA” – see, they’d met at the local Y, and they had no idea it was a gay hookup song. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/19 "2011-12-20T22:46:30Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Heh. A cousin of mine did the “our song” dance at their wedding to “YMCA” – see, they’d met at the local Y, and they had no idea it was a gay hookup song. Good thing it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820/20 "2011-12-20T22:59:01Z")
Not an entire song, but in Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” I was about 30 before it dawned on me why the guy had to get up and wash his face. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-duh-suddenly-realizing-what-a-song-is-really-about/606820.md?page=2)