I heard “Nightmare On Elm Street” by A Balladeer without paying much attention to it probably half a dozen times before it dawned on me which Jackie the song was about. In my defense, Ringside’s song “Jackie” isn’t about her, so until I finally noticed the line about his head falling in her lap, it didn’t occur to me that thia song was about anyone famous. I only have general idea about the assignation details anyway, so the street in the title didn’t provide me a usable clue, either.
It took quite a few listens before I realized that Neutral Milk Hotel’s “The King of Carrot Flowers” is most likely about a homosexual relationship.
“And this is the room one afternoon
I knew I would love you
And from above you how I sank into your soul
Into that secret place where no one dares to go”
One day I was listening to this lyric, and it dawned on me… (sung from a male perspective): “When you were young you were the king of carrot flowers… From above you…Sank into your soul…Secret place where no one dares to go…”. Oooohhh. I get it now.
Lola has been discussed so many times on these boards. A candidate for the most discussed pop trivia item.
The song-writers are obviously (to me) being deliberately double-entenderish. This is also mostly the conclusion of the discussion. Although sometimes the people who claim that the song is certainly about a cross-dresser “win” the discussion.
I was humming Pearl Jam’s “Oh Where Oh Where Could My Baby Be” while walking my dog one night when it suddenly dawned on me that the song is about a horrific car crash.
I think some of these are a bit of a stretch. It’s very likely that Cecelia’s man washed his face because it rhymes with ‘taking my place’.
mmm
Back in the days of smoke-filled dorm rooms and black light posters, a stoner friend of mine would tell a story accompanied by IGDV. It was about a heroin addict who overdosed, and they thought he was dead, but he wasn’t, and he wakes up in a casket, buried underground. The drum tempo represented his heart beat as he loses conciousness, then reawakens, and the guitar at the end represents his anguished screams when he wakes up and discovers where he is.
Not saying that was what the songwriter had in mind, but it was a good story.
I listened to and loved Paint it Black (Rolling Stones) for years before realizing it was about the death and funeral of a sweetheart.
Well, it may not be a song about unrequited love, but I’m not sure it’s clearly about anything else. Here’s a link to the lyrics:
Many of the comments on the song quote members of REM saying they have no idea what the song is about.
I was talking with a writer friend who had interviewed Richard Butler back in the day, and had asked him how badly the movie Pretty in Pink had missed the meaning of the song. Butler smiled ruefully and said “About a million miles.”
The name of that song is “Last Kiss”, and it’s a cover of an early '60s teen death ballad.
What was your first clue? Was it this passage?:
mmm
Until just now, I thought the lyric was “I’ve got my Sprite, I’ve got my Orange Crush.”
After reading the lyrics, it sure evokes the Vietnam War to me.
It’s about Vietnam and specifically Agent Orange.
LOL, I didn’t know the lyrics, I just had one line stuck in my head. When I heard the entire song I was all :eek:
Yeah, Agent Orange is the revelation I got when I finally actually listened and read the lyrics.
It was only a few years ago that I realized what that long interlude of what sounds like an old-time baseball game on the radio narrative was doing in Meat Loaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light. For whatever reason, I’d never made the connection between it and the euphemism of “getting to first base/second base/third base” while making out with a girl.
AKA “Quin The Eskimo”…and when he gets here, “all the chillen gonna run to him”.
Never knew what this weird 1960’s pop song was about.
For va long time I thought it might be related to some film in which Anthony Quinn – the Hollywood all-purpose ethnic – played an Eskimo. He apparently did in The Savage Innocents
According to this page, however:
(the page also mentions the Anthony Quinn theory)
From thsat page as well, the truth is apparent;ly that No One Knows: