Wham Line / Music

• One song appears to be about a mother offering her child advice and encouragement on his or her first day of kindergarten, including admonishing him or her not to cry. The final verses, repeated for effect, turn everything on its head.
  No, Mommy doesn't always act this way, but it's my first day of kindergarten
• The end of 2Pac's classic "Brenda's Got a Baby":
  So now what's next? It ain't nothin' left to sell
  So she sees sex as a way of leavin' hell
  It's payin' the rent, so she really can't complain
  "Prostitute Found Slain"
  And Brenda's her name
  She's got a baby
• Thirty Seconds to Mars's "Tribute Song" toys with this. It's a medley of "Heroes", "Purple Rain", and "Freedom", so you know it's a tribute to late classic rock legends, or just the ones who died in 2016. Then, in the last four lines, Jared adds two more songs showing that's not all to it:
  We could be heroes, just for one day
  Purple rain, purple rain
  Crawling in my skin, these wounds they will not heal
  Black hole sun, won't you come, won't you come
• Against the Current's "Roses" sounds like it's about the singer being depressed after a breakup at first... until the last two non-chorus lines in the song reveal something else:
  I hope that the lipstick I left on your face
  Stays red like the roses I laid on your grave
• The Arcade Fire song "Antichrist Television Blues" is about an amoral Stage Dad who forces his daughter to become a glorified stripper and uses his religion to justify his acts. The first verse of the song seems unconnected to the rest of the song, as it describes post-9/11 fear of working in buildings downtown that may be attacked by terrorists. The final lines bring it back full circle:
  Do you know where I was at your age? Any idea where I was at your age?
  I was working downtown for the minimum wage
  And I'm not gonna let you just throw it all away
  I'm through being cute, I'm through being nice
  Oh tell me Lord, am I the Antichrist?!
• Atmosphere:
  • "Yesterday" tells the story of a man who thinks he catches a glimpse of someone whom he hasn't seen in a while, presumably an ex. He spends the song reminiscing about everything he misses from the relationship. Then, toward the end of the song we get this line:
    I thought I saw you yesterday
    But I knew it wasn't you
    'Cause you passed away, dad
  • In "The Waitress," he tells the story of a bum who constantly visits a cafe to see a woman. She treats him badly when he comes in, but she also notices his absence on the days he doesn't visit. She is the one woman who acknowledges his existence. It seems like he could be in love with the woman since his life seems to revolve around seeing her, then at the very end of the song he says...
    So there it is, and I have to live with it
    I had the chance to make a difference but I didn't
    In a cafe bathroom drinking free tap water
    Thinking: "Damn, I should have been a better father to my daughter"
• "All Your Life," by The Band Perry. It's a sweet love song to a boyfriend, right up until...
  You could be the centerpiece of my obsession
  If you would notice me at all
• "I Hope" by Gabby Barret and Charlie Puth sounds like the singer is wishing her (his, in the second verse) ex all the best... until the last line of the chorus:
  And then I hope s/he cheats
  Like you did on me
• The Beatles:
  • "Norwegian Wood" tells about one poor guy who goes home with a woman, drinks her wine, and is ultimately brushed off when she goes to sleep alone. The final line:
    And when I awoke
    I was alone
    This bird had flown
    
    So I lit a fire
    Isn't it good?
    Norwegian wood
  • "A Day in the Life" has the line "He blew his mind out in a car..." That's the moment you know the song is far darker than most previous Beatles works and the moment you realize this will be quite... different.
• Chuck Berry's song "Memphis, Tennessee", which became a big hit for Johnny Rivers under the title "Memphis" ("Long distance information, give me Memphis, Tennessee"), sounds like the singer is trying to call his girlfriend Marie, who was separated from him by a disapproving mother ("But we were pulled apart because her mom did not agree"). That is, until the final verse, where the singer tells the operator that "Marie is only six years old", revealing that she's his daughter, and that the family was split up by the wife/girlfriend.
• Boogie Down Productions' "You Must Learn" traces thousands of years "of ignorance, stupidity and tears" as all leading to the definitive horror of the 20th Century:
  According to his idiotic spoutin'
  The purest whites were from the Caucus Mountains
  J. A. Blofener, and H. S. Chamberlain
  Both supported this outrageous racism
  This went on to what the master race should be
  And why they killed the Jews in Germany
• David Bowie:
  • "Space Oddity":
    Ground control to Major Tom
    Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
  • "Cygnet Committee":
    And the road is coming to its end
    Now the damned have no time to make amends
  • "Repetition":
    I guess the bruises won't show
    If she wears long sleeves
• From Toni Braxton's "He Wasn't Man Enough", which rips both her ex and his new wife:
  Now it's time you know the truth
  I think he's just the man for you
• "Save Your Kisses for Me" by Brotherhood of Man (pop) and Margo Smith (country):
  Kisses for me
  Save all your kisses for me
  Bye bye, baby, bye bye
  Don't cry, honey, don't cry
  Won't you save them for me
  Even though you're only three
• If you don't know the title, Michael Bublé's "Haven't Met You Yet" has a more upbeat one in the titular line. The first verse of the song sounds like Michael's lamenting a girl whom he feels he should have done more to stay with, until it's revealed that he's speaking in hypotheticals about his one true love. Examples:
  I tried so very hard not to lose it
  I came up with a million excuses
  And I thought I'd thought of every possibility
  
  And I know some day that it'll all turn out
  You'll make me work so we can work to work it out
  And I promise you kid that I'll give so much more than I get
  I just haven't met you yet
• "The Kick Inside" by Kate Bush has a couple of these:
  This kicking here inside makes me leave you behind
  No more under the quilt to keep you warm
  Your sister I was born, you must loose me like an arrow
  Shot into a killer storm

  The song's last line is the ultimate Wham Line, when you realize she's not talking to him, she's writing him a letter:

  Oh, by the time you read this

• From Rob Cantor's "Shia LaBeouf" Live:
  You limp into the dark woods, blood oozing from your stump leg.
  You've beaten Shia LaBeouf.
  [Beat]
  Wait! He isn't dead! SHIA SURPRISE!
• Sabrina Carpenter's 'Because I Liked A Boy" is about the hate that she got from Olivia Rodrigo fans for dating Joshua Bassett. The last chorus drops this line.
  "And all of this for what? When all of this went down we'd already broken up"
• Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue" is a man telling about his absent father, who named him "Sue" and left. Because of all the bullying he got for his name, the boy "grew up quick and [he] grew up mean", and went in search of the old man to call him out. When they finally meet, they fight, and Dad concedes, then explains why he did it.
  I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along
  So I give you that name and I said goodbye
  I knew you'd have to get tough or die
  And it's that name that helped to make you strong

  This is followed by Sue's...

  I got all choked up and I threw down my gun
  I called him my Pa and he called me his son
  And I came away with a different point of view
  I think if I ever have a son
  I'll name him "Bill" or "George"
  Anything but "Sue"
  I STILL HATE THAT NAME!

• Harry Chapin's "The Mayor of Candor Lied". A farm boy falls in love with the Mayor's daughter, who seems to be hell-bent on preventing them from getting together. The boy then stumbles upon the Mayor in the middle of an affair with the boy's own mother. He then attempts to use this as extortion against the Mayor, threatening his re-election campaign. The Mayor then proceeds to outmaneuver the boy by sending his daughter to an out-of-country university, saying it's her own choice. The boy flies into a rage at this, but the Mayor simply points out that blackmail doesn't give him a moral high ground to proceed from and dares him to make good on his threat.
  And as he stands there saying we're just two of a kind
  It hits me like a thunderbolt exploding in my mind
  
  As I look into his aged, wrinkled, leering mirror of my own face
  He laughs and sneers and says, "Of course, dear son
  Where do you think you came from in the first place?"
• For the first verse, "Flirted With You All My Life" by Vic Chesnutt sounds like it's about unrequited love, with the narrator possibly being a Dogged Nice Guy: He speaks of flirting with and kissing the subject of the song, becomes envious upon learning that they "touched a friend of mine," but then admits that "Really, I was not ready". Then the chorus changes the context completely:
  Oh death, oh death, oh death
  Really, I'm not ready
• "Story" by clipping. tells the tale of a couple who die in a taxi crash, and an unstable, alcoholic cop named Randy who is first on the scene. At first it seems like Randy's distress is just disgust at the sight of the grisly accident, but the last few lines of the song, framed as a Flashback, reveal there's a lot more to it than that.
  And Randy starts to cry
  He can't figure out why
  He told his sister walk, unless she stop kissing that guy
  She said "You ain't my dad!"
  He said "Bitch, catch a cab"
  And that's the last discussion she and Randy ever had
• "I Used To Love H.E.R." by Common tells the story of a woman Common was in love with, the different phases she goes through in her life, and how her and Common's relationship eventually became fraught. The last line flips the whole song on its head, revealing that the "woman" in question isn't a woman at all.
  ‘Cause who I'm talkin' about, y'all, is hip-hop.
• The song "Fat Cats and Bigger Fish" by the rap group The Coup seems like a street hustlers anthem on how to get over and con people out their money. Then the final verse has member Boots Riley attend a political party looking to run a con, only to overhear two politicians, a white and black one, talking about how they'll manipulate the black voters in an upcoming election. He concludes that these guys play on a different level than him and he was fooling himself the whole time. The music video shows the scene further driving the point home.
  This is how deep shit can get. It reads macaroni on by birth certificate. Puddin-Tang is my middle name, but I can't hang, getting hustled only knowing half the game.
• The Cranberries:
  • "Forever Yellow Skies":
    Forever, I'll be forever holding you
    Forever, I'll be forever holding you
    Responsible, responsible, responsible
  • "Linger" has one that turns it from a sappy love song to a Break-Up Song:
    I swore, swore I would be true
    Well, honey, so did you
    So, why were you holding her hand?
• Bing Crosby's 1943 song "I'll Be Home For Christmas" is pretty straightforward, with the singer (a soldier away from home) reminding his family to make all the Christmas preparations (presents wrapped, mistletoe hung, etc.), because he'll be home for Christmas...
  If only in my dreams...
• The Decemberists' "The Rake's Song" deals with a young widower who murders his kids to begin a new life. Horrible enough, until the final lines:
  I expect that you think that I should be haunted
  But it never really bothers me
• Deftones' "Digital Bath" sounds like an Intercourse with You song. That is, until the lyrics "You breathed then you stopped / I breathed then dried you off" reveal it to be something else completely.
• Boudewijn de Groot:
  • "Eva" is told from the perspective of a God who creates Paradise. The last verse starts with:
    Here I stand like a fool in my chamber gown
    I thought I could do anything
  • The ending of his fairy tale song "De Kinderballade" ("The Children's Ballad"), about a fairy-like preteen girl and a prince-like preteen boy who elope together:
    When, by the barking of dogs, he was found days later
    The pallid prince laid tainted in the corn, without his fairy
    With his big dead eyes, he motionlessly stared upwards and
    Slowly, the blood still seeped from a horrid cut
• "I Want You" by Delain sounds like a Silly Love Song at first, but then slowly turns into an Anti-Love Song and then goes into "Overly Attached Girlfriend" territory:
  No one could see it coming
  A tragic day
  How did that car get in your way?
• Del Amitri's "Always the Last to Know" has the narrator complaining about a failed relationship and how his ex-partner has gone off with someone else, but we don't find out why the relationship failed until almost the last lines, when the narrator wonders if her new partner "Is cheating on you / Like I cheated on you / And you were the last to know".
• Devo's "Beautiful World":
  It's a beautiful world
  For you, for you, for you
  It's not for me
• Disco Inferno: "D.I. Go Pop" follows the group going to a foreign country and being disgusted and shocked by its poor conditions. Eventually, they meet an English waitress and ask if she "moved there by choice".
  She looked at us strange so I told her our story, and she laughed and said
  "You must have got on a ferry cause you never left England"
• The Dixie Chicks:
  • "Goodbye Earl," for the first minute and a half, seems like it's going to be about the bonds of friendship between blood sisters Mary Anne and Wanda — and then it suddenly becomes a gleeful Murder Ballad:
    Right away, Mary Anne flew in from Atlanta on a red-eyed midnight flight
    She held Wanda's hand and they worked out a plan, and it didn't take them long to decide
    That Earl had to die
  • "You Were Mine," about a woman distraught that her husband is leaving her for another woman. The song is mostly about her own despair, but then the bridge comes and hits like a sucker-punch to the gut:
    I can give you two good reasons
    To show you love's not blind
    He's two and she's four and you know they adore you
    So how can I tell them you've changed your mind?
• Don Trip:
  • "Don't Point" has two separate verses with Wham Lines. The first verse is about his past as a drug dealer, and he starts talking about one of his regular customers:
    Only want the usual, I call him old fashioned
    So he get served, and he don't need a napkin
    You so quick to judge me, to you I'm the bad one (hold on...)
    But you see him in church Sunday morning, he's your pastor

    The 2nd verse he's describing a beautiful stripper, and starts talking about what the listener might want to do with her:

    But you'd rather take shawty out, wine her and dine her
    Rent a hotel room, take her there and pound her
    Yeah you probably never met a bitch finer
    Wait 'til you find out that she's a minor

  • "Lil' Homie" is Trip telling a story about his friend, who is killed in a fit of jealousy when he comes home from college. Trip gets revenge on his friend's killer by shooting up their house in a drive-by. Or so he thinks...
    I just got another call that said they found where he stay
    We pulled up and pulled them rockets out and let 'em spray
    Now I'm buggin out, I can't even sleep
    I just got another call that said he lived across the street

    Then it gets worse:

    Shit just made the news, said we just shot a baby
    Damn, tell me anybody, not a baby
    We just out for blood, we so trigger-happy
    Shooting shit in broad day and hit some kid while she was napping

• "One Last Time" by Dusty Drake sounds at first like an ordinary breakup song, until the final verse:
  He said, "Honey, I've gotta go"
  She said, "Don't you dare hang up
  There's so many things I need to say
  I love you so much"
  It was almost like she felt him leave
  She cried out, "Can you still hear me?"
  She fell down on the kitchen floor
  When the signal died
  As the pilot tried to pull out of the dive
  One... last...
• Dream Theater's "Scene Nine: Finally Free" has "Open your eyes, Nicholas." Right after this, there's "Friday evening, the blood's still on my hands / To think that she would leave me now for that ungrateful man," revealing that Victoria's death wasn't a murder-suicide.
• The last sung lines in Eagles' "Hotel California":
  You can check out any time you like
  But you can never leave
• Given away somewhat by the title of the song, "Fucker" by Eels seems like such a sweet song until:
  Something about you
  Something about spending the afternoon asleep in your arms
  I hate you
  Fucker
• Eminem is very good with these; "Stan" has a particular whammy one:
  Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge
  And had his girlfriend in the trunk, and she was pregnant with his kid
  And in the car they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to
  Come to think about it, his name was... it was you. Damn...
• Everything Else: In "Religion Song (Put Away The Gun)," the middle section sounds like a bigoted rant, claiming that "There's no such thing as a Black Man/Asian/Woman/Christian/etc.," but it is all turned around by the line "Because we're all the same."
• "For Her" by Fiona Apple paints a portrait of a woman in a relationship with a man who treats her horribly, culminating to this line towards the end:
  Good morning! Good morning!
  You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in
• "Go Home Girl" by Gaelic Storm has the narrator, a Romani man, trying to convince a girl in love with him to go home. He runs through several arguments, and at the end:
  Now let's get off me jacket, love
  Your love will have to wait
  For I am twenty-two years old
  And you are only eight
• "In the Rapids" by Genesis:
  Something's changed, it's not your face
  It's mine! It's mine!
• Gotye's "Somebody I Used to Know" is yet another song about a man bemoaning an unfair distance between himself and a woman who used to be his lover. Then comes her verse, setting everything on its ear:
  Now and then I think about all the times you screwed me over.
• Boothby Graffoe's comedy song "Hartlepool" describes a ridiculous situation during the Napoleonic Wars, based on an actual local legend, when the people of Hartlepool caught a monkey on the beach and hanged it in the belief that it was a Frenchman. After briefly speculating that the monkey may have been an alien, the song gets around to describing the sociopolitical situation, and the way French ships were organised:
  They had kids on the ships, they called 'em powder-monkeys
  They were six, maybe seven, maybe eight years old
• "If Heaven" by Andy Griggs initially sounds like a sweet pontification on what Heaven may be like, comparing it to the narrator's town on a summer day in 1985 and so on. Then comes the last line of verse 2:
  If Heaven was a tear, it'd be my last one
  And you'd be in my arms again
• In The Handsome Family's "Lizard," some young girls in a small town are bitten by a lizard and are subsequently bedridden, so the town calls for the aid of Granny Green, a woman whom they suspect of being a witch. She gives the girls a tonic which causes them to be unable to stop dancing, then this spreads to the whole town. Granny Green laughs to witness them in this state, and the wham line is "'There's just water', she said, 'in my tonic'". Interestingly, this line occurs three quarters into the song, and the villagers disbelieve her and just go even further into hysteria.
• In "50 Ways to Fool Your Mother" by Bill Harley, a boy manages to convince his mother that he is, in fact, sick and will have to stay home from school.
  Mother: Maybe by tomorrow, you'll feel okay
  I'm really very sorry that you're sick on Saturday
  Boy: [spoken] Saturday...? I-I thought it was Friday...
• Sophie B. Hawkins's "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" is a love song, but it's not until the line "And I lay by the ocean making love to her with visions clear" that you realize whom she's singing to.
• The entire third verse of Rupert Holmes's "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" is basically this. For context, the narrator, despite having a girlfriend, has answered a personal ad, set up a date with the woman who wrote it, and is now waiting for her to arrive:
  So I waited with high hopes
  And she walked in the place
  I knew her smile in an instant
  I knew the curve of her face
  It was my own lovely lady
  And she said, "Oh, it's you"
  Then we laughed for a moment
  And I said, "I never knew..."
• Mallary Hope's "Love Lives On" has one. It starts out sounding like a break-up song, with lines such as "I'm thankful for the time God gave me / Even though we couldn't make it last". Then come the last line, it turns out that the male in the story hasn't departed, but is dead and has left behind a daughter:
  She comes with me on your birthday
  Little flowers in her hands
  She's always known there's something missing
  But too young to understand
  And someday she's going to ask me
  What kind of man you were
  I'll tell her all the ways I loved you
  And all of you I see in her
• The Human League's "Human" is sung from the viewpoint of a man apologizing to his lover for being unfaithful, stating "I'm only human". She responds to him in the song's bridge:
  The tears I cry aren't tears of pain
  They're only to hide my guilt and shame
  I forgive you, now I ask the same of you
  While we were apart, I was human too
• "Diane" by Hüsker Dü starts off sounding like a Silly Love Song, then the fourth line lets you know what it's really about (it makes it all the more chilling when you remember it's Based on a True Story).
  Hey, little girl, do you need a ride?
  Well, I've got room in my wagon, why don't you hop inside?
  We could cruise down Robert Street all night long
  But I think I'll just rape you and kill you instead
• Immortal Technique has one in his track "Dance With The Devil". The song's protagonist and his friends ambush a woman, pull her shirt over her head, assault and rape her, and then finally kill her. Then the protagonist finally removes the shirt from the woman's head:
  But what he saw made him start to cringe and stutter
  'Cause he was starin' into the eyes of his own mother
• Most of "74", by Itoki Hana and Toby Fox, describes the laments of a princess locked in a tower, and her exhilaration when a heroic knight shows up to rescue her, seemingly ending on a sad note when the knight falls to a trap at the last moment... but then he gets up — and her reaction to this isn't elation, but terror. "My face is flush with fear / He somehow made it made it / He's gotten past my traps / The monsters that I gathered". The knight was never supposed to succeed. The whole thing was a reverse Engineered Heroics, and if she's actually rescued, she won't be a "princess locked in a tower" anymore — so her only option now is to ensure his failure personally.
• Jethro Tull's "Christmas Song" starts off nice and festive, until:
  While you're stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties

  The rest of the song is a condemnation of people who just consume without sparing a thought to those less fortunate than them.

• J-Live:
  • "She Said What?" begins as a story of a guy in a bar flirting with a beautiful woman. Just when it seems like he's about to close the deal and get her to leave with him, Wham Line #1 happens:
    She hadn't said to me, anything at all
    I was playing the role of a fly on the wall
    Or better yet the lush at the bar
    Staring at her beauty from afar

    So he works up the courage to talk to her for real this time, and then comes Wham Line #2:

    She was feeling my style, I could tell how she moved and the smile on her face
    Then she whispered in my ear, so soft so sweet so clear, "no habla ingles"

  • "One for the Griot" has him telling a story to a disbelieving friend about a guy who wakes up in a woman's bed and encounters her and her roommate. The original ending to the story is considered too violent (the roommate is the woman's wife, she shoots and kills him) so he insists it be changed. So J changes it to something so incredibly fortunate (the guy has a threesome with both women) that it's implausible. Unsatisfied, the friend asks to change the ending again. So J changes it one last time...
    But between me and you, and my roommate too
    What I'm about to say, might be a little snafu
    In your plans, put it like this, she used to be a dude...
• Done twice in R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet:
  • The first time is in "Trapped in the Closet (Chapter 2)", setting up exactly what kind of betrayal daisy-chain we're in store for:
    Then a knock at the door, the gun's in my hand
    He opens the door, I can't believe it's a man
  • The second time, in "Trapped in the Closet (Chapter 9)", heralds Reverse Cerebus Syndrome:
    Now pause the movie because what I'm about to say to y'all is so damn twisted
    Not only is there a man in his cabinet, but the man... is a midget! Midget! Midget!
• Kirby Krackle (Music) has a song called "Up, Up, Down, Down" which is basically about a random guy falling in love with a girl who plays video games. Turns out that she's a cannibalistic murderer that's been stalking the guy for a while now. She kills him right after their first date and he sings about how he's dead.
  I said we should do it again
  That's when you stabbed me with a pen
• Kendrick Lamar drops a couple of these throughout To Pimp a Butterfly:
  • "How Much a Dollar Costs" details Kendrick's encounter with a homeless man who asks him for a dollar. When Kendrick ultimately refuses, the man ends with this:
    You're lookin' at the Messiah, the son of Jehova, the higher power
    The choir that spoke the word, the Holy Spirit
    The nerve of Nazareth, and I'll tell you just how much a dollar cost
    The price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss, I am God.
  • On "The Blacker the Berry", a song largely about racial injustice and anger, Kendrick starts each verse with "I'm the biggest hypocrite of 2015." At the end of the song, he explains why:
    So why did I weep when Trayvon Martin was in the street
    When gang banging made me kill a nigga blacker than me? Hypocrite!
  • Throughout the album, some songs end with snippets of a poem Kendrick is reciting. At the end of the last track, "Mortal Man", the full poem is shown, and after that comes why exactly Kendrick wrote the poem:
    Shit, and that's all I wrote. I was gonna call it Another Nigga, but... it ain't really a poem, I just felt like... it's something you probably could relate to.
  • "Keisha's Song" on Section .80, which also references Tupac's "Brenda's Got a Baby" (listed above) as Foreshadowing. It's a standard portrait of the life of a sex worker, until the last few lines:
  Nothing really matters, so she hit the back seat
  and caught a knife inside the bladder, left her dead, raped in the street
• Miranda Lambert:
  • "White Liar" starts as a typical "You cheated And That's Terrible" song until:
    Here's a bombshell just for you
    Turns out I've been lying too
  • In the song "Over You", the chorus "You went away / How dare you / I miss you / They say I'll be okay / But I'm not going to / Ever get over you" implies a typical break-up song, and most of the lyrics fit with that. Then comes the last stanza: "It really sinks in, you know / When I see it written in stone." It's followed by the chorus one last time, but now we know that it's about mourning a boyfriend who died.
• "Sk8r Boi" by Avril Lavigne seems to be a 3rd person story and you expect the girl to see the error of her ways and get together with the titular character until the bridge, which reveals the story was actually being told from a new player in the love game:
  Sorry girl you missed out
  Well tough luck that boy's mine now
• "If I Don't Make It Back" by Tracy Lawrence. The chorus has a friend telling the narrator what to do if he doesn't make it back from combat:
  Have a beer for me, don't waste no tears on me
  On Friday night, sit on the visitors side and cheer for the home team
  Drive my Camaro 90 miles an hour down Red Rock Road
  With "Born to Run" blastin' on the radio
  And find someone good enough for Amy
  Who will love her like I would have
  If I don't make it back

  The Wham Line comes on the bridge, as it goes straight from "If the Good Lord calls me home / I'd like to think my friends will think about me when I'm gone" to:

  Well, Miller Lite ain't my brand
  But I drink one every now and then, in his honor
  And we ain't missed a home game yet
  Had that Camaro at 110 on Red Rock Road when the speakers blowed
  And I introduced Amy to a friend of mine from Monroe
  He's a good ol' boy, but you know, she just ain't ready

• "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" by Vicki Lawrence (later covered by Reba McEntire) is the story about a woman's brother being falsely accused of the murder of a friend of his for sleeping with his wife (who is also missing) and then at about the end of the song the lyrics explain why her brother is innocent:
  Well, they hung my brother before I could say
  The tracks he saw while on his way
  To Andy's house and back that night were mine
  And his cheatin' wife had never left town
  And that's one body that'll never be found
  You see, little sister don't miss when she aims her gun
• Typical in Tom Lehrer, provided you don't know the title or that his songs are comedic:
  • "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park":
    All the world seems in tune
    On a spring afternoon
    When we're poisoning pigeons in the park
  • The opening lines of "I Hold Your Hand in Mine":
    I hold your hand in mine, dear, I press it to my lips
    I take a healthy bite from your dainty fingertips
  • "Lobachevsky":
    In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics:
    Plagiarize
  • "The Hunting Song":
    I went out and shot the maximum the game laws would allow
    Two game wardens, seven hunters and a cow
  • "We Will All Go Together When We Go":
    If the bomb that drops on you
    Gets your friends and neighbors too
    There'll be nobody left behind to grieve
• The Living Tombstone's "September". The entire song is about an amnesiac who wakes up to find everyone in his town dead. And just when you're least expecting it, the final stanza comes:
  I just remembered
  What happened in September
  I'm the one who killed them all
  I survived after the fall
• From hip-hop musician Logic had a surprise for the audience in a verse of his new song "No Pressure Freestyle":
  And I'm having a little baby
  Surprise, it's a little baby boy
  F**k TMZ, they can't get the scoop on that s**t
  Welcome little Bobby to the world one time
  Alright, I'm done
  That's it, yeah
• Louis Logic's "The Ugly Truth" consists of him being offensive and derogatory to just about every minority group under the sun. African Americans, Asians, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, everyone gets insulted and stereotyped. The lyrics are downright mean. And then comes the Wham:
  Then again, I know it seems like I'm the devil's rotten henchman
  But no one on this Earth loves all of God's inventions
  Not to mention, I got a date to try and talk with Satan
  And lots of tension, because I'm late for my inauguration
  ("Right this way, Governor Bush...")
• The Lonely Island's "Semicolon" is a List Song presented as a list of uses of semicolons. Until the end:
  No, actually those are examples of colons. You all get Fs.
• The Long Winters' "The Commander Thinks Aloud" is a relaxing if slightly trippy-sounding track with happy, mildly space-themed lyrics. The last line changes the tone of the song from serene and hopeful to shocked and helpless as it's repeated over and over, with absolutely no change in key.
  The crew compartment's breaking up...
• In Patty Loveless's "Here I Am," the narrator spends the first two verses and choruses taunting her ex, insisting that he's only using alcohol and other women in vain attempts to forget her. She seems to relish watching his life fall apart without her. Then, she lets down her own guard and reveals the truth, revealing either massive projection on the narrator's part, or a devastating subversion of all All Love Is Unrequited.
  Here I am, here I am
  I still carry a flame for you
  Burning me like a brand
  Here I am
• The Magnetic Fields have two songs with these on their album 69 Love Songs:
  • "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan" sounds like your average song about a couple breaking up or being torn apart. The lyrics are sad enough and talk about a time "when I come home, if I come home". Then we find out:
    I'm off to the war but you can be sure
    I will know you're what I'm fighting for
  • Then there's "The One You Really Love", which sounds like a regular love song about a love triangle, with one party thinking about someone else... until the end of the song, where we find out that "the one you really love" is "the corpse you really love".
• Manic Street Preachers' "The Intense Humming of Evil" is a disturbing account of the Holocaust (written by Richey Edwards as he was battling his personal demons) and the atrocities the Nazis inflicted upon the Jews, but the final line puts the song through a complete detour:
  Churchill no different, wished the workers bled to a machine
• "Hazard" by Richard Marx sounds at first like a nice song about two teenage outcasts who hook up. Until...
  No one understood what I felt for Mary
  No one cared until the night she went out walking alone
  And never came home
• Reba McEntire's song "Somebody" starts out being about a man sharing his dating troubles with a waitress at his favorite diner. She tells him that he may be surprised to find the love of his life might be right in front of him and he never noticed. The chorus goes on to talk about how the perfect person could be someone you walk past every day and just haven't really met yet. As the man is taking the elevator in his apartment complex, he notices "that blue-eyed girl from two floors up" and wonders if she could be the one the waitress meant. The third verse makes it abundantly clear though that:
  Now they laugh about the moment that it happened
  The moment they both missed until that day
  When he saw his future in her eyes
  Instead of just another friendly face
  And he wonders why
  He searched so long
  When she was always there
  At that diner waiting on
  • "Fancy," a Southern Gothic ballad originally sung by Bobbie Gentry, sounds like a nervous coming-of-age song for a young woman who is gifted with a nice dress by her mother the summer she turns 18. The second verse has her mother explain that the family's poverty had reached a breaking point. She is terminally ill and the father has run off, so she's made plans for Fancy. What those plans are hits the audience with the lines:
  It sounded like somebody else, it was talkin'
  Askin' "Mama, what do I do?"
  She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy
  They'll be nice to you"
• "All the Lads in Town" by the Merry Wives of Windsor has a girl looking for a husband, only for her father to reveal that all of her suitors are her half-brothers resulting from his dalliances with other women. When she tells her mother about his tomcatting, she reveals that she's also been keeping a secret:
  Your father may be father
  To all the lads but still
  He's not the one that sired you
  So marry who you will
• Metallica:
  • "Sad But True":
    I'm your truth, telling lies
    I'm your reason, alibis
    I'm inside, open your eyes
    I'm you
  • "Wherever I May Roam" sounds like it's being sung from the point of view of a man who is constantly traveling, probably as a musician. Then it's revealed that he was dead all along.
    Wherever I may roam
    Carved upon my stone
    "A body lies, but still I roam"
• Kate Miller Heidke's "Caught in the Crowd" is about how back in high school, the narrator had a budding friendship with an awkward boy named James. Eventually, James is pushed to the ground by a group of bullies who taunt him for not having any friends. He looks up at the narrator and calls her name, and...
  I turned my back...and just walked away
• Milli Vanilli unintentionally had one in their live cover of "Girl You Know It's True":
  I'm in love, girl, I'm so in love, girl
  I'm just in love, girl, and this is true
  Girl, you know it's- Girl, you know it's- Girl, you know it's- Girl, you know it's- Girl, you know it's-
• the Mountain Goats have a few songs with Wham Lines:
  • "Store": It happens somewhat early in the song, but it's still jarring to realize that the narrator is actually hallucinating the return of a dead person:
    I saw you touch down
    You were no longer dead
  • "Pale Green Things": The last song on The Sunset Tree, an album about John's relationship with his abusive step-father, "Pale Green Things" arguably has two Wham Lines, and the song as a whole might be considered a Wham Song in the context of the album. The first Wham Line is "Sometimes I'll meet you out there / Lonely and frightened"; up until this point, his step-dad is only shown as an abusive drunk, and this is the first time in the album where he's painted as a vulnerable human being. Then the second Wham Line:
    My sister called at 3 AM
    Just last December
    She told me how you'd died at last, at last
    And that morning at the race track was one thing that I remembered
  • "Alibi": At first, it in't quite clear why he needed an alibi, but then...
    Your boyfriend's outta town until Tuesday
    And nobody saw me come in, nobody saw me come in
• The song "Polly" by Nirvana contains a Wham Line in the second line of lyric:
  Polly wants a cracker
  Think I should get off her first
• From the NOFX song "Ditch Effort":
  We've all got sickness, but I'm the one with Hepatitis C
• Czech bard Jaromir Nohavica sings about how nice would it be to live a hundred years ago in a little Czech-Polish town, until this line:
  And the beautiful life would await me, the entire beautiful twentieth century
• The Notorious B.I.G.:
  • "Me & My Bitch":
    I saw my bitch dead with the gunshot to the heart
  • "Suicidal Thoughts":
    I'm sick of niggas lyin', I'm sick of bitches hawkin'
    Matter of fact, I'm sick of talkin' [BANG]
• The Offspring has a song from Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace called "Hammerhead". Most of the song sounds like it's from the point of view of a soldier or maybe a cop, but in the last few lines...
  You can all hide behind your desks now
  And you can cry, "Teacher, come help me!"
• The anti-war song "One Tin Soldier" by The Original Caste has these lyrics, revealing what the Mountain People's treasure really was:
  Now they stood beside the treasure
  On that mountain, dark and red
  Turned the stone and looked beneath it
  "Peace on Earth" was all it said
• When Gilbert O'Sullivan sings to "Clair" about their love and their age difference, you know he's singing to a younger girl. But then he says "Get back into bed / Can't you see that it's late / No, you can't have a drink..." and discloses that he's her babysitter.
• In Paint's song "After Ever After," the song soon focuses on what happened to Pocahontas after the ever after. It's pretty much what you'd expect would happen when reality ensues in a film dealing with the colonization of America. But this line pretty much reveals to us what happened to the heroine herself...
  So now I'm far more liberal with a weapon
  When I separate their bodies from their heads (Wait! What?)
• Pink Floyd's song "Young Lust" on the album The Wall:
  "Oh, he hung up! That's your residence, right? I wonder why he hung up? Is there supposed to be someone else there besides your wife there to answer?"
  "See he keeps hanging up, and it's a man answering."
  
  I've got some bad news for you, sunshine...
• Prince's B-Side "Another Lonely Christmas" — at first it just seems like the narrator spending Christmas Day alone reminiscing about an ex-girlfriend whom he still loves, but the situation changes when:
  Baby, you promised me you'd never leave
  Then you died on the 25th day of December
• "Me and Emily" by Rachel Proctor. It's clear that the mother and her daughter Emily are on the road, with the father figure absent ("Where's my daddy, do I have one? Does he not love me like you do?"). Then it turns out that they're leaving because the male in the story is abusive:
  Nothing I did was ever good enough to make him happy
  So I guess he gave me what he thought I deserved
  But it would kill me if he ever raised his hand to her
• The Protomen:
  • There's a Reveal towards the end of their first album on the track "The Stand (Man or Machine)":
    You came to avenge your brother's death. But here he stands, in the shadow of the man you've come to destroy.
  • Another one occurs in "The Sons of Fate," when the gathered crowd of humanity "reassures" Megaman after he's forced to kill Protoman.
    Humanity: You are a hero!
    Megaman: You are the dead.
• Pusha T's infamous Drake diss track, "The Story of Adidon," has a line which reveals something unknown to the general public at the time:
  You are hiding a child, let that boy come home
  Deadbeat mothafucka playin' border patrol, ooh
  Adonis is your son
  And he deserves more than an Adidas press run; that's real
• "Annabelle" by the Raging Teens starts out seeming like it's a love song about a Hard-Drinking Party Girl. For example, the singer mentions her wanting to stay out all night, being carried to bed after passing out on the floor, and even hitting him on the head with a bottle. Halfway through the song, the bridge reveals that she's one year old and the narrator is her father. It puts a certain comedic spin on earlier lines — for instance, that was probably a plastic baby bottle she hit him with.
• Thomas Rhett's "Marry Me" starts out with the singer talking about his love, who is planning her wedding and wants to get the details right. It sounds like every other love song until the chorus:
  I'll wear my black suit, black tie, hide out in the back
  I'll do a strong shot of whiskey straight out the flask
  I'll try to make it through without crying so nobody sees
  Yeah, she wanna get married
  But she don't wanna marry me
• Stan Ridgway's "Camouflage" (later covered by Sabaton) has a young soldier in the Vietnam War find himself alone and cornered, until a "big Marine" calling himself Camouflage arrives and saves him. The two return to the young soldier's camp, Camouflage seeming Immune to Bullets, and Camouflage leaves once they arrive. The soldier tells this story to the other men:
  When I said his name a soldier gulped
  And a medic took my arm
  And led me to a green tent on the right
  He said, "You may be tellin' the truth boy,
  But this here is Camouflage,
  And he's been right here since he passed away last night"
• LeAnn Rimes's "Probably Wouldn't Be This Way" sounds like the narrator's moving on from a failed relationship. But its Wham Line reveals that the previous boyfriend has died:
  You oughta see the way these people look at me
  When they see me out here talking to this stone
• In "Coward of the County" by Kenny Rogers, Tommy's girlfriend is gang-raped by three men. When he goes to confront them, they only laugh at him, since he's considered to be "the coward of the county". He seemingly proves them right by turning to leave, but then...
  But you could've heard a pin drop
  When Tommy stopped and locked the door

  Made more effective because it's spoken, not sung.

• "Part of Me" by Royce Da 5'9" starts off with a man singing about missing a woman he had a one-night stand with, with the chorus saying "all I'm saying is, when you left, you took a part of me with you". The story explains how they met and the events that led up to that point, and then tells exactly what she took:
  The letter reads, "Never ask for shit
  Cause you can get more than you asked for
  WE HAVE YOUR DICK!"
• Rush (Band):
  • At the end of "2112":
    Attention, all Planets of the Solar Federation
    We have assumed control
  • "The Trees":
    Now there's no more rogue oppression
    For they passed a noble law
    Now the trees are all kept equal
    By hatchet, axe, and saw
• "I Can't Be Your Friend" by Rushlow pulls this off. The song sounds like it's setting up a breakup:
  This might come as quite a shock
  But I've given it a lot of thought
  This thing that's come between us can't be ignored
  I've taken all I can
  This is where it's gotta end
  'Cause I can't be your friend anymore

  But then in the third verse, he reveals that he's actually asking to be her husband:

  Well, take me as I am
  'Cause I wanna be your man
  But I can't be your friend anymore

• Scroobius Pip's "The Struggle" has an excellent example. "My name is Johnny Depp, and I kill people."
• If you're only familiar with "Like a Rock" by Bob Seger from the Chevy ads, then the second verse begins with one hell of a wham line...
  Twenty years, now. Where'd they go?
• Ed Sheeran has several of these:
  • The last verse for "Little Lady" from the No.5 Collaborations Project, a song about a miserable prostitute, is one big Wham Verse:
    And in the moment of rage, he brutally murders his niece
    And dumps her body in the boot of his Merc in the Street
    Little lady left this Earth in the worst way
    All because she got a card on her 13th birthday
  • "Small Bump" sounds like a sweet song about a man talking to his unborn child, telling it his hopes for being a dad. Then we come to the final lyrics:
    You were just a small bump, unborn for four months, then torn from life
    Maybe you were needed up there, but we're still unaware as why
• Sia's "Butterflies" is a Silly Love Song. The final line "Because we came from the same cocoon" reveals that it's talking about siblings.
• Simon & Garfunkel:
  • "The Sun is Burning". They start out rhapsodizing about a beautiful day in suburbia in peaceful, mellow tones. Although the peaceful melody remains to the end, the lyrics take a sudden dark turn with the fourth verse:
    Now the sun has come to Earth
    Shrouded in a mushroom cloud of death
  • "Richard Cory," based on the poem by E. A. Robinson, is about a man who seems to have it all, and whom the narrator desperately wants to be:
    He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch
    And they were grateful for his patronage, and they thanked him very much
    So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read
    "Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head"
• Todd Snider's "America's Favorite Pastime" tells the story of Dock Ellis, pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and his pitching stint on June 12, 1970. The song makes no secret of the fact that he was high and that he was pitching well, but it's not until the last line of the last verse that the true magnitude of his feat is revealed:
  And though the papers would say he was scattered that day
  He was pretty as a pitcher could be
  The day Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates threw a no-hitter on LSD^note  To put this in perspective, there have only been 294 no-hitters since 1876, and this is a sport with 2,430 games per season!
• Sound Horizon's "Yield" at first sounds like a simple song about a lonely girl during the harvest season, albeit one with an odd passage about subtracting from an unstable number to bring back stability ([3-1+1-2]). Then comes the line revealing that the "sweet fruits" the girl is harvesting aren't actually fruit:
  Ah, but isn't that a head?
• Bruce Springsteen:
  • In "My Father's House," the narrator, after having a nightmare, decides to reconcile with his estranged father. He drives all the way to his father's house, and is there greeted by an unfamiliar woman.
    I'm sorry son, but no one by that name lives here anymore
  • There's a hell of one in "Born in the USA":
    I had a brother at Khe Sahn
    Fighting off the Viet Cong
    They're still there, he's all gone
    [The music continues playing, but the line in the verse is blank.]
    He had a woman he loved in Saigon
    I got a picture of him in her arms now
• In Chris Stapleton's "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore", the narrator describes how his father was always a devout Christian but has recently stopped praying — it isn't until a bridge before the last chorus that we find out why:
  Today I followed daddy down to church
  And listened to the preacher read God's word
  And we sang his favorite hymn, but daddy didn't make a sound
  And this afternoon we'll lay him in the ground
• Sufjan Stevens's twenty-five minute song "Impossible Soul" is an upbeat and optimistic song from the point of view of a girl in a relationship, using lines like "Boy, we can do much more together" and "It's not so impossible!" to explain the great potential of their relationship. That is, until the last three minutes, when it shifts to the guy's point of view, which starts with "I never meant to cause you pain..." After this he goes on to lament how much he has led the girl on. Ouch.
• Stratovarius: "When Mountains Fall" starts off sounding like a typical Break-Up Song sung from the point of view of the dumpee. Then the second verse reveals that the singer's lover didn't dump him, she died.
  Finally, I found your place
  Sadly, I came three summers late
  Now I am sitting by your grave
  And I sing this song for you
• An old but nice one from Styx's "Come Sail Away":
  I thought that they were Angels but to my surprise
  We climbed aboard their starship, we headed for the skies
• Taylor Swift:
  • "Mad Woman", though the song has never been confirmed to about Scooter Braun, the line in the bridge "The master of spin has a couple side flings", seemed to reveal his cheating, further illustrated by the fact that his wife filed for divorce soon after.
  • Swift also has two in "no body, no crime", first revealing Este's death:
    Este wasn't there
    Tuesday night at Olive Garden, at her job, or anywhere
    He reports his missing wife
    And I noticed when I passed his house, his truck has got some brand new tires...

    Then revealing the narrator's revenge plan:

    Good thing my daddy made me get a boating license when I was fifteen
    And I've cleaned enough houses to know how to cover up a scene
    Good thing Este's sister's gonna swear she was with me
    Good thing his mistress took out a big life insurance policy

  • "The Moment I Knew" is about her being upset with a love interest for missing an important social gathering, but the final chorus reveals what that gathering was "And they're all standing around me singing 'Happy Birthday to you'"
• TechN9ne's "Aw Yeah? (interVENTion)", a very angry song about problems that matter a lot to the narrator, climaxes with:
  Who the hell a brother gonna trust when it's always dishonor?
  Hate me like Obama
  And I ain't even got around to askin' you the question, God
  What about my mama?! ^note To put it into perspective, Tech N9ne had a strong connection to his mother, who passed away before he recorded the song.
• Toadies' "Tyler" initially seems like it's just about a guy planning on picking up his girlfriend to go on a romantic road trip, before it gradually starts seeming more like an attempted kidnapping, if not worse. The first sign that something is off is that he has to break into her house when he gets there ("I find a window in the kitchen and I let myself in").
• "867-5309/Jenny" by Tommy Tutone plays like a song about a loser too afraid to call the girl of his dreams until it reaches the bridge.
  I got it, I got it
  I got your number on the wall
  I got it, I got it
  For a good time, for a good time call

  These lines reveal that he has never even met her.

• "Rosetta Stoned" by tool has an amusing example where the narrator describes his abduction by aliens and being told vast secrets of the universe:
  Overwhelmed as one would be placed in my position
  Such a heavy burden now to be the one
  Born to bear and bring to all the details of our ending
  To write it down for all the world to see
  But I forgot my pen
• This one on Devin Townsend's "Deconstruction", considering how much she went through just to get it.
  But I don't eat no cheeseburgers guys! I'm a vegetarian!
• Pete Townshend's beautiful "North Country Girl", an adaptation of Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country", is a bittersweet reflection on a woman the narrator knew way back then... until the final verse:
  Please let me know if she remembers me at all
  A hundred times I've hoped and prayed
  That way up there by the Roman Wall
  She didn't suffer when the fallout sprayed
• Randy Travis's country song "Three Wooden Crosses" is about four strangers (a farmer, a teacher, a preacher, and a prostitute) whose paths cross when they all ride a bus together, bound for Mexico. When the bus is hit by a semi, all but one of the four die that day, and we're given this set-up:
  That farmer left a harvest, a home and eighty acres
  The faith an' love for growin' things in his young son's heart
  An' that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children
  Did her best to give 'em all a better start
  An' that preacher whispered: "Can't you see the Promised Land?"
  As he laid his blood-stained bible in that hooker's hand

  Most of the remainder of the song is used to compound the lives that were tragically cut short, and to argue that the value of one's life is in the things one leaves behind. Then, at the very end, we get the real Wham Line:

  That's the story that our preacher told last Sunday
  As he held that blood-stained bible up
  For all of us to see
  He said: "Bless the farmer, and the teacher, an' the preacher
  Who gave this Bible to my mamma
  Who read it to me"

• Tripod's song "That's Why I'm Sending You" starts off sounding like a normal break-up song, of the kind that goes "We had a lot of good times, and I really do like and respect you, but this isn't working and I think we need to end it". Then the song takes a sharp turn into pure comedy with this line:
  That's why I'm sending you... this text message. To let you know that we're through... concisely.
• "What's Your Mama's Name," by Tanya Tucker, is about a man (named in the song as Buford Wilson) who was imprisoned after asking a little green-eyed girl what her mother's name was, offering her a piece of candy if she would tell. The people overhearing the conversation misconstrued his interest, and he was sent to prison for a month, suffering emotional ruin and dissolving into alcoholism. After the man died thirty years later, a letter was removed from his ragged jacket, revealing, in the song's final verse, that the girl was his daughter, Buford having identified her by her eye colour (which was the same as his), and he was trying to confirm it by asking for her mother's name.
  Inside the old man's ragged coat
  They found a faded letter
  It said "You have a daughter
  And her eyes are Wilson green"
• The song "House of Gold" by Twenty One Pilots starts off sounding upbeat enough and well spirited. In the narrative of it, a mother asks her son to take care of her in her later years, and the son promises her a good life leading into full grandeur. It doesn't last:
  But since we know that dreams are dead
  And life turns plans up on their head
  I will plan to be a bum
  So I just might beCOME SOMEONE!
• U2: It's not all that clear what the song "Running to Stand Still" is about, until we get to the penultimate line:
  She will suffer the needle chill
• Carrie Underwood's "Just a Dream" starts with the singer heading to her wedding night ("It was two weeks after the day she turned eighteen / All dressed in white, going to the church that night"). Due to Ambiguous Syntax, we assume the wedding is the focus of the song. Until...
  She put her veil down, trying to hide the tears
  Oh, she just couldn't believe it
  She heard the trumpets from the military band
  And the flowers fell out of her hand
  Baby, why'd you leave me, why'd you have to go?
  I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
• Vocaloid:
  • The song "Love Disease" is a perky little number about a girl who's just happy to be spending time with the guy she likes. Then, after they've spent the day together and she starts heading home, we're treated to these lines, which mark the point where things start to go downhill:
    Look this way and call my name
    But I guess that's just my wish
    That's right, because you still
    Don't even know my face
  • "15 Years of Pursuing a Cute Boy" starts off sounding like a goofy Stalker with a Crush song, but then:
    In the 15th year my memories returned
    I remembered everything, and burst into tears
    Because I remembered
    That you died 15 years ago
  • Another Vocaloid song by Gumi, "My Crush Was a Monster Boy", is about a girl who follows her crush home on the last day of school. Turns out he's raising a monster on an abandoned hill. Even so, she promises to keep his secret, and grows close to him over the summer. Then, on the last day of summer, we get this gem:
    We held each other's hands
    And got close
    But just then
    The boy I had a crush on... was eaten by his monster

    This is immediately followed by the realization that by being eaten by the monster, the boy has become the monster. Hence the title of the song.

  • Evillious Chronicles:
    • "Moonlit Bear" (accompanied by a fade-in Wham Shot):
      Listen, our children are already
      Not in this world
      Please return these two children
      To their true mother's side
    • "Evil Food Eater Conchita":
      There is still one thing I haven't eaten
    • "The Tailor of Enbizaka":
      He spoke to me as though I were a stranger
  • The song "Kagerou Days" from the Kagerou Project is about a young boy who undergoes many iterations of a "Groundhog Day" Loop to save his best friend, and he thinks he's found a way out of the loop when he lets himself die in her place in the last verse. The final two lines of the song are as follows:
  The weeping girl, cradling a cat, said:
  "I guess I failed this time too..."
• "Blue-Eyed Matador" by Voltaire is about a person who finds themselves in a bullfighting arena upon death. They quickly conclude that the bull is The Devil and the beautiful woman in the audience with eyes like the sea is an angel sent to bless and protect him.
  Suddenly I remember the girl with eyes like the sea
  I turn and she winks and she smiles gently
  As the bull runs straight into me
  I lay, I lay, I lay, I lay, I lay my eyes on the devil
  "Blue Eyed Matador!" I cried, "I fell for your clever disguise!"
• "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who sounds like it's mostly about self-pity. That is, until the second verse...
  No one knows what it's like to feel these feelings
  Like I do
  And I blame you!
• Wilco's "She's a Jar". Sounds like a bittersweet love song, then the last line changes everything:
  She's a jar, with a heavy lid
  My pop quiz kid
  A sleepy kisser, a pretty war
  My feelings hid
  She begs me not to hit her
• Robbie Williams's "No Regrets" ends straight on this final section:
  Often I sit down and think of you for a while
  Then it passes by me and I think of someone else instead
  I guess the love we once had is officially... dead
• "Weird Al" Yankovic sometimes plays it straight for a few lines before twisting the song in a comedic direction.
  • From "One More Minute":
    So I pulled your name out of my Rolodex
    And I tore all your pictures in two
    And I burned down the malt shop where we used to go
    Just because it reminds me of you
  • "Good Old Days" starts every verse this way. This is the first:
    Sometimes I think back to when I was younger
    Life was so much simpler then
    Dad would be up at dawn
    He'd be watering the lawn
    Or maybe going fishing again
    
    And mom would be cooking up something in the kitchen
    Fresh biscuits or hot apple pie
    And I'd spend all day long in the basement
    Torturing rats with a hacksaw
    And pulling the wings off of flies
  • "You Don't Love Me Anymore":
    We've been together for so very long
    But now things are changing, oh I wonder what's wrong?
    Seems you don't want me around
    The passion is gone and the flames died down
    
    I guess I lost a little bit of self-esteem
    That time that you made it with the whole hockey team
    You used to think I was nice
    Now you tell all your friends that I'm the Antichrist
  • He saves the Wham for the very final line of "Since You've Been Gone".
    Ever since that day you left me
    I've been so miserable, my dear
    I feel almost as bad as I did
    When you were still here
  • From "I Remember Larry":
    Say do you remember when I broke into Larry's house
    Late at night and tied his mouth with a rag
    Then I dragged him by his ankles through the middle of the forest
    And stuffed him in a big plastic bag
    If the cops ever find him, who knows what they'll say
    But I'm sure if old Lar were still with us today
    He would have to agree with me it was a pretty good gag
  • From "Foil", the abrupt transition from a song about storing food to about a Conspiracy Theorist:
    Oh, by the way, I've cracked the code
• "Flowers" by Billy Yates sounds like it's a standard Break Up Song, but the final verse reveals that the woman in the relationship was killed by the narrator in a drunk-driving accident:
  I still see you on your knees
  Beggin' me not to drive
  But I took away the keys
  And made you climb inside
  An' I'd take your place in this field of stone
  If I only had the power
  Look what it took
  For me to finally bring you flowers
• "Excitable Boy" by Warren Zevon seems to be about a young man with some issues. Then you get to the third stanza:
  [H]e took little Suzie to the Junior Prom
  And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
• Steve Martin's Pretty Little One has one, after the several stanzas building up to the singer murdering his ex-girlfriend
  I was calm as I can get
  So I lit a cigarette
  In the flicker I could see
  She had a pistol trained on me

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