History WhamLine / Music

--->''[[DomesticAbuse I guess the bruises won't show]]\\
[[DomesticAbuse If she wears long sleeves]]''

* In Music/MirandaLambert's 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 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.

* Music/BruceSpringsteen: 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.
-->''[[YouAreTooLate I'm sorry son, but no one by that name lives here anymore]]''

* Music/JethroTull'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.

* Music/SufjanStevens' 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.
* [[Music/{{KRSONE}} 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"
* Czech bard Jaromir Nohavica sings about how nice would it be [[BornInTheWrongCentury 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.
* 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: [[DaydreamSurprise "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 [[spoiler: 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 ([[spoiler: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 ([[spoiler: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..."
* "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 [[GroinAttack what she took]]:
-->The letter reads, 'never ask for shit\\
Cause you can get more than you asked for\\
WE HAVE YOUR DICK!'
* 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 [[PresidentEvil for my inauguration]].\\
("Right this way, [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Governor Bush]]...")
* 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 who they suspect of being a witch. She gives the girls a tonic, which causes the girls 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 "'[[PlaceboEffect 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.
* 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. [[RealityEnsues 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 [[SuddenlyShouting beCOME SOMEONE!]]
* {{Music/Bing Crosby}}'s 1943 song ''I'll Be Home For Christmas'' is pretty straightforward, with the singer ([[RealitySubtext a soldier away from home]]) reminding their family to make all the Christmas preparations (presents wrapped, mistletoe hung, etc.), because he'll be [[HomeByChristmas home for Christmas...]]
-->''[[TearJerker If only]] [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in my dreams...]]''
* "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" by Vicki Lawrence (later covered by Music/RebaMcEntire) 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
* Pete Townshend's beautiful "North Country Girl," an adaptation of Music/BobDylan'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 hopes and prayed\\
That way up there by the Roman Wall\\
[[AfterTheEnd She didn't suffer when the fallout sprayed]]
* "If I Don't Make It Back" by Music/TracyLawrence. 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
* Music/BruceSpringsteen had a hell of a 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\\
[ [[{{Beat}} The music continues playing, but the line in the verse is blank.]] ]\\
He had a woman he loved in Saigon\\
[[TogetherInDeath I got a picture of him in her arms now]]
* Music/{{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:
-->[[TitleDrop That's why I'm sending you...]] this [[JerkAss text message.]] To let you know that we're through... [[BlatantLies concisely.]]
* Music/RebaMcEntire'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...
* Music/MirandaLambert's White Liar starts as a typical "You cheated AndThatsTerrible" song until:
-->Here's a bombshell just for you
-->[[NotSoDifferent Turns out I've been lying too]]
* "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.
* ''Music/KagerouProject'': The song ''Kagerou Days'' is about a young boy who undergoes many iterations of a GroundhogDayLoop to save his best friend, and he thinks he's found a way out of the loop when he [[spoiler: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:\\
"[[GroundhogPeggySue I guess I failed this time too...]]"''

* In Paint's song, ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diU70KshcjA After Ever After]]'', the song soon focuses on what happened to {{WesternAnimation/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?)
* 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 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
* "I Want You" by Music/{{Delain}} sounds like a [[SillyLoveSongs Silly Love Song]] at first, but then slowly turns into an AntiLoveSong and then goes into [[{{Yandere}} "Overly Attached Girlfriend"]] territory.
-->''No one could see it coming''
-->''A tragic day''
-->''How did that car get in your way?...''
* "Diane" by [[Music/HuskerDu Hüsker Dü]] starts off sounding like a [[SillyLoveSongs 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 BasedOnATrueStory).
-->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
* Music/JethroTull's "Christmas Song" starts off nice and festive, until:
-->''While you're stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties''
* Sophie B. Hawkins "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 who she's singing to.
* Music/TheDecemberists' "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.''
* Music/TheMountainGoats have a few songs with Wham Lines:
** "Alibi": "Your boyfriend's outta town until Tuesday/And nobody saw me come in, nobody saw me come in!" Until then, it wasn't quite clear why he needed an alibi...
** "Store": "I saw you touch down/You were no longer dead." It happens somewhat early in the song, but it's still jarring to realize the narrator [[spoiler:is actually hallucinating the return of a dead person.]]
** "Pale Green Things": The last song on "The Sunset Tree", an album about[[CallingTheOldManOut 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, we had only known his step-dad to be 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".

* "Norwegian Wood" by Music/TheBeatles 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\\

* Music/PinkFloyd's song "Young Lust" on the album Music/TheWall:

* "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.
* Music/TheOffspring 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!'
* Music/HarryChapin'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 out maneuver 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 "[[LukeIAmYourFather Of course, dear son, where do you think you came from in the first place?]]"
* From ''Music/TwentyFirstCenturyBreakdown'' by Music/GreenDay comes the song "¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl)", in a moment that [[ItMakesSenseInContext makes more sense in the context of the rock opera itself]]: "You are your own worst enemy ... [[IronicEcho Know your enemy.]]
* [[Music/ManicStreetPreachers The Manic Street Preachers]]' Intense Humming of Evil is a disturbing account of the Holocaust ([[CreatorBreakdown 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: [[GodwinsLaw "Churchill no different, wished the workers bled to a machine."]]
* In "A Day in the Life" by Music/TheBeatles: "He blew his mind out in a car ..." The moment you know the song is far darker than most previous Beatles works and the moment you realize this will be quite ... different.
* At the end of 2112 by Music/{{Rush}}:
-->Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation. We have assumed control.
** By the same band, "The Trees":
-->Now there's no more rogue oppression
-->For they passed a noble law
-->Now the trees are all kept equal
-->[[FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence By hatchet, axe, and saw]]
* This one on Music/DevinTownsend's Deconstrution, considering how much she went through just to get it.
-->[[ItMakesSenseInContext But I don't eat no cheeseburgers guys! I'm a vegetarian!]]
* Music/SimonAndGarfunkel:
** "Richard Cory", based on the poem by E. A. Robinson, about a man who seems to have it all, and who 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 [[StepfordSmiler and put a bullet through his head.]]
** "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.
* In Music/MirandaLambert's 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 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.
* Music/LeAnnRimes'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".
* "One Last Time" by Dusty Drake also 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...
* "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."
* Mallary Hope's "Love Lives On" has one. It starts out sounding like a break-up song (seeing a pattern here?), 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 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
* "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?"). But instead of yet another breakup, 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
* [[Music/ThomasRhett 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
--> [[WeddingBellsForSomeoneElse But she don't wanna marry me]]
* In one song about "50 ways to fool your mother," the boy manages to convince his mother that he is, in fact, sick and will have to stay home from school.
-->Maybe by tomorrow, you'll feel okay
-->I'm really very sorry that you're sick on Saturday.
-->''(the boy is speaking)'': [[OhCrap Saturday...?]] I-I thought it was Friday...
* Music/WeirdAlYankovic sometimes plays it straight for a few lines before twisting the song in a comedic direction. "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

-->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

-->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 hen 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 ConspiracyTheorist:
-->Oh, by the way, I've cracked the code.
** From "One More Minute":
-->So I pulled your name out of my Rolodex
-->And I tore all your pictures in two
-->[[SerialEscalation And I burned down the malt shop where we used to go]]
-->Just because it reminds me of you!

--->''[[InsaneTrollLogic If the bomb that drops on you]]\\
[[InsaneTrollLogic Gets your friends and neighbors too]]\\

* If you don't know the title, Music/MichaelBuble'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 who he feels he should have done more to stay with, until it's revealed 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
* An old but nice one from Music/{{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!"
* Music/SoundHorizon'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'':
-->[[OffWithHisHead Ah, but isn't that a head?]]
* Music/{{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...
* Music/BruceSpringsteen: 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.
-->[[YouAreTooLate I'm sorry son, but no one by that name lives here anymore]]
* Music/{{Prince}}'s BSide "Another Lonely Christmas" - at first it just seems like the narrator spending Christmas Day alone reminiscing about an ex-girlfriend who 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''
* Music/TheLivingTombstone's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSZlAltkYoc 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\\
[[AmnesiacDissonance I'm the one who killed them all\\
I survived after the fall]]
* Music/TheMagneticFields 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'.
* The Music/ArcadeFire song "(Antichrist Television Blues)" is about an amoral StageDad 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
-->[[HeelRealization Oh tell me Lord, am I the Antichrist?!]]
* Music/TheNotoriousBIG
** ''Me and 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)
* EverythingElse: In "Religion Song (Put Away The Gun)", the middle section sounds like a bigoted rant, claiming "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."
* "Norwegian Wood" by Music/TheBeatles 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.
* Scroobius Pip's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3HCXh9WQSo "The Struggle"]] has an excellent example. 'My name is Johnny Depp, and I kill people.'
* "[=Sk8r=] Boi" by Music/AvrilLavigne 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:
--> Sorry girl you missed out
--> [[LastGirlWins Well tough luck that boy's mine now]]

* Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway: "Something's changed, it's not your face! It's [[TomatoInTheMirror mine!]] It's ''[[TwistEnding mine]]''!"

* The end of [[Music/TupacShakur 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\\
[[RippedFromTheHeadlines "Prostitute Found Slain"]]\\
And Brenda's her name\\
She's got a baby.
* Music/TheCranberries:
** "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 BreakupSong:
--> I swore, swore I would be true.\\
Well, honey, so did you.\\
So, why were you holding her hand?
* Typical in Music/TomLehrer, provided you don't know the title or that his songs are comedic:
** "All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when we're poisoning pigeons in the park."
** The opening line: "[[TitleDrop I hold your hand in mine,]] dear, I press it to my lips/[[ImAHumanitarian I take a healthy bite from your dainty fingertips.]]"
** "In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize."
** "I went out and shot the maximum the game laws would allow/Two game wardens, seven hunters and a cow!"
** "[[InsaneTrollLogic If the bomb that drops on you/Gets your friends and neighbors too]]/[[ApocalypseHow There'll be nobody left behind to grieve]]."
* Music/{{Devo}}'s "Beautiful World":
--> It's a beautiful world
--> For you, for you, for you
--> It's not for me.
* An indie band, [[https://www.youtube.com/user/kirbykracklemusic Kirby Krackle]], played [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg2kDtJZos8&feature=player_embedded a song]] called [[KonamiCode "Up, Up, Down, Down"]] which is basically about a random guy falling in love with a girl who plays video games. [[spoiler:Turns out she's a [[IAmAHumanitarian 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
* Done twice in Music/RKelly's ''Music/TrappedInTheCloset'', the first time setting up exactly what kind of [[BetrayalTropes betrayal daisy-chain]] we're in store for, and the second time heralding ReverseCerebusSyndrome:
-->Then a knock at the door, the gun's in my hand, he opens the door, I can't believe [[ComingOutStory it's a man!]]
-->Now [[NoFourthWall pause the movie because]] [[LemonyNarrator what I'm about to say to y'all is so damn twisted!]] Not only is there a man in his cabinet, [[LittlePeopleAreSurreal but the man...is a midget!]] Midget! Midget!
* Music/{{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
* 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 lied 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.
* The Music/{{Vocaloid}} song "Love Disease" is a [[LyricalDissonance 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\\

[[StalkerWithACrush Don't even know]] [[{{Yandere}} my face.]]
** 15 Years of Pursuing a Cute Boy starts off sounding like a goofy StalkerWithACrush song, but then:
--> In the 15th year my memories returned\\

Because I remembered...\\
[[DeadAllAlong That you died 15 years ago]].
** Another Vocaloid song by Gumi, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePlhVtDLSbg "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 [[FluffyTamer 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\\

But just then!\\
The boy I had a crush on... was eaten by his monster!
::: This is also immediately followed by the realization that by being eaten by the monster, the boy has ''become'' the monster. Hence the title of the song.
* ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'':
** "Moonlit Bear" (accompanied by a fade-in WhamShot)
--->Listen, our children are already\\

To their true mother's side.
** "Evil Food Eater Conchita":
--->[[{{Autocannibalism}} There is still one thing I haven't eaten.]]
** "The Tailor of Enbizaka"
--->[[StalkerWithACrush He spoke to me as though I were a stranger]].
* From 'Coward of the County'': "But you could've heard a pin drop, when Tommy stopped and locked the door." Made more effective because it was spoken, not sung, by Music/KennyRogers. [[spoiler: Tommy was about to beat up the three men who had raped his girlfriend. They laughed at him earlier, because he was thought to be "the coward of the county."]]

-->No one knows what it's like to feel these feelings/Like I do/And I blame you!
* "Rosetta Stoned" by Music/{{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...
* "What's Your Mama's Name", by Music/TanyaTucker, is about a man (named in the song as Buford Wilson) who is 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 [[spoiler: 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"."
* 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.
* "All Your Life", by Music/TheBandPerry: 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".

* The very last lines of Music/{{Ayreon}}'s album ''The Human Equation'':
-->Forever of the Stars: Emotions. I remember.
* The last sung line in [[Music/{{Eagles}} Hotel California]] "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

-->''(the boy is speaking)'': [[OhCrap Saturday...?]] [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments I-I thought it was Friday...]]

* The entire third verse of Rupert Holmes' "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 said, “Oh, it’s you”\\

And I said, “I never knew...”
* Music/ChuckBerry'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 the family was split up by the wife/girlfriend.
* When Music/GilbertOSullivan 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.
* From the Music/DavidBowie song "Space Oddity:"
-->Ground control to Major Tom.\\
Your circuit's dead. There's something wrong.
** From "Cygnet Committee":
-->And the road is coming to its end.\\
[[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope Now the damned have no time to make amends!]]
** "The Width of a Circle":
-->When I realized that God's a young man, too!
** "Repetition":
-->[[DomesticAbuse "I guess the bruises won't show. If she wears long sleeves.]]
* The song "Polly" by Music/{{Nirvana}} contains a Wham Line in the second line of lyric:
-->Polly wants a cracker\\
[[RapeAsDrama Think I should get off her first]]
* "[[Music/DreamTheater Open your eyes, Nicholas.]]"
** The same song has "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
* Kate Miller-Heidke's ''Caught in the Crowd" "I turned my back...and just walked away."
* Given away somewhat by the title of the song, "Fucker" by Music/{{Eels}} seems like such a sweet song until: "Something about you / Something about spending the afternoon asleep in your arms / I hate you / Fucker."

-->The crew compartment's breaking up...

--> We’ve all got sickness but I’m the one with Hepatitis C!
* Music/PinkFloyd on the album Music/TheWall:
--> "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."
-->[[DarkReprise I've got some bad news for you, sunshine...]]
* Music/TheProtomen include a [[TheReveal 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.

--> '''Humanity''': You are a hero!\\
'''Megaman''': [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere You are]] [[KillEmAll the dead]].
* 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 AmbiguousSyntax, 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...
* "Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway: Something's changed, it's not your face! It's [[TomatoInTheMirror mine!]] It's ''[[TwistEnding mine]]''!"
* Music/{{Metallica}}'s "Sad But True":
-->I'm your truth, telling lies\\
I'm your reasoned alibis\\
I'm inside open your eyes\\
I'm you!
* Music/{{Metallica}}'s "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 he was {{dead all along}}.
-->Where ever I may roam\\
Carved upon my stone\\
"A body lies, but still I roam"
* Music/RandyTravis' country song, ''Three Wooden Crosses'', is a song 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'' WhamLine:
-->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."
* Atmosphere's "Yesterday" tells the story of a man who thinks he catches a glimpse of someone who 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 [[{{Tearjerker}} 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.

-To their true mother's side.
*** "Evil Food Eater Conchita":

*** "The Tailor of Enbizaka"

-To their true mother's side.\\

--> ''[[GlorifiefSpermDonor Deadbeat mothafucka playin' border patrol, ooh]]''

* The entire third verse of Rupert Holmes’ “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:

* From the Franchise/EvilliousChronicles songs, we have in ''Moonlit Bear'' (accompanied by a fade-in WhamShot)
-->Listen, our children are already
-->Not in this world
-->Please return these two children
-->To their true mother's side.
** From ''Evil Food Eater Conchita:
-->[[{{Autocannibalism}} There is still one thing I haven't eaten.]]
** Another from ''The Tailor of Enbizaka'', similar to ''Love Disease'' above.
-->[[StalkerWithACrush He spoke to me as though I were a stranger]].

--> ''[[DisappearedDad Deadbeat mothafucka playin' border patrol, ooh]]''

-->And you are only eight!

* "[=Sk8r=] Boi" by Music/AvrilLavigne 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

--> Well tough luck that boy's mine now

So I just might become someone.

-->Like you did on me

-->[[YourCheatingHeart Like you did on me]]

* [[Music/ThomasRhett]]: "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.

-->And you are only eight!

* "Go Home Girl" by Music/GaelicStorm has the narrator, a Gypsy man, trying to convince a girl in love with him to [{ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin go home]]. He runs through several arguments, and at the end:

* Stan Ridgway's "Camoflague" (latered covered by Music/{{Sabaton}}'' has a young soldier in the Vietnam War find himself alone and cornered, until a "big Marine" calling himself Camoflague arrives and saves him. The two return to the young soldier's camp, Camoflague seeming ImmuneToBullets, and Camoflague leaves once they arrive. The soldier tells this story to the other men:

-->[[DeadAllAlong And he's been right here since he passed away last night"]]

* Toadies' "Tyler" initially seems like it's just about a guy planning on picking up his girlfriend to go on a romantic road trip- 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").

** [[PaedoHunt Or maybe...]]

* Toadies' "Tyler" initially seems like it's just about a guy plamning on picking up his girlfriend to go on a romantic road trip- the first sign that something is off is that he has to break into the house when he gets there ("I find a window in the kitchen and I let myself in").

-->While we were apart, I was human too