Songs that you misinterpreted

Are there any songs that you totally misconstrued the lyrics to? Like, you thought it was about something but it wasn't?

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In Rascal Flatts' "Skin (Sarabeth)", the subject is a girl with leukemia, who is worried about going bald after chemotherapy. The last verse is:

It's quarter to seven

That boy's at the door

And her daddy ushers him in

And when he takes off his cap

They all start to cry

Cause this morning, where his hair had been

Softly, she touches just skin

For the longest time, I thought this meant that the boy had cancer too. Then I heard a DJ talk about the song on-air, and say that the boy in the song shaved his head out of sympathy. I've never known anyone with cancer, so I didn't realize that people do that.

When I was little and I heard "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood on the radio, I thought it was just a song telling you to calm down and chill out. Then I heard it when I was older, realized he's saying "when you wanna cum" not "when you wanna come," and realized what it was really about.

When I was a kid and anything but versed in adult slang about women, I thought Hank Williams Jr's "Gonna Go Hunting Tonight" was actually about chasing animals. Once I was old enough, I realized he was talking about chasing a completely different variety of tail.

As a kid I assumed "Lil' Red Riding Hood'' was meant in the literal, fairy tale, sense rather than the metaphorical.

edited 21st Mar '13 9:10:37 PM by Robotnik

Yeah, if you mean this song, I remember hearing it on oldies radio as a kid and thinking the same thing.

I somehow didn't get that "Another Day In Paradise" by Phil Collins was about homelessness at first (I was about nine or ten when it was popular), even though it's pretty blatant about it... Instead I got this idea that it was about some kind of False Utopia.

edited 3rd Apr '13 3:22:35 PM by MikeK

Earth is the only planet inhabitable by Nicolas Cage.

There's a song called "Carolina Rua" which I always thought was about a little girl. Turned out it was about the composer's crush.

edited 19th Apr '13 11:18:20 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

There's a song by Da Yoopers that uses a lot of Unusual Euphemisms for the female genitals, one of which is the title "Ring Dang Do". Let's just say that for a long time I thought it was about a cat.

I used to think "Fast Car" was an escapist fantasy.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is about a man on death row about to be executed. I always thought he was still on the run in the song.

"Bring It On Home To Me" is about a guy begging his girlfriend to return to him after a breakup. He promises to do everything for her if she'll only come back: 'give you jewelry, money too' and 'always be your slave, till I'm dead and buried in my grave.' However, for a long time, I assumed he was listing things he'd already done for her, and was angry and frustrated with her because she still wouldn't 'bring your sweet lovin', bring it on home to me'. The way Eric Burdon sings it makes it sound more angry than pleading, and I was a little fuzzy on English grammar when I first heard the song, thus giving rise to this misinterpretation. I was actually disappointed when I found out the real meaning of the song - it sounds pretty pathetic now that I know he's begging on his knees rather than ranting about being treated unfairly.

And then there's "Boys Keep Swinging". I thought this was a cheerful celebration of good old-fashioned masculinity: 'boys keep swinging, boys always work it out.' Was I ever wrong... The song is actually full of gender-bending, Deconstruction, and gay jokes. I mean, just look at the music video for Hendrix's sake:

And when I was 10 or 11 and happily singing along to "Y.M.C.A.", I was blissfully unaware of the homoerotic subtext of lines like 'hang out with all the boys' and 'many ways to have a good time'.

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...

Honestly, I'm sure most people in general miss the homoeroticism of "YMCA".

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My first introduction to YMCA was in a horribly homoeroticism-charged context, so I can never separate it from homoerotic innuendo.

"..."

My introduction to it was tame parties with friends and family celebrating some event like a Confirmation or something. Something like that.

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It was a favourite at the family discos my Catholic Primary School used to do.

Am I a good man or a bad man?

I sure did. And I'm sure most of the staff at my old parochial school did, otherwise they wouldn't have played it at just about every dance. Problem is the song makes zero sense without it. Once I knew disco (and Village People) was a gay thing, I thought, "Oh, now I get it."

...since when is disco a "gay thing"?

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Disco was at least in part a gay thing, dude.

edited 22nd Apr '13 10:00:39 PM by Robotnik

But it was also a trend that was massively popular among the majority of people in the mid-to-late-'70s, so that'd hardly make it exclusive. That's like saying gangsta rap is a suburban white boy thing because of how popular it is with suburban white boys.

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I didn't say it was "exclusive". I said it was at least in part a "gay thing". Which it was.

edited 22nd Apr '13 10:09:56 PM by Robotnik

That still seems a bit marginalizing and pigeonholing, though, putting it like that.

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I don't think it's unfair to say that it least seemed to resonate with the LGBT community moreso than other music at the time.

edited 22nd Apr '13 10:13:27 PM by Robotnik

Fair enough, but just calling it a "gay thing" seems really rather ignorant, in many different ways.

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No one who knows anything about the 70s can say disco didn't achieve mainstream popularity, but the article implies it didn't start out that way.

What do you mean "just calling it a gay thing"?

edited 22nd Apr '13 10:18:42 PM by Robotnik

Ah, forget it, I'm too tired to argue anyway.

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I probably didn't mean whatever you think I meant and was only stating what I knew to be true, but whatever.

edited 22nd Apr '13 10:32:43 PM by Robotnik

Eh, I'm running on no sleep in past 20something hours, so I dunno.

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