Songs that you misinterpreted

I'm one of the many people who used to think "Blister in the Sun" is about masturbation. Sure, there are drug references like "I'm so strung out" and "I'm high as a kite" but I just assumed they were comparisons to establish how he faps so regularly it's like a drug habit and the pleasure derived from it.

I've heard various other interpretations (drugs, being in the closet, cheating on a significant other) so I'm still not sure what it's about but I'm probably paying too much attention to/misinterpreting "I stain my sheets I don't even know why" and "Big hands I know you're the one."

I didn't misinterpret the rest of the song, which has a pretty obvious Rock-Star Song theme, but I remember that when Joe Walsh sang "I go to parties, sometimes 'til 4" in "Life's Been Good", I was dumb enough to think he was talking about 4 pm.

edited 14th Sep '13 11:14:08 PM by MikeK

Hey man, you ever been to any crazy rockstar parties? They rock and roll all night and party every day.

Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

I always thought it was about aids and how the gay community was being ravaged by a seemingly unstoppable disease but recently I have begun to doubt that interpretation. The more I listen to the lyrics the more I am convinced the song is about the rampant gang violence of the time and 'Steve' is a gangster not some allusion to the AI Ds virus.

I don't think Freddie ever confirmed the true meaning of the song so I might still be off the mark completely.

Interesting...gangs hadn't occurred to me but that makes some sense. Along the same lines: I didn't hear "Bohemian Rhapsody" until Mercury was just about to pass away, and until I learned how old it was, I thought it was him lamenting his dying from AIDS.

Your interpretation is the same I came up with when I first heard the lyrics. I feel like the sound of the song reinforces that a lot—thinking about it, it really reminds me a lot of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal".

I think Bo Ho Rap is a bunch of incoherent noncense ala I Am The Walrus. Freddie pretty much said so.

A song interpretation that makes me really upset: everything the Foo Fighters did is about Kurt Cobain. (It really annoys me when people say "My Hero" is about him.)

And personally, Money by Pink Floyd as a pro-money song. That's a common mistake.

edited 19th Sep '13 9:04:37 PM by Smasher

I remember going to their songmeanings, and it seemed like if a song seemed sad or uplifting someone would decide it was about Kurt, and if a song seemed angry it was of course about Courtney.

To be fair, even Grohl's bandmates say that a great deal of those angry songs are probably about Courtney, but I suppose even that should be taken with a grain of salt.

If so many songs really are about Mr. and Mrs. Cobain, I think Grohl might need some therapy.

I have two Misinterpretations, actually:

In The Kinks' "The Village Green Preservation Society", I always heard "Vernacular" (We are the Sherlock Holmes English Speaking Vernacular) as "Fenebula". I still hear it as that, and for the longest time I thought a Fenebula was a fancy Organization.

And in The Who's "I Can See For Miles", I sometimes hear "Well here's a poke at you" as "Well here's a Pole Cat view" (Pole Cats are Skunks).

"My name is Joseph" rather than "My name is trouble" from the Megadeth song Train of Consequences. Never made the classic mistake of calling "Sad but True", "Sex Patrol"

Evidently, the song was originally written about cowboys, but at some point or another this was scrapped altogether and by the time it was finished, it really wasn't about anything in particular.

Actually, it's similar to how "One Vision" was supposed to be Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech, just retooled a bit and simplified so that it could be set to music, but then the song became a collaboration between all the band members and they just threw whatever the hell they wanted into it. Freddie himself was partial to doing such during the recording sessions for the song, which is how we ended up with the "fried chicken" bit at the end. Finally, it was confirmed by Freddie himself a couple of times that Bo Rhap is pretty much just meaningless nonsense and nothing more.

edited 18th Dec '13 6:07:39 PM by LightPhaser

SNIP; wrong thread

edited 20th Dec '13 4:50:31 AM by Willbyr

Although there's the idea that Freddie (and possibly Roger and Brian) lied about the songs being meaningless to deflect from his personal life.

Actually, they're basically wild ferrets...

I thought Whitney Houston's "I will always love you" was "I will always Lemieux" when I was five or six and it was around 1991 or 1992 when the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley cup and I didn't know the song title so I thought it was about Mario Lemieux.

I was about to say that! Although there are parts of North America where skunks are referred to as polecats, which given that both have potent scent glands is not entirely surprising... despite the fact that they look nothing alike.

I love mustelids.

''Pricks Up Front'' by Andy Prieboy. Thought it was something political, while it was really about singers getting all the attention in bands.

• Every band has a man
• Who is born to command
• And demand the affections
• Of the audience
• He's adored and revered
• And is head of the herd
• While you serve and support
• His insignificance

edited 20th Dec '13 7:52:19 PM by KlarkKentThe3rd

When i first heard "Mr. Brownstone" by Guns N Roses, i assumed it was about a landlord or boss or something (due to the comments about "that old man"). It wasnt until i got online that i found out what the song was really about (namely, heroin).

I used to think Wolf Moon by Type O Negative was simply a song about werewolves, with a few lyrical non sequitors because Pete Steele loves to take the piss. Then I learned the late Mr. Steele was indeed taking the piss, only he was using lycanthropism as a metaphor about going down on a girl during her period. Squick.

Meanwhile I got that it wasn't about a person, but somehow thought it was about booze.

Why would you dance with your boss? (we've been dancing with Mr. Brownstone...)

Anyway, similar to the "every Foo Fighters song is about Kurt Cobain" thing, there was a brief "every song by Muse is about Twilight" thing once they had a song on the soundtrack to the first movie.

Since the song was just posted in another thread, I used to think I Want Candy was about actual candy. In fact, part of me still thinks it is about actual candy.

Oh yeah, this one's kind of embarrasing, but when i first heard the song "God Bless the USA", i thought it was about some post-apocolyptic survival tune ("if tommorow all the things were gone i'd worked for all my life/and i had to start all over with just my children and my wife"). Definitely not what that's about, though it would be more enjoyable if it was (come to think of it, are there any country songs with sci-fi/fantasy themes?).

The only one I can think of off hand is the final verse of Highwayman by the Highwaymen, but it's only the final verse for a couple of lines.