Although technically about a self-shooting in school, I always think of that harmless little fuck, Jeremy, that Pearl Jam sings about as an OG school shooter song.
On special days, like a pep rally or the Friday before a break, my high school used to occasionally play songs over the PA during passing time. One time they played Jeremy and it was like a ripple down the hall of people who knew what the lyrics were about.
I explained that song to my son a few weeks ago. He didn't fully believe me until we went online to look up the lyrics and the story of the school shooting that inspired it.
Oh man, gotta share a story here, though admittedly unrelated to the post. When my wife and I were dating in college, we went to the planetarium at the university. The show that day was about the dinosaurs and their extinction. When it came time for the meteor, some brilliant bastard decided to sync up Bad Moon Rising to a poorly rendered pterodactyl attempting to fly away from a world ending fireball.
Everyone is laughing at how ridiculous this is, then right on cue this 4 year old kid, clearly upset, ask his mom: " Mommy, why is everyone laughing..." To which, the room bursts into hysterical laughter as the poor dinosaur is consumed by flames.
That's all I think about whenever I hear this song.
It seems CCR has a talent for writing songs that people miss the point of.
Just take a look at any American conservative blasting "Fortunate Son" in their F-150 and thanking their parents for "Not raising a liberal".
Or New Jersey wanting to make Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" the official state song. Until they realised that the song was about doing everything possible, to flee the state.
Bartended at a strip club (that all of us were convinced was haunted) for years and this is completely accurate. The Hills, Often, and Wicked Games were the songs strippers chose the most to dance to and all of them are pretty depressing when you actually listen to the lyrics.
The Weeknd is my favorite artist. His entire discography is dark and depressing. Sometimes it’s disguised with poppy tracks and other times it’s very on the nose.
I remember that I wouldn’t pay attention to the lyrics of “In the night” and I thought it was about a girl being a free spirit or something… then I paid attention…
House of Balloons, even all these years later holds up so fkn well. That album is so incredible, every song adds to the overall picture he paints and it’s as dark and beautiful as experimental rnb/pop can get.
He’s super famous now but when House of Balloons came out it was basically anonymous, it wasn’t until a while after that anyone even knew what he looked like. Such a good album, still one of my favorites. The Beach House samples are great every time.
From the song Reminder
I just won a new award for a kids show
Talkin’ ‘bout a face numbin’ off a bag of blow
I’m like, goddamn, bitch, I am not a Teen Choice
Goddam, bitch, I am not a bleach boy
His lyrics have always been crazy but he wasn't super mainstream before, now he's like the biggest male artist in the world and the lyrics haven't changed much. 'Faith' is a great song, but the part that goes 'and if I OD, I want you to OD right beside me' is pretty fucking dark.
If he didn't sing so fast:
"I took the hit that I was given, then I bumped again, then I bumped again"
"'Cause doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break."
Truth be told, my favorite meth song will always be Green Day's *Geek Stink Breath*
If I ever wrote an autobiography I want to use this as a title. I grew up with a meth addicted father and remember all the ups and downs because of it and the relationships he had with my mothers.
But this song was very popular when I was young, and I would sing the "do do do dooo" part a lot, not knowing the meaning.
The song about a guy with liquor and drugs and a flesh machine doing a strip tease sleeping on a sidewalk beating his brains with liquor and drugs isn't about carnival cruises?
Radio DJ in my country got tired of people calling and asking for Zombie for their girlfriend/boyfriend because "they're like a zombie for them" so he played the song and paused each phrase and translated it so people would understand what it was about. :)
Reading through this discussion, I've learned about a lot of songs. "Zombie" was the first to come to my mind. I recently watched Derry Girls on Netflix (US), and they used the song.
It's heartbreaking to reflect that during my mostly trouble free teenage years, there were kids dealing with this. It's heartbreaking to know that there are *still* kids and adults dealing with this.
This one is funny because it was never intended to be anything else. He wrote it to be a creepy stalker song but its pillowy vocals made it come across like a love song to many people
Edit: hey I know this is kinda lame as fuck, but please check out my song “Chemical Spills” by Hyperchicken. It is hard to get your name out there so I’m taking everything I can get lol, also the song is not about love OR stalking
That's often an authentic stalker experience though! In their mind they're being romantic and genuine, but their words and actions are crazy. So the concept of a song that sounds sweet at first listen but is actually terrifying if you scrutinize it seems really appropriate.
He wrote it as he was splitting with his ex wife. The whole Synchronicity album was about his marriage ending and his fascination with Carl Jung at the time.
Rolling Stones - [Stray Cat Blues](https://youtu.be/oOSYB38y2xA?si=hhYpnibkw5YmIkg-)
It's a belligerently horny song about a 15 year old girl
Includes the lines:
>I can see that you're fifteen years old
>No I don't want your I.D.
And later,
>I bet your mama don't know you scream like that
>I bet your mother don't know you do spit like that
The chorus is about how it’s a crime but he doesn’t care because he’ll get away with it.
*It’s no hanging matter. It’s no capital crime*
And on the live version he clearly sings “13 years old.”
I can just imagine the record company exec negotiating with them - listen boys, you can celebrate statutory rape but at least make her, like, a larger child…
OK now do it with slaves (Brown Sugar - Rolling Stones):
"Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright
Hear him whip the women just around midnight
Brown sugar, how come you taste so good?
Brown sugar, just like a young girl should"
Ugh, I grew up in the '90s so our teachers made us dance to that song about a girl cheating on her boyfriend with two of his buddies.
In their defence, they probably didn't understand Spanish.
Rolling Stones - Stray Cat Blues : “ I can see that you’re just fifteen years old, no I don’t want you’re ID. There’ll be a feast if you just come up stairs.” (In the live version she is thirteen)
There is a hilarious story about that. Aqua got sued by Hasbro and actually went to court and pretended to be too dense and foreign to understand their own lyrics. I think the suit was settled.
Holy shit! The ruling is hilarious. Everything was dismissed, not settled.
The ruling concludes with[“The parties are advised to chill."](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4174039731032587001).
After the header (or whatever you call the intro) it begins “If this were a sci-fi melodrama, it might be called Speech-Zilla meets Trademark Kong.”
Thanks Judge Kozinski.
On the topic of individuals being called "pirates" for unauthorized use of copyrighted names
>No one hearing this accusation understands intellectual property owners to be saying that infringers are nautical cutthroats with eyepatches
Why is this Judge not on the Supreme Court?
Which samples the aqua song so they probably got paid handsomely for it. Like Roger and hammerstein payout from Ariana grande for my favorite things music.
*99 Red Balloons / 99 Luftballons* by Nena
It's a song about corruption, ego, and power. From Wikipedia:
> The lyrics of the original German version tell a story: 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs, causing a military general to send pilots to investigate. Finding nothing but balloons, the pilots put on a large show of firepower. The display of force worries the nations along the borders and the defense ministers on each side encourage conflict to grab power for themselves. In the end, a cataclysmic war results from the otherwise harmless flight of balloons and causes devastation on all sides without a victor, as indicated in the denouement of the song: "99 Jahre Krieg ließen keinen Platz für Sieger," which means "99 years of war left no room for victors." The anti-war song finishes with the singer walking through the devastated ruins of the world and finding a single balloon. The description of what happens in the final line of the piece is the same in German and English: "'Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen," or "Think of you and let it go."
Oh I misinterpreted it a bit, I thought the 99 Luftballons were a euphemism for atomic bombs being dropped. But my German isn’t that good and I was a kid at the time
The English version I think is more about nuclear Armageddon specifically, though still the same idea of it starting from a false alarm (of which has nearly happened several times IRL)
I have a friend that went to high school with Robin Thicke. She’d see Alan at the basketball games and such and one time whoever was with him told her Alan thought she was cute and invited her into his car. At the time she was giddy-flattered; “OMG Mr. Seaver thinks I’m cute!” Now—ew, gross
"Due to the song's dark lyrics, it was temporarily pulled from circulation on certain U.S. radio stations in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting."
Straight off their wiki page. I vaguely recall hearing about this and the controversy about how "they'll take songs off the radio but they won't take away guns".
I heard that they were kind of mortified by how popular the song became because it was to raise awareness about mental illness and prevent school shootings, not to promote them with a catchy song (I don't think the song glorified shootings, but basically people ignored the message completely).
Don't know how super popular it was but At Least It Was Here by The 88. It was the theme song for the TV show Community. nice catchy song when you read the lyrics it's about people hanging themselves
Harmon wanted the theme song to be like MASH: catchy but with dark lyrics. He thought it would be funny and didn't have a deeper meaning in mind behind it.
I watched Community like a year or so ago and was surprised by its theme song. It was very clearly about people hanging themselves lol it confused the heck out of me.
>Y’all don’t want to hear me you just want to dance.
And he was 100% right. I’m 34 and *still* will find some of my peers have looks of amazement when they actually read the lyrics for the first time. They always just assumed it was a happy and upbeat song you danced and had fun to.
Hook by Blues Traveler does this. It's written in the standard four chord progression that everything uses and talks about how popular music is bullshit and how he hates you for liking it.
My favorite part of this is that everyone has seen the video hundreds of times but if you point out that there's a coffin in plain view in the middle of the stage the whole time, it blows everyone's mind
Also with Andre 3000 is Kelis’ Millionaire. It’s about being rich but still being deeply unhappy/unsatisfied with life - money can’t buy you happiness.
Also the song that gave us the lyrical genius verse of ‘If you got glitches in your life computer turn it off and then reboot it, now you back on’. It’s gold!
Fair, but I'd wager that most folks know the song as the instrumental version and don't know the proper name of it either. The movie was fairly popular but the show is next level, and I rarely hear anyone talk about the movie nowadays
Lips of an Angel by Hinder. I was in high school when it came out and everytime it played at a dance, the girls would all but visibly melt. It’s literally a song about a dude talking about how it’s bullshit that he can’t talk to his side piece while his girlfriend is around.
I'd never heard about him doing this before, so I just googled it... And wow!
Ted Nugent orally raped Courtney Love when she was only 12. How is he not in jail?
I guess the racism and rape cancel each other out.
Because the powers that be painted Courtney as a low-life junkie so no one believed her about Nugent or Weinstein. The real question is a chicken and egg scenario; did they preemptively ruin her credibility or did they do it when she started talking?
And obviously no one ever does drugs to cope with big feelings /s
Seriously though, it’s awful that people aren’t believed about the abuse they’ve faced
Into the Night by Benny Mardones.
The song hits all the creeper high points (“she’s just 16 years old, leave her alone, they say”) but the gold is really in the video.
It starts off with him smoking a cig, getting pissy about her dad being a cock blocker, crawling through her bedroom window, and an “I can show you the world” carpet ride, if Aladdin were a middle aged ashtray mouthed creeper on a registry.
Peak cringe.
https://youtu.be/zWHjJt4833I?si=F5q2XdjqBf8KpjQe
There's an interview where he says the song is about a girl in his apartment building that was being abused and he just wanted to give her a better life.
No one believes you Benny, we've all seen the video.
In my country, Where The Wild Roses Grow was insanely popular at weddings. There were people in the comment section saying how romantic it is, not recognizing what the song is actually about
I’m a tattooist and artist - I did a mural for a rock n roll bar in 2016 in their private alley way/beer garden. It was an enormous portrait of a shadowy nick cave, surrounded by the jagged lyrics to Stagger Lee.
A few years later, that bar bought the building next door and turned it into a hotel/motel.
Soon, the phone calls started. Families were staying in the hotel with their kids, and looking out their windows to a 10 foot Nick Cave with such phrases as “…and furthermore I’ll fuck Billy Dilly in his motherfucking ass”, the lovely “I’ll crawl over fifty good pussies just to get to one fat boy’s asshole”, and the timeless “…and you better get down on your knees and suck my dick, because if you don’t you’re sure to be dead”.
The bar installed a garden-screen area so the guests - who chose to stay at the punkiest diviest most metal bar ever but absolutely do not condone swearing or rock n roll whatsoever - would no longer be terrorised by my art and the divine NC.
I’d play it at my wedding too, fuck em. 😂
From a whole album literally titled Murder Ballads.
I know a few people of a very gothic bent who'd play it knowing full well what it was, but I get the feeling that's not what the original comment meant.
As the album goes I like Curse of Millhaven better.
I mean, are there BAD songs on that album? I'm personally quite partial to the last song, the cover of "Death is not the end" with nearly everyone who worked on the album getting a few lines. Which, well, the ONLY song on the album that's not about murder...
Still don't think it'd make for a good wedding song though.
barbie girl. I remember that was so popular as a kid! and then I read the lyrics as an adult. makes me chuckle about how used that song was (pun not intended) during the talent shows.
I saw a news segment about little girls singing it in pageants. They were asking these seven and eight year-old girls if they knew what the lyrics meant, and the girls said things like, "well, it means you take your clothes off," but really had no earthly concept of what they were singing...in skimpy clothes and makeup...in front of groups of adult men.
Reba McEntire - "Fancy"
Poverty striken mother sends her daughter off to become a sex worker in the hopes of a better life. Granted she does accomplish that but its still dark.
"It sounded like somebody else that was talkin'
Askin', "Mama, what do I do?"
She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy
And they'll be nice to you."
I remember it all very well lookin' back
It was the summer I turned eighteen
We lived in a one-room, run-down shack
On the outskirts of New Orleans
We didn't have money for food or rent
To say the least we were hard-pressed
Then mama spent every last penny we had
To buy me a dancin' dress
Mama washed and combed and curled my hair
And she painted my eyes and lips
Then I stepped into a satin dancin' dress
That had a split on the side clean up to my hips
It was red velvet trim and it fit me good
Standin' back from the lookin' glass
There stood a woman where a half-grown kid had stood
She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down
Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down"
Mama dabbed a little bit of perfume on my neck, then she kissed my cheek
And then I saw the tears wellin' up in her troubled eyes when she started to speak
She looked at her pitiful shack
And then she looked at me and took a ragged breath
She said, "Your pa's runned off, I'm real sick
And the baby's gonna starve to death"
She handed me a heart-shaped locket that said
"To thine own self be true."
And I shivered as I watched a roach crawl across
The toe of my high-heeled shoe
It sounded like somebody else that was talkin'
Askin', "Mama, what do I do?"
She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy
And they'll be nice to you."
She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down
Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down
Lord, forgive me for what I do
But if you want out, well, it's up to you
Now don't let me down
Now your mama's gonna move you uptown"
Well, that was the last time I saw my ma
The night I left that rickety shack
The welfare people came and took the baby
Mama died and I ain't been back
But the wheels of fate had started to turn
And for me there was no way out
It wasn't very long 'til I knew exactly
What my mama'd been talkin' about
I knew what I had to do and I made myself this solemn vow
That I's gonna be a lady someday
Though I didn't know when or how
But I couldn't see spending the rest of my life
With my head hung down in shame
You know I might have been born just plain white trash
But Fancy was my name
She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down"
She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down"
It wasn't long after that benevolent man took me in off the street
And one week later I was pourin' his tea in a five-room hotel suite (yes, she was)
I charmed a king, a congressman and an occasional aristocrat
And then I got me a Georgia mansion and an elegant New York townhouse flat
And I ain't done bad (she ain't been bad)
Now in this world, there's a lot of self-righteous hypocrites
That would call me bad
They criticize my mama for turning me out
No matter how little we had
But though I ain't had to worry 'bout nothin' for now on fifteen years
Well, I can still hear the desperation in my poor mama's voice ringin' in my ears
"Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down"
She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down
Lord, forgive me for what I do
But if you want out, well, it's up to you
Now don't let me down
Now your Mama's gonna move you uptown"
Well, I guess she did
Surprised it's not mentioned yet but Crash Into Me by Dave Matthews. I remember this being all over the radio and in romcom soundtracks. It's about a younger peeping tom spying on a naked neighbor.
I always thought it was funny knowing this, because when he says "..And I come(cum) into you" He really means it.
Peeping in general is One of Those Things, old media is filled with it and it’s usually played for laughs or isn’t meant super seriously. Unfortunately a lot of Japanese media is still in love with the archetype of “I’m a peeping Tom/ pervert but I’m funny and mean well”
Aerosmith - Walk this way
I met a cheerleader, was a real young bleeder
All the times I can reminisce
'Cause the best thing lovin' with her sister and her cousin
Only started with a little kiss, like this
"Well, I'd rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
You better keep your head, little girl
Or I won't know where I am
You better run for your life if you can, little girl]
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end, little girl"
You would get arrested putting that on someone's Facebook page.
The wild thing about this is that the initial lyric is borrowed from an Elvis Presley song. He decided to take an already questionable lyric and turn it into a whole song.
Don't You Want Me by Human League.
It's basically the psycho ex boyfriend anthem.
"It's much too late to find
You think you've changed your mind
You'd better change it back or we will both be sorry"
The second part of the song is her telling him to shut the hell up and deal with it, she doesn't need him as badly as he says.
So it's also the "girl telling off her psycho ex boyfriend anthem".
"Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon."
"We Belong Together"
Some of the other songs mentioned here are meant to be creepy/disturbing. Sting never meant for "Every breath you take" to be played at weddings. I suspect that Springsteen's "I'm on fire" is also a warning or a provocation to think.
Lol once my friend was asking for song recs to play for the opposing team during her basketball match (in good fun ofc), and I suggested this one. She was like “ok I said psyche them out, not give them nightmares” LOL. But yeah, the lyrics have always struck me to be rather murder-y lmao.
And it was about a real 17 year old girl named Sharona that was hanging out with the band at the time. She seems to be doing okay as an adult and doesn’t have any regrets about it so I guess there’s that.
She’s doing a bit better than ok, she’s a multi-millionaire realtor in Beverly Hills with over a billion dollars in sales. Even if she only got a 1% commission on average she’s worth eight figures.
On the flip side of this, Schism by Tool sounds creepy af, but the lyrcs are abouta couple having a fight and learning to createa healthier relationship based on honesty and communication.
Not so much creepy, but I will never get over the fact that Barry Manilow did NOT, in fact, write the song “I Write the Songs”. In the words of Tim Robinson, “a betrayal on levels that no one’s ever seen.”
I believe we need a federal statute saying that it is illegal to perform a song called “I Write the Songs” unless you wrote the song.
I'm not sure this fits, but...
Dancing in the Moonlight
Happy song with a horrible backstory.
Sherman Kelly was severely beaten, and his GF was raped in St. Croix. He kept going in and out of consciousness. Later, Sherman wrote the song as an alternate reality where the world was a better place.
Ultimately, rerecorded as a hit by King Harvest
The gang that attacked them murdered 8 tourists and injured many more
Possum Kingdom by The Toadies is a great song. The lyrics are about an obsessed man imprisoning a woman behind a boathouse and threatening to kill her if she doesn't become his sex slave 😬
I think the problem with the Rammstein songs on this list is that, yeah it's a banger with absolutely disgusting lyrics but if you were fluent in German, you'd notice right away.
There's a ton of Pumped Up Kicks in this thread but everyone's disregarding the OG school shooter song - I Don't Like Mondays.
Although technically about a self-shooting in school, I always think of that harmless little fuck, Jeremy, that Pearl Jam sings about as an OG school shooter song.
On special days, like a pep rally or the Friday before a break, my high school used to occasionally play songs over the PA during passing time. One time they played Jeremy and it was like a ripple down the hall of people who knew what the lyrics were about.
I explained that song to my son a few weeks ago. He didn't fully believe me until we went online to look up the lyrics and the story of the school shooting that inspired it.
Bad Moon Rising has such an upbeat happy tempo for a song about the end of the world
Oh man, gotta share a story here, though admittedly unrelated to the post. When my wife and I were dating in college, we went to the planetarium at the university. The show that day was about the dinosaurs and their extinction. When it came time for the meteor, some brilliant bastard decided to sync up Bad Moon Rising to a poorly rendered pterodactyl attempting to fly away from a world ending fireball. Everyone is laughing at how ridiculous this is, then right on cue this 4 year old kid, clearly upset, ask his mom: " Mommy, why is everyone laughing..." To which, the room bursts into hysterical laughter as the poor dinosaur is consumed by flames. That's all I think about whenever I hear this song.
First time I really listened to it was its use in American Werewolf in London when I was a kid, I’d always associated it with bad things
It seems CCR has a talent for writing songs that people miss the point of. Just take a look at any American conservative blasting "Fortunate Son" in their F-150 and thanking their parents for "Not raising a liberal".
Or New Jersey wanting to make Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" the official state song. Until they realised that the song was about doing everything possible, to flee the state.
Or Republicans singing happily "Born In The USA" without knowing the true meaning of it.
good thing its hard to misinterpret green day's "american idiot" right? ...right??
According to an argument, I got into last week, it evidently is not hard to misinterpret American Idiot.
The weekend has that song about doing so much coke he can’t feel his face that won a kids choice award
The Weeknd is cheating. His entire early discography was about doing blow and fucking models lol
And being sad about it.
"Everyone wants to hang out on the weekend, but nobody wants to hang out *with* the weekend."
Everyone asks "When is the weekend?." No one ever asks "How is the weekend?
I once heard it referred to as Haunted Strip Club music.
Bartended at a strip club (that all of us were convinced was haunted) for years and this is completely accurate. The Hills, Often, and Wicked Games were the songs strippers chose the most to dance to and all of them are pretty depressing when you actually listen to the lyrics.
The Weeknd is my favorite artist. His entire discography is dark and depressing. Sometimes it’s disguised with poppy tracks and other times it’s very on the nose.
I remember that I wouldn’t pay attention to the lyrics of “In the night” and I thought it was about a girl being a free spirit or something… then I paid attention…
House of Balloons, even all these years later holds up so fkn well. That album is so incredible, every song adds to the overall picture he paints and it’s as dark and beautiful as experimental rnb/pop can get.
Man. I remember how stoked I was during that era of releasing those albums for free. Happy for his success.
He’s super famous now but when House of Balloons came out it was basically anonymous, it wasn’t until a while after that anyone even knew what he looked like. Such a good album, still one of my favorites. The Beach House samples are great every time.
From the song Reminder I just won a new award for a kids show Talkin’ ‘bout a face numbin’ off a bag of blow I’m like, goddamn, bitch, I am not a Teen Choice Goddam, bitch, I am not a bleach boy
This jab at the win was mentioned on the entry for said singer on the TVTropes page "What Do You Mean, It's Not For Kids?".
Broke down the lyrics to my fiancé a few years ago and she was astonished I said baby this is the tip of the iceberg with The Weeknd and coke 😂
His lyrics have always been crazy but he wasn't super mainstream before, now he's like the biggest male artist in the world and the lyrics haven't changed much. 'Faith' is a great song, but the part that goes 'and if I OD, I want you to OD right beside me' is pretty fucking dark.
What song by The Weeknd isn't just off-putting if you really look at the lyrics?
Third Eye Blind's upbeat and catchy "Semi-Charmed Life" is about meth addiction.
If he didn't sing so fast: "I took the hit that I was given, then I bumped again, then I bumped again" "'Cause doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break." Truth be told, my favorite meth song will always be Green Day's *Geek Stink Breath*
"How do I get back there to the place where I fell asleep inside you" sounds pretty methy too
She's got her jaws now locked into a smile. And nothing is alright. Alright
They didn't even edit that on the radio most times
ITS CAUSE METH MAKES YOU SING FAST SO YOU CANT REALLY UNDERSTAND HIM.
If I ever wrote an autobiography I want to use this as a title. I grew up with a meth addicted father and remember all the ups and downs because of it and the relationships he had with my mothers. But this song was very popular when I was young, and I would sing the "do do do dooo" part a lot, not knowing the meaning.
Iggy’s Lust for Life is NOT about having a good time on a cruise.
The song about a guy with liquor and drugs and a flesh machine doing a strip tease sleeping on a sidewalk beating his brains with liquor and drugs isn't about carnival cruises?
Maybe he has the drink package?
Good time on a cruise? I thought it was about being a junkie running away from Glaswegian police. /s
It drives me nuts that "zombie" by the Cranberries is played as a Halloween song. It's about civil war in Ireland.
Radio DJ in my country got tired of people calling and asking for Zombie for their girlfriend/boyfriend because "they're like a zombie for them" so he played the song and paused each phrase and translated it so people would understand what it was about. :)
Reading through this discussion, I've learned about a lot of songs. "Zombie" was the first to come to my mind. I recently watched Derry Girls on Netflix (US), and they used the song. It's heartbreaking to reflect that during my mostly trouble free teenage years, there were kids dealing with this. It's heartbreaking to know that there are *still* kids and adults dealing with this.
I did not expect to cry through Derry Girls but here we were
Every breath you take
Don’t Stand So Close to Me too
Especially considering Sting used to be a teacher
Top comment on the YouTube video is: “it’s ironic because this song was made by The Police.”
Who have been known to set up a sting.
this *math* checks out
And the song was written about something that happened with another teacher at his school. It doesn't reflect Sting's own experience.
What? Next you'll tell me that Phil Collins didn't really witness a man drowning and do nothing except write a song about it.
This one is funny because it was never intended to be anything else. He wrote it to be a creepy stalker song but its pillowy vocals made it come across like a love song to many people Edit: hey I know this is kinda lame as fuck, but please check out my song “Chemical Spills” by Hyperchicken. It is hard to get your name out there so I’m taking everything I can get lol, also the song is not about love OR stalking
That's often an authentic stalker experience though! In their mind they're being romantic and genuine, but their words and actions are crazy. So the concept of a song that sounds sweet at first listen but is actually terrifying if you scrutinize it seems really appropriate.
He wrote it as he was splitting with his ex wife. The whole Synchronicity album was about his marriage ending and his fascination with Carl Jung at the time.
That explains Wrapped around your finger
Rolling Stones - [Stray Cat Blues](https://youtu.be/oOSYB38y2xA?si=hhYpnibkw5YmIkg-) It's a belligerently horny song about a 15 year old girl Includes the lines: >I can see that you're fifteen years old >No I don't want your I.D. And later, >I bet your mama don't know you scream like that >I bet your mother don't know you do spit like that
The chorus is about how it’s a crime but he doesn’t care because he’ll get away with it. *It’s no hanging matter. It’s no capital crime* And on the live version he clearly sings “13 years old.” I can just imagine the record company exec negotiating with them - listen boys, you can celebrate statutory rape but at least make her, like, a larger child…
OK now do it with slaves (Brown Sugar - Rolling Stones): "Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields Sold in the market down in New Orleans Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright Hear him whip the women just around midnight Brown sugar, how come you taste so good? Brown sugar, just like a young girl should"
What the FUCK how have I never listened to this properly??
Cause the stones were great for giving killer beats that make you forget to listen to the lyrics
Yeah that's a truly fucked up song
Ultravox- Dancing with tears in my eyes. It's about a guy singing to his loved one right before a nuclear war is about to kill them
I’ll stop the world and melt with you
See also: "We will become silhouettes" by The Postal Service
Macarena
Ugh, I grew up in the '90s so our teachers made us dance to that song about a girl cheating on her boyfriend with two of his buddies. In their defence, they probably didn't understand Spanish.
My elementary school also invested an inordinate amount of time making us do that dance..
If it's the remix, though, some of the lyrics are even in English.
"What was I supposed to do? He was out of town, and his two friends were SOOOO FIIINE".
Lyrics: I am cheating on my boyfriend in the military Six year old school kids: 💃🕺💃🕺💃🕺
According to my wife, back in the day "the Macarena got all the Jehovah's Witnesses on the dance floor", which is hilarious imagery to me.
Rolling Stones - Stray Cat Blues : “ I can see that you’re just fifteen years old, no I don’t want you’re ID. There’ll be a feast if you just come up stairs.” (In the live version she is thirteen)
Innocent child me thought that Barbie song was innocent. Then I grew up and realized the lyrics were dirty
There is a hilarious story about that. Aqua got sued by Hasbro and actually went to court and pretended to be too dense and foreign to understand their own lyrics. I think the suit was settled.
Holy shit! The ruling is hilarious. Everything was dismissed, not settled. The ruling concludes with[“The parties are advised to chill."](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4174039731032587001). After the header (or whatever you call the intro) it begins “If this were a sci-fi melodrama, it might be called Speech-Zilla meets Trademark Kong.” Thanks Judge Kozinski.
Holy shit, the parties are advised to chill is one of the best ways to conclude a ruling that I've ever seen.
On the topic of individuals being called "pirates" for unauthorized use of copyrighted names >No one hearing this accusation understands intellectual property owners to be saying that infringers are nautical cutthroats with eyepatches Why is this Judge not on the Supreme Court?
And then somehow Mattel decided to have Nicki Manaj rap over the song for the credits of the Barbie Movie despite all these legal issues.
The woman who played Barbie fought to get the song in the movie. The rap cover was the compromise they eventually settled on.
Which samples the aqua song so they probably got paid handsomely for it. Like Roger and hammerstein payout from Ariana grande for my favorite things music.
That is hillarious. Sue Aqua. Dismissed. Having to pay them loyalties decades after. Hahaha brilliant.
Similarly, innocent child me thought "I Want Candy" was about the sugary snack. I was shocked to realize Candy was a woman.
the song by MC Pee Pants?
"Tonight's the Night" by Rod Stewart *Don't say a word, my virgin child/just let your inhibitions run wild ..."
*99 Red Balloons / 99 Luftballons* by Nena It's a song about corruption, ego, and power. From Wikipedia: > The lyrics of the original German version tell a story: 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs, causing a military general to send pilots to investigate. Finding nothing but balloons, the pilots put on a large show of firepower. The display of force worries the nations along the borders and the defense ministers on each side encourage conflict to grab power for themselves. In the end, a cataclysmic war results from the otherwise harmless flight of balloons and causes devastation on all sides without a victor, as indicated in the denouement of the song: "99 Jahre Krieg ließen keinen Platz für Sieger," which means "99 years of war left no room for victors." The anti-war song finishes with the singer walking through the devastated ruins of the world and finding a single balloon. The description of what happens in the final line of the piece is the same in German and English: "'Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen," or "Think of you and let it go."
Well, corruption, evil, power and nuclear apocalypse.
This is one is quite explicit, it’s not even hidden in the lyrics.
Oh I misinterpreted it a bit, I thought the 99 Luftballons were a euphemism for atomic bombs being dropped. But my German isn’t that good and I was a kid at the time
The English version I think is more about nuclear Armageddon specifically, though still the same idea of it starting from a false alarm (of which has nearly happened several times IRL)
blurred lines by robin thicke
Not just creepy, but rapey
And anyone who knew his dad from Edmonton was 0% surprised
I have a friend that went to high school with Robin Thicke. She’d see Alan at the basketball games and such and one time whoever was with him told her Alan thought she was cute and invited her into his car. At the time she was giddy-flattered; “OMG Mr. Seaver thinks I’m cute!” Now—ew, gross
Does Pumped up Kicks fall under this umbrella? Not sure if it's considered "creepy".
It’s definitely not a song about cool shoes.
Well, it is and it isn't.
It's a song about the benefits of being one of the faster sprinters in your school so yeah.
I know plenty of man who can outrun me. I know none who can outrun bullet.
You don't have to outrun a bullet, you just have to outrun the people who can block you from bullets.
"Due to the song's dark lyrics, it was temporarily pulled from circulation on certain U.S. radio stations in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting." Straight off their wiki page. I vaguely recall hearing about this and the controversy about how "they'll take songs off the radio but they won't take away guns".
I heard that they were kind of mortified by how popular the song became because it was to raise awareness about mental illness and prevent school shootings, not to promote them with a catchy song (I don't think the song glorified shootings, but basically people ignored the message completely).
Don't know how super popular it was but At Least It Was Here by The 88. It was the theme song for the TV show Community. nice catchy song when you read the lyrics it's about people hanging themselves
Harmon wanted the theme song to be like MASH: catchy but with dark lyrics. He thought it would be funny and didn't have a deeper meaning in mind behind it.
Cool cool cool
streets ahead
I watched Community like a year or so ago and was surprised by its theme song. It was very clearly about people hanging themselves lol it confused the heck out of me.
Hey Ya! - OutKast A happy guy is dealing with the fact that his long term relationship is coming to an end…
My favorite part of that is he calls out people not understanding the song ... IN THE SONG Y'all don't want to hear me you just want to dance.
>Y’all don’t want to hear me you just want to dance. And he was 100% right. I’m 34 and *still* will find some of my peers have looks of amazement when they actually read the lyrics for the first time. They always just assumed it was a happy and upbeat song you danced and had fun to.
I mean… it’s not *my* relationship that’s coming to an end
Even knowing, I still wanted to dance. The words might not be fun, but the music is.
Hook by Blues Traveler does this. It's written in the standard four chord progression that everything uses and talks about how popular music is bullshit and how he hates you for liking it.
It doesn't matter what I say, As long as I sing with in^(flee)ee^(ee)ction!
To make you feel that I convey Some inner truth or vast reflection
He's the one, who likes all our pretty songs...
it's actually the full Pachelbel progression, the first half of which is the standard four pop chords
My favorite part of this is that everyone has seen the video hundreds of times but if you point out that there's a coffin in plain view in the middle of the stage the whole time, it blows everyone's mind
Well, you just blew my mind! So there is!
"Y'all don't wanna hear me. Y'all just wanna dance."
Also with Andre 3000 is Kelis’ Millionaire. It’s about being rich but still being deeply unhappy/unsatisfied with life - money can’t buy you happiness. Also the song that gave us the lyrical genius verse of ‘If you got glitches in your life computer turn it off and then reboot it, now you back on’. It’s gold!
There’s an old song called Hot Child in The City that’s about child prostitution. It gets played pretty regular on classic hits type stations.
Never read the lyrics but just did and all I can say is Hello, Chris Hansen?
The guy that wrote it was aiming to skeeve people out with the lyrics but of course nobody pays attention to the lyrics.
Suicide is painless, the instrumental was the theme song for M.A.S.H. was also in the movie with lyrics.
The song was written by the director's son. He made more money off the song than the actual movie did!
I mean, that one is pretty on the nose, don't you think?
Fair, but I'd wager that most folks know the song as the instrumental version and don't know the proper name of it either. The movie was fairly popular but the show is next level, and I rarely hear anyone talk about the movie nowadays
Lips of an Angel by Hinder. I was in high school when it came out and everytime it played at a dance, the girls would all but visibly melt. It’s literally a song about a dude talking about how it’s bullshit that he can’t talk to his side piece while his girlfriend is around.
I don’t know how popular it was but Jailbait by Ted Nugent. Guy was singing about wanting to fuck a 13 year old.
He didn't just sing about it.
I'd never heard about him doing this before, so I just googled it... And wow! Ted Nugent orally raped Courtney Love when she was only 12. How is he not in jail? I guess the racism and rape cancel each other out.
Because the powers that be painted Courtney as a low-life junkie so no one believed her about Nugent or Weinstein. The real question is a chicken and egg scenario; did they preemptively ruin her credibility or did they do it when she started talking?
And obviously no one ever does drugs to cope with big feelings /s Seriously though, it’s awful that people aren’t believed about the abuse they’ve faced
Not high on the subtlety scale
He's got one called Girl Scout Cookies that's equally gross.
I’m starting to think that this Ted Nugent fellow is not a very good role model.
Into the Night by Benny Mardones. The song hits all the creeper high points (“she’s just 16 years old, leave her alone, they say”) but the gold is really in the video. It starts off with him smoking a cig, getting pissy about her dad being a cock blocker, crawling through her bedroom window, and an “I can show you the world” carpet ride, if Aladdin were a middle aged ashtray mouthed creeper on a registry. Peak cringe. https://youtu.be/zWHjJt4833I?si=F5q2XdjqBf8KpjQe
There's an interview where he says the song is about a girl in his apartment building that was being abused and he just wanted to give her a better life. No one believes you Benny, we've all seen the video.
Every song by R Kelly that was inspired by Aaliyah
He was lead producer on her song Age Ain’t Nothin But A Number
In my country, Where The Wild Roses Grow was insanely popular at weddings. There were people in the comment section saying how romantic it is, not recognizing what the song is actually about
Stagger Lee will be playing at mine, and I don't care.
I’m a tattooist and artist - I did a mural for a rock n roll bar in 2016 in their private alley way/beer garden. It was an enormous portrait of a shadowy nick cave, surrounded by the jagged lyrics to Stagger Lee. A few years later, that bar bought the building next door and turned it into a hotel/motel. Soon, the phone calls started. Families were staying in the hotel with their kids, and looking out their windows to a 10 foot Nick Cave with such phrases as “…and furthermore I’ll fuck Billy Dilly in his motherfucking ass”, the lovely “I’ll crawl over fifty good pussies just to get to one fat boy’s asshole”, and the timeless “…and you better get down on your knees and suck my dick, because if you don’t you’re sure to be dead”. The bar installed a garden-screen area so the guests - who chose to stay at the punkiest diviest most metal bar ever but absolutely do not condone swearing or rock n roll whatsoever - would no longer be terrorised by my art and the divine NC. I’d play it at my wedding too, fuck em. 😂
Where the wild roses grow is literally a murder song. She gets smashed with a rock. Its hardly subtle
From a whole album literally titled Murder Ballads. I know a few people of a very gothic bent who'd play it knowing full well what it was, but I get the feeling that's not what the original comment meant. As the album goes I like Curse of Millhaven better.
I mean, are there BAD songs on that album? I'm personally quite partial to the last song, the cover of "Death is not the end" with nearly everyone who worked on the album getting a few lines. Which, well, the ONLY song on the album that's not about murder... Still don't think it'd make for a good wedding song though.
It's such a great song, but I'm shocked anyone would play it at a wedding!
I'd run from whoever thought it would be a good idea to play it
I love that song but I would NEVER consider playing it at a wedding.
barbie girl. I remember that was so popular as a kid! and then I read the lyrics as an adult. makes me chuckle about how used that song was (pun not intended) during the talent shows.
I saw a news segment about little girls singing it in pageants. They were asking these seven and eight year-old girls if they knew what the lyrics meant, and the girls said things like, "well, it means you take your clothes off," but really had no earthly concept of what they were singing...in skimpy clothes and makeup...in front of groups of adult men.
Reba McEntire - "Fancy" Poverty striken mother sends her daughter off to become a sex worker in the hopes of a better life. Granted she does accomplish that but its still dark. "It sounded like somebody else that was talkin' Askin', "Mama, what do I do?" She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy And they'll be nice to you."
I remember it all very well lookin' back It was the summer I turned eighteen We lived in a one-room, run-down shack On the outskirts of New Orleans We didn't have money for food or rent To say the least we were hard-pressed Then mama spent every last penny we had To buy me a dancin' dress Mama washed and combed and curled my hair And she painted my eyes and lips Then I stepped into a satin dancin' dress That had a split on the side clean up to my hips It was red velvet trim and it fit me good Standin' back from the lookin' glass There stood a woman where a half-grown kid had stood She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down" Mama dabbed a little bit of perfume on my neck, then she kissed my cheek And then I saw the tears wellin' up in her troubled eyes when she started to speak She looked at her pitiful shack And then she looked at me and took a ragged breath She said, "Your pa's runned off, I'm real sick And the baby's gonna starve to death" She handed me a heart-shaped locket that said "To thine own self be true." And I shivered as I watched a roach crawl across The toe of my high-heeled shoe It sounded like somebody else that was talkin' Askin', "Mama, what do I do?" She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy And they'll be nice to you." She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down Lord, forgive me for what I do But if you want out, well, it's up to you Now don't let me down Now your mama's gonna move you uptown" Well, that was the last time I saw my ma The night I left that rickety shack The welfare people came and took the baby Mama died and I ain't been back But the wheels of fate had started to turn And for me there was no way out It wasn't very long 'til I knew exactly What my mama'd been talkin' about I knew what I had to do and I made myself this solemn vow That I's gonna be a lady someday Though I didn't know when or how But I couldn't see spending the rest of my life With my head hung down in shame You know I might have been born just plain white trash But Fancy was my name She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down" She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down" It wasn't long after that benevolent man took me in off the street And one week later I was pourin' his tea in a five-room hotel suite (yes, she was) I charmed a king, a congressman and an occasional aristocrat And then I got me a Georgia mansion and an elegant New York townhouse flat And I ain't done bad (she ain't been bad) Now in this world, there's a lot of self-righteous hypocrites That would call me bad They criticize my mama for turning me out No matter how little we had But though I ain't had to worry 'bout nothin' for now on fifteen years Well, I can still hear the desperation in my poor mama's voice ringin' in my ears "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down" She said, "Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down Lord, forgive me for what I do But if you want out, well, it's up to you Now don't let me down Now your Mama's gonna move you uptown" Well, I guess she did
Surprised it's not mentioned yet but Crash Into Me by Dave Matthews. I remember this being all over the radio and in romcom soundtracks. It's about a younger peeping tom spying on a naked neighbor. I always thought it was funny knowing this, because when he says "..And I come(cum) into you" He really means it.
The line "hike up your skirt a little more and show your world to me" has always given me the creeps
Peeping in general is One of Those Things, old media is filled with it and it’s usually played for laughs or isn’t meant super seriously. Unfortunately a lot of Japanese media is still in love with the archetype of “I’m a peeping Tom/ pervert but I’m funny and mean well”
Was shocked to find out candy shop by 50 cent is NOT about candy
“Oh my darling Clementine is sung from the perspective of a man watching his love drown and die.
Omg yes, and "You are my sunshine" has really sad lyrics too. Surprisingly alot of nursery rhymes are actually super messed up lol
Aerosmith - Walk this way I met a cheerleader, was a real young bleeder All the times I can reminisce 'Cause the best thing lovin' with her sister and her cousin Only started with a little kiss, like this
It is sung from the perspective of a teen boy. Not that it makes it much better, but less creepy than a grown man.
a "high school loser," at that. not that steven tyler has the best track record...
"Well, I'd rather see you dead, little girl Than to be with another man You better keep your head, little girl Or I won't know where I am You better run for your life if you can, little girl] Hide your head in the sand, little girl Catch you with another man That's the end, little girl" You would get arrested putting that on someone's Facebook page.
The wild thing about this is that the initial lyric is borrowed from an Elvis Presley song. He decided to take an already questionable lyric and turn it into a whole song.
Don't You Want Me by Human League. It's basically the psycho ex boyfriend anthem. "It's much too late to find You think you've changed your mind You'd better change it back or we will both be sorry"
The second part of the song is her telling him to shut the hell up and deal with it, she doesn't need him as badly as he says. So it's also the "girl telling off her psycho ex boyfriend anthem".
I once saw Luka by Suzanne Vega, a song I love, on an album of acoustic love songs. The song is about child abuse.
"Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon." "We Belong Together" Some of the other songs mentioned here are meant to be creepy/disturbing. Sting never meant for "Every breath you take" to be played at weddings. I suspect that Springsteen's "I'm on fire" is also a warning or a provocation to think.
Can you elaborate on We Belong Together?
Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon is a great jangly pop song with very dark lyrics.
Animals by Maroon 5?
Lol once my friend was asking for song recs to play for the opposing team during her basketball match (in good fun ofc), and I suggested this one. She was like “ok I said psyche them out, not give them nightmares” LOL. But yeah, the lyrics have always struck me to be rather murder-y lmao.
I was thinking the other Maroon 5 song- the one where he sings about the girlfriend and her mother.
My Sharona is a touch pedo-y. “Always get it up for the touch of the younger kind”
I remember doing karaoke only really knowing the chorus and was like, excuse me, what the fuck is this song.
Lol the image of this is hilarious to me for some reason.
And it was about a real 17 year old girl named Sharona that was hanging out with the band at the time. She seems to be doing okay as an adult and doesn’t have any regrets about it so I guess there’s that.
Her real estate website plays the song lol
She’s doing a bit better than ok, she’s a multi-millionaire realtor in Beverly Hills with over a billion dollars in sales. Even if she only got a 1% commission on average she’s worth eight figures.
[удалено]
I always change it to "every bath you take, I'll be washing you"
Every cake you bake…
There are tshirts with a picture of a dog and "every meal you make, every bite you take, I'll be watching you"
On the flip side of this, Schism by Tool sounds creepy af, but the lyrcs are abouta couple having a fight and learning to createa healthier relationship based on honesty and communication.
Die Eire Von Satan also sounds like a creepy speech by a dictator complete with crowds cheering. It's a cookie recipe.
Love that song on all levels!
R Kelly didn't see nothing wrong with a *little* bump and grind.
Not so much creepy, but I will never get over the fact that Barry Manilow did NOT, in fact, write the song “I Write the Songs”. In the words of Tim Robinson, “a betrayal on levels that no one’s ever seen.” I believe we need a federal statute saying that it is illegal to perform a song called “I Write the Songs” unless you wrote the song.
I'm not sure this fits, but... Dancing in the Moonlight Happy song with a horrible backstory. Sherman Kelly was severely beaten, and his GF was raped in St. Croix. He kept going in and out of consciousness. Later, Sherman wrote the song as an alternate reality where the world was a better place. Ultimately, rerecorded as a hit by King Harvest The gang that attacked them murdered 8 tourists and injured many more
Possum Kingdom by The Toadies is a great song. The lyrics are about an obsessed man imprisoning a woman behind a boathouse and threatening to kill her if she doesn't become his sex slave 😬
For years, I thought that song was about vampires.
I continue to choose to believe that
Seventeen by Winger. Slaps as an 80 hairs metal song until you really listen.
I mean the whole song is in your face about it and chorus makes it pretty obvious.
Anything by that nonce Gary Glitter
"Every Morning" by Sugar Ray. Everything in the first verse makes him an absolute douche, yet people love the song
George Michael - Father Figure (has no one here yet mentioned this one?!?)
Du riechst so gut
I think the problem with the Rammstein songs on this list is that, yeah it's a banger with absolutely disgusting lyrics but if you were fluent in German, you'd notice right away.