Most misinterpreted songs of all time?

[SphinxnihpS]

Originally posted by: JS80
I think I'm turning Japanese

LOL, masturbating to a tiny pic?

 

[grrl]

Originally posted by: 0
The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.

Can you explain?


I'll add Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: grrl

Originally posted by: 0
The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.

Can you explain?


I'll add Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.

it's not about drugs?

wiki says it is clearly about drugs.

 

[Turin39789]

beethoven's 5th

 

[KeithTalent]

Bananaphone by Raffi

KT

 

[Arkaign]

Iggy Pop - Lust for Life. An ironic comment about drug addiction and trying to gather oneself up afterwards, reduced to being played for cruise ship commercials.

 

[Psynaut]

Originally posted by: ed21x
Puff the magic Dragon

I used to listen to this song as a kid and read the story book. I've always heard this was about smoking pot and never got it. Glad to see I wasn't dense after all:

From Wikipedia:

The lyrics for "Puff, the Magic Dragon" were based on a 1959 poem by Leonard Lipton, a nineteen-year-old Cornell student. Lipton was inspired by an Ogden Nash poem titled "Custard the Dragon," about a "Really-O, Truly-O, little pet dragon." Lipton passed his poem on to friend and fellow Cornell student Peter Yarrow, who created music and more lyrics to make the poem into the song. In 1961, Yarrow joined Paul Stookey and Mary Travers to form Peter, Paul and Mary. The group incorporated the song into their live performances before recording it in 1962; their 1962 recording of "Puff" reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1963. This song also spent two weeks atop the Billboard easy listening chart that same year....


Interpretations

The song is believed by many to refer to smoking marijuana, due to references to paper, dragon ("draggin'"), puff (smoke), traveling "along the cherry lane" (the burning ember of a cigarette or joint is called a cherry, and moves up the cigarette's length as it burns), and Hanalei (Honahlee) is a town in Hawaii known for marijuana use. This theory led to the song becoming a hippie anthem. The authors of the song have repeatedly and vehemently denied any intentional drug reference. Peter Yarrow himself insists that "Puff" is about the hardships of growing older, not drugs. He has also said of the song that it "never had any meaning other than the obvious one".

 

[torpid]

I'm having a hard time differentiating between interpreted and inferred meaning from. For example, You Oughta Know by Alanis probably had a lot of people inferring whom it was about. Did she ever reveal it? Was it Dave Coulier? Then there are lyrics that are misinterpreted badly, such as the following lines by Wilco:

I would like to salute
the ashes of American flags

There are both hippies and conservatives who interpret that to mean he is rabidly opposed to the US government or in favor of flag burning or the like. Actually he has basically said all it was about was the courage that it takes to believe in something so strongly that you are willing to do something radical like burn an american flag.

 

[melchoir]

Blues Traveler: Hook

Song
Lyrics

Millions of people loved this song, and have heard it hundreds of times, and have NO IDEA what it is about.

 

[Kyle]

Originally posted by: ed21x

Ring around the rosey = song describing the suffering of those under the black plague.

Kind of ironic, but don't think that's true...
Text

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Kyle

Originally posted by: ed21x

Ring around the rosey = song describing the suffering of those under the black plague.

Kind of ironic, but don't think that's true...
Text

So, it is more akin to the original Footloose, then?

 

[Amused]

American Woman
Little Pink Houses
This is our Country
Born in the USA

All are anti-US songs played at 4th of July celebrations proving that people never listen to lyrics

"Well theres people and more people
What do they know know know"

A perfect example of leftist/socialist elitism. If you're happy, you must be dumb.

 

[bobeedee]

Originally posted by: CallMeJoe
My ex-wife never forgave me for explaining to her that Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper was an invitation to suicide.

I got a fever...and the only prescription...is more cowbell!!

 

[CallMeJoe]

Originally posted by: bobeedee
I got a fever...and the only prescription...is more cowbell!!

You forgot the [Christopher Walken] tag.

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: Amused
American Woman
Little Pink Houses
This is our Country
Born in the USA

All are anti-US songs played at 4th of July celebrations proving that people never listen to lyrics

"Well theres people and more people
What do they know know know"

A perfect example of leftist/socialist elitism. If you're happy, you must be dumb.

*boo-hoo* So... The fact that people don't realize that the songs they listen to at pro-USA gatherings are actually anti-USA means that they're... NOT stupid?

lol wut

 

[grrl]

Originally posted by: Ns1

Originally posted by: grrl

Originally posted by: 0
The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.

Can you explain?


I'll add Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.

it's not about drugs?

wiki says it is clearly about drugs.

Really? Maybe they changed the page, I just got this from wiki and there is no mention of drugs:

Capaldi said:

Pollard and I would sit around writing lyrics all day, talking about Bob Dylan and the Band, thinking up ridiculous plots for the movie. Before I left Morocco, Pollard wrote in my book 'The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.' For me, it summed him up. He had this tremendous rebel attitude. He walked around in his cowboy boots, his leather jacket. At the time he was a heavy little dude. It seemed to sum up all the people of that generation who were just rebels. The 'Low Spark,' for me, was the spirit, high-spirited. You know, standing on a street corner. The low rider. The 'Low Spark' meaning that strong undercurrent at the street level.



Others say it's about the JFK assassination and supposedly at least one interview has Capaldi saying it was about the glam rock bands that were just starting at that time- a "bunch of non-musical drag boy's in high heels".

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I dare anyone to interpret songs by The Mars Volta. Sheesh what a convoluted mess their lyrics are.

But they still rawk!

 

[JM Aggie08]

david alan coe - the white man marches on

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: CallMeJoe
My ex-wife never forgave me for explaining to her that Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper was an invitation to suicide.

We are going to need a little more cowbell.

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: grrl

Originally posted by: Ns1

Originally posted by: grrl

Originally posted by: 0
The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.

Can you explain?


I'll add Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.

it's not about drugs?

wiki says it is clearly about drugs.

Really? Maybe they changed the page, I just got this from wiki and there is no mention of drugs:

Capaldi said:

Pollard and I would sit around writing lyrics all day, talking about Bob Dylan and the Band, thinking up ridiculous plots for the movie. Before I left Morocco, Pollard wrote in my book 'The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.' For me, it summed him up. He had this tremendous rebel attitude. He walked around in his cowboy boots, his leather jacket. At the time he was a heavy little dude. It seemed to sum up all the people of that generation who were just rebels. The 'Low Spark,' for me, was the spirit, high-spirited. You know, standing on a street corner. The low rider. The 'Low Spark' meaning that strong undercurrent at the street level.



Others say it's about the JFK assassination and supposedly at least one interview has Capaldi saying it was about the glam rock bands that were just starting at that time- a "bunch of non-musical drag boy's in high heels".

are we looking at the same thing here?

One of Slick's earliest songs, written in either late 1965 or early 1966, it cites parallels between the hallucinatory effects of LSD and the imagery found in the fantasy works of Lewis Carroll: 1865's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. Alice, the Dormouse, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, and the Red Queen are all mentioned in the song

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbit_(song)

 

[grrl]

Originally posted by: Ns1

Originally posted by: grrl

Originally posted by: Ns1

Originally posted by: grrl

Originally posted by: 0
The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.

Can you explain?


I'll add Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.

it's not about drugs?

wiki says it is clearly about drugs.

Really? Maybe they changed the page, I just got this from wiki and there is no mention of drugs:

Capaldi said:

Pollard and I would sit around writing lyrics all day, talking about Bob Dylan and the Band, thinking up ridiculous plots for the movie. Before I left Morocco, Pollard wrote in my book 'The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.' For me, it summed him up. He had this tremendous rebel attitude. He walked around in his cowboy boots, his leather jacket. At the time he was a heavy little dude. It seemed to sum up all the people of that generation who were just rebels. The 'Low Spark,' for me, was the spirit, high-spirited. You know, standing on a street corner. The low rider. The 'Low Spark' meaning that strong undercurrent at the street level.



Others say it's about the JFK assassination and supposedly at least one interview has Capaldi saying it was about the glam rock bands that were just starting at that time- a "bunch of non-musical drag boy's in high heels".

are we looking at the same thing here?

One of Slick's earliest songs, written in either late 1965 or early 1966, it cites parallels between the hallucinatory effects of LSD and the imagery found in the fantasy works of Lewis Carroll: 1865's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. Alice, the Dormouse, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, and the Red Queen are all mentioned in the song

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbit_(song)

I thought you were talking about Low Spark!

White Rabbit is definitely about drugs, but I recall a story about JA being allowed to perform the song on TV because the producers simply assumed it was about Alice in Wonderland.