Great idea for a video, a few which popped into my mind as I watched was Song for Whoever by The Beautiful South, for the casual listener comes across as a sincere love song, but is about a songwriters who just uses his relationships with women for material. I never knew that about Bohemian Rhapsody which has given me some more respect for the song, which I had previously thought was largely meaningless.
Thanks Ross...good suggestions, I actually know that Beautiful South song and could have included it. I never understood the idea that Bo-Rhap was meaningless; without the Freddie biographical info, it would quite clearly be a song about a guy kills a man and is then put in trial and punished for his crime.
Hey James, love Little Criminals... such a great album. Short People is a fantastic song (as is In Germany Before the War). I love looking up the meaning behind songs, so had a go at this myself. Really enjoyed your video, Jack
For some reason we accept that what we see on TV or film is a performance, it's telling a fictional story but in the form of music we have a tendency to take it on face value, like every song is autobiographical or meant literally and this can lead to misunderstandings (as you've just explained!). Must confess I also did not grasp the true meaning of Born In The USA at the time, though the songs on the album were laced with references to Vietnam and the decline of America. It was certainly couched in a very rousing and nationalistic way which jibed with the quite bombastic mood of the time. Cheers James!
It is interesting though perhaps understandable that people tend to identify singers with what's being sung but less so with authors and film-makers etc. I remember in my younger days just assuming that bands like Slayer must be devil-worshippers, yet if I watched a film about that I wouldn't make the same assumption about the writer or the director. I read a while back that the lead singer of Slayer is actually a regular church-goer! Thanks Doug.
A Man Needs a Maid is a great inclusion James. I remember arguing about this song with a female friend some years ago. To me the song depicts someone who is still in love with someone who either never did feel or no longer feels the same way about him. So he acknowledges that he can pay someone to do the housework and get that part of his life sorted out. But it’s not enough. He needs his love returned. The song finishes “when will I see you again”. The song is actually positive towards women, acknowledgement that getting the housework done ranks low in importance. From memory the liner notes to Decade read “Joni (Mitchell) liked this one”. So she understood what it was about.
Great comment Brad, thanks. I forgot about the 'when will I see you again' line. It's a bit like 'I'm not in Love' by 10cc, a song which an ex-girlfriend of mine never understood!
@@jamesgriffithsmusic Oh gosh James. Well I won’t be disparaging. But what a great song. The concept of only keeping her picture on the wall because it hides a nasty stain is brilliant
@@jamesgriffithsmusic I’m a bit lost for words TBH. But I was thinking, if the song was being presented on Would I Lie To You the conversation might go something like:- “So why do you keep the picture” “We’ll there’s a nasty stain on the wall and the picture covers it up” Laughter - “it’s a LIE”
There was an episode on Ally McBeal about Short People. If i remember correctly it was about someone who wanted to ban short people from attending his funeral. Many years later there was a song on Finnish tv series that took the idea and structure of the song and used it about ugly people. I remember some years later being very surprised when the writer said it wasn't a cover of Randy Newman song. I listened to it and he was right, but it so similar that it was easy mistake to make. I was always very surprised that people didn't notice the clear humor Bob Dylan had in some of his early songs. One song on Freewheelin album basically states what America needs more are big tits. Motorpsyko Nightmare is clearly very funny song. There are more funny songs later on like on Under The Red Sky; TV Talking Song. Pasi
Hey James, Great topic here and I can definitely see how some of these can be misconstrued. It also got me to think about all the lyrics that are misheard too...a whole other topic by itself.... I was in the grocery store the other day and not sure of the music that was playing, though it really sounded like they were singing "Scared of Cinnamon"..ha. Thanks for sharing this. -Carm
Hi Carm...'Scared of the Cinnamon' sounds an intriguing song title. I guess Neil Young did 'The Cinamon Girl'. Misheard lyrics is another fun topic I'll have to look at sometime. Hope you're well and gearing up for Halloween...I've been spinning a couple of dark, electronic ambient things recently and hopefully will be talking about them soon.
Another interesting video, thanks! A song I would add to this is Devo’s “Whip it” which was misinterpreted as a sex song. Jerry Casale, who wrote the lyrics, described the lyrics as: “… a tongue-in-cheek pep talk satirizing hollow American optimism. “I had been reading Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and he had these limericks and poems in there that really made me laugh, where he was making fun of all the American, capitalist, can-do clichés-Horatio Alger-‘there’s nobody else like you,’ ‘you’re number one,’ ‘you can do it.’ And I was just trying my hand at it.”
Bizarrely, the first track that occurred to me was YMCA, which Trump clearly has not understood 😁 Also, his use of Fortunate Son is odd. Some people clearly have not understood that Knopfler was singing in character in Money for Nothing. They focus on that one line and take it out of context. Very interesting video 👍
Thanks James. This is a really interesting topic and there are a rich seam of songs to mine. Even with the artists that you've already mentioned there are multiple examples - McCartney's "Got to get you in to my life" really being about weed. Randy Newman's "Political Science" - did everyone really think that Randy wanted to nuke the rest of the world (apart from Australia)? Great video - plenty of food for thought. P.S. The shed needs painting!
Interesting. I reckon McCartney retroactively applied social meaning to Blackbird in order to score some points of relevancy. It certainly wasnt Sweet Black Angel.
Regarding Another Brick in the Wall, I think a lot of people missed the irony of the narrator singing the grammatically incorrect “we don’t need no education”, suggesting that perhaps the narrator of the song does need some education after all.
Nice video James. There is probably a lot of milage to be had with this theme. It's a bit of a cliché isn't it, angst ridden rock stars claiming that they are just misunderstood. Straight away I think of Vim in the Bad News rockumentary stating "We're not just heavy metal". In the 80s Guns N Roses came under fire for their song One In A Million on the G N' R Lies album. Axl Rose has tried to defend it many times, but his reasoning seems to shift over the years. The song contains racist and ani-homosexual slurs and Axl's defence used to be that he was voicing the attitudes of others. Later he went on about "If black people can use the N word why can't he?" Honestly though, I think if there is misunderstanding about his song, it is that he spent any amount of time really considering what he was saying at all. Lemmy has always come across as being a staunch anti-religious atheist. Indeed there are a number of his songs that seem to declare that, but if you take his songs like the one called (Don’t Need) Religion, and listen to the lyrics through the lens of a child that was abandoned at an early age by his father who was a Christian priest, they seem to take on a whole other meaning.
Interesting comment John, thanks. I don't know the G'N'R song, and I don't know a great deal about Lemmy's lyrical approach. I was listening to Masters of Reality the the other day and remarking to myself that Sabbath were probably another misunderstood band in terms of them supposedly being 'satanists' or whatever. If anything, Geeze Butler strikes me as being some strange variety of Christian songwriter in his way (or at least biblical) though I'm probably wrong about that. I read a while ago that the lead singer in Slayer is a devout church-goer, so where that puts all their songs about hellfire and God hating his creation who the hell knows.
Axl said that the lyrics from One in a Million were inspired by actual events that happened to him. He felt threatened by a black street person and he hits back by using the N word. He gets hit on by a gay man and he attacks ‘faggots’ in his song. The song - perhaps inadvertently - demonstrates how racist, homophobic, sexist attitudes are expressed. Axl wasn’t a very enlightened person at that time - maybe he’s changed. Maybe writing about this was part of his process to evolve and become more enlightened. In the end, most people should know that it is ignorant to attack all black people based on the actions of one black person - or all gay people on the actions of one gay person, or all women based on the actions of one woman. since the rise of cancel culture, “one in a million” has been swept under the carpet - removed from public consciousness like a statue of Columbus. But if it was a song that was part of Axl’s process of evolving beyond his unenlightened ideas, then it’s worth being a part of the conversation and it may help others evolve as well.
@@edvonblue Very true, very true. Todays cancel culture will ultimately implode IMO. Then you'll have this huge rediscovery of art and culture by todays youngsters when they are mature enough to give it more than an instant knee-jerk reaction.
@jamesgriffithsmusic Tony Iommi said a woman gave the members of Black Sabbath each a cross to wear on stage one night to ward off evil, and ever since then they've each (not sure about Bill Ward) wear one on stage. They got their name from a scary movie. The gate fold to the album Black Sabbath has a cross that looks inverted, but isn't. They thought it was funny that they scared people, but didn'twant people to think they were Satanist. You know the saying that bad press is better than no press. It's like the PMRC sticker that says buy me to a disgruntled teenagers. The cool thing is most of the time the person at the counter didn't care. My mom did buy me the Megadeth album Countdown to Extinction. She looked at the cover and asked me what I was listening to? I told her, she rolled her eyes and basically said she really didn't care. Also, Dave Mustaine is a devout Christian. My parents never censored my music. I can't believe they saw Hendrix.
Great video New Subscriber I was sent here by Jack on Vinyl Voyage when he responded to this post. What about the song Jump Sung by Van Halen its one thing Sung by Aztec Camera completely different
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Great idea for a video, a few which popped into my mind as I watched was Song for Whoever by The Beautiful South, for the casual listener comes across as a sincere love song, but is about a songwriters who just uses his relationships with women for material. I never knew that about Bohemian Rhapsody which has given me some more respect for the song, which I had previously thought was largely meaningless.
Thanks Ross...good suggestions, I actually know that Beautiful South song and could have included it. I never understood the idea that Bo-Rhap was meaningless; without the Freddie biographical info, it would quite clearly be a song about a guy kills a man and is then put in trial and punished for his crime.
Fascinating look at misunderstood songs. Learned so much after watching.
Thanks so much!
Another great video and theme James. Very good.
Hey James, love Little Criminals... such a great album. Short People is a fantastic song (as is In Germany Before the War). I love looking up the meaning behind songs, so had a go at this myself. Really enjoyed your video, Jack
For some reason we accept that what we see on TV or film is a performance, it's telling a fictional story but in the form of music we have a tendency to take it on face value, like every song is autobiographical or meant literally and this can lead to misunderstandings (as you've just explained!). Must confess I also did not grasp the true meaning of Born In The USA at the time, though the songs on the album were laced with references to Vietnam and the decline of America. It was certainly couched in a very rousing and nationalistic way which jibed with the quite bombastic mood of the time. Cheers James!
It is interesting though perhaps understandable that people tend to identify singers with what's being sung but less so with authors and film-makers etc. I remember in my younger days just assuming that bands like Slayer must be devil-worshippers, yet if I watched a film about that I wouldn't make the same assumption about the writer or the director. I read a while back that the lead singer of Slayer is actually a regular church-goer! Thanks Doug.
Nice James, Dylan is definitely the most misunderstood musician ever. Born in the USA always kills me when politicians use it. Hope you're well!
Thanks Sam, good comment!
A Man Needs a Maid is a great inclusion James. I remember arguing about this song with a female friend some years ago.
To me the song depicts someone who is still in love with someone who either never did feel or no longer feels the same way about him. So he acknowledges that he can pay someone to do the housework and get that part of his life sorted out. But it’s not enough. He needs his love returned. The song finishes “when will I see you again”.
The song is actually positive towards women, acknowledgement that getting the housework done ranks low in importance.
From memory the liner notes to Decade read “Joni (Mitchell) liked this one”. So she understood what it was about.
Great comment Brad, thanks. I forgot about the 'when will I see you again' line. It's a bit like 'I'm not in Love' by 10cc, a song which an ex-girlfriend of mine never understood!
@@jamesgriffithsmusic Oh gosh James. Well I won’t be disparaging. But what a great song. The concept of only keeping her picture on the wall because it hides a nasty stain is brilliant
Genius track off a great album.
That was the line she could never understand, no matter how many times I explained it to her.
@@jamesgriffithsmusic I’m a bit lost for words TBH. But I was thinking, if the song was being presented on Would I Lie To You the conversation might go something like:-
“So why do you keep the picture”
“We’ll there’s a nasty stain on the wall and the picture covers it up”
Laughter - “it’s a LIE”
Great theme for a video James. Loved it
Cheers Chris!
There was an episode on Ally McBeal about Short People. If i remember correctly it was about someone who wanted to ban short people from attending his funeral. Many years later there was a song on Finnish tv series that took the idea and structure of the song and used it about ugly people. I remember some years later being very surprised when the writer said it wasn't a cover of Randy Newman song. I listened to it and he was right, but it so similar that it was easy mistake to make. I was always very surprised that people didn't notice the clear humor Bob Dylan had in some of his early songs. One song on Freewheelin album basically states what America needs more are big tits. Motorpsyko Nightmare is clearly very funny song. There are more funny songs later on like on Under The Red Sky; TV Talking Song.
Pasi
Hey James, Great topic here and I can definitely see how some of these can be misconstrued. It also got me to think about all the lyrics that are misheard too...a whole other topic by itself.... I was in the grocery store the other day and not sure of the music that was playing, though it really sounded like they were singing "Scared of Cinnamon"..ha. Thanks for sharing this. -Carm
Hi Carm...'Scared of the Cinnamon' sounds an intriguing song title. I guess Neil Young did 'The Cinamon Girl'. Misheard lyrics is another fun topic I'll have to look at sometime. Hope you're well and gearing up for Halloween...I've been spinning a couple of dark, electronic ambient things recently and hopefully will be talking about them soon.
Short People was played on the radio a lot. The uproar was nothing but some people that seem to complain about everything.
Another interesting video, thanks!
A song I would add to this is Devo’s “Whip it” which was misinterpreted as a sex song. Jerry Casale, who wrote the lyrics, described the lyrics as: “… a tongue-in-cheek pep talk satirizing hollow American optimism. “I had been reading Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and he had these limericks and poems in there that really made me laugh, where he was making fun of all the American, capitalist, can-do clichés-Horatio Alger-‘there’s nobody else like you,’ ‘you’re number one,’ ‘you can do it.’ And I was just trying my hand at it.”
Good video. Enjoyed it!
Merci!
Bizarrely, the first track that occurred to me was YMCA, which Trump clearly has not understood 😁 Also, his use of Fortunate Son is odd. Some people clearly have not understood that Knopfler was singing in character in Money for Nothing. They focus on that one line and take it out of context. Very interesting video 👍
Cheers Brian...another two good examples. I should have thought of Money for Nothing in particular.
Thanks James. This is a really interesting topic and there are a rich seam of songs to mine. Even with the artists that you've already mentioned there are multiple examples - McCartney's "Got to get you in to my life" really being about weed. Randy Newman's "Political Science" - did everyone really think that Randy wanted to nuke the rest of the world (apart from Australia)? Great video - plenty of food for thought. P.S. The shed needs painting!
Thanks Wayne, I wish I'd thought of 'Got to Get You'. We have two sheds, and they both need painting.
Interesting. I reckon McCartney retroactively applied social meaning to Blackbird in order to score some points of relevancy. It certainly wasnt Sweet Black Angel.
Not saying it’s true but I think there maybe audio of him saying in 1968 that it is about women in America.
Regarding Another Brick in the Wall, I think a lot of people missed the irony of the narrator singing the grammatically incorrect “we don’t need no education”, suggesting that perhaps the narrator of the song does need some education after all.
Good point Stephen, wish I'd remarked on that!
Nice video James. There is probably a lot of milage to be had with this theme. It's a bit of a cliché isn't it, angst ridden rock stars claiming that they are just misunderstood. Straight away I think of Vim in the Bad News rockumentary stating "We're not just heavy metal". In the 80s Guns N Roses came under fire for their song One In A Million on the G N' R Lies album. Axl Rose has tried to defend it many times, but his reasoning seems to shift over the years. The song contains racist and ani-homosexual slurs and Axl's defence used to be that he was voicing the attitudes of others. Later he went on about "If black people can use the N word why can't he?" Honestly though, I think if there is misunderstanding about his song, it is that he spent any amount of time really considering what he was saying at all. Lemmy has always come across as being a staunch anti-religious atheist. Indeed there are a number of his songs that seem to declare that, but if you take his songs like the one called (Don’t Need) Religion, and listen to the lyrics through the lens of a child that was abandoned at an early age by his father who was a Christian priest, they seem to take on a whole other meaning.
Interesting comment John, thanks. I don't know the G'N'R song, and I don't know a great deal about Lemmy's lyrical approach. I was listening to Masters of Reality the the other day and remarking to myself that Sabbath were probably another misunderstood band in terms of them supposedly being 'satanists' or whatever. If anything, Geeze Butler strikes me as being some strange variety of Christian songwriter in his way (or at least biblical) though I'm probably wrong about that. I read a while ago that the lead singer in Slayer is a devout church-goer, so where that puts all their songs about hellfire and God hating his creation who the hell knows.
Axl said that the lyrics from One in a Million were inspired by actual events that happened to him. He felt threatened by a black street person and he hits back by using the N word. He gets hit on by a gay man and he attacks ‘faggots’ in his song.
The song - perhaps inadvertently - demonstrates how racist, homophobic, sexist attitudes are expressed. Axl wasn’t a very enlightened person at that time - maybe he’s changed. Maybe writing about this was part of his process to evolve and become more enlightened. In the end, most people should know that it is ignorant to attack all black people based on the actions of one black person - or all gay people on the actions of one gay person, or all women based on the actions of one woman.
since the rise of cancel culture, “one in a million” has been swept under the carpet - removed from public consciousness like a statue of Columbus. But if it was a song that was part of Axl’s process of evolving beyond his unenlightened ideas, then it’s worth being a part of the conversation and it may help others evolve as well.
@@edvonblue Very true, very true. Todays cancel culture will ultimately implode IMO. Then you'll have this huge rediscovery of art and culture by todays youngsters when they are mature enough to give it more than an instant knee-jerk reaction.
@jamesgriffithsmusic Tony Iommi said a woman gave the members of Black Sabbath each a cross to wear on stage one night to ward off evil, and ever since then they've each (not sure about Bill Ward) wear one on stage. They got their name from a scary movie. The gate fold to the album Black Sabbath has a cross that looks inverted, but isn't. They thought it was funny that they scared people, but didn'twant people to think they were Satanist. You know the saying that bad press is better than no press. It's like the PMRC sticker that says buy me to a disgruntled teenagers. The cool thing is most of the time the person at the counter didn't care. My mom did buy me the Megadeth album Countdown to Extinction. She looked at the cover and asked me what I was listening to? I told her, she rolled her eyes and basically said she really didn't care. Also, Dave Mustaine is a devout Christian.
My parents never censored my music. I can't believe they saw Hendrix.
Great video
New Subscriber
I was sent here by Jack on Vinyl Voyage when he responded to this post.
What about the song Jump
Sung by Van Halen its one thing
Sung by Aztec Camera completely different
Great suggestions, hadn't considered that song. I didn't know Aztek Camera had covered 'Jump'! Thanks for the sub, welcome to the channel.
Anola Gay - OMD
Hi Jamie
Jamie?
@@jamesgriffithsmusic Sorry, James