Random Songs That Don't Mean What You Think They Do (16 items)

• 

  (#4) Closing Time

  • Semisonic

  This memorable '90s track is about a bar at closing time, right? RIGHT? No. No, it's about something else entirely.

  According to Dan Wilson, Semisonic lead singer, it's about being "bounced from the womb." As in, your mama's belly. In the above video he points out a lot of lyrics that make you go, "oh, yeah, I guess it is about the birth of a baby." For instance: "This room won't be open till your brothers and your sisters come."
  
• 

  (#6) There She Goes

  • Sixpence None the Richer

  This is actually a cover of a song by British rock band The La's from their eponymous album. Although the song initially seems to be about a woman, if you look closely at the lyrics, the "she" in question is actually heroin and the song tells of the rush of using the drug and how fleeting the high is.

  There she goes again
  Racing through' my brain
  And I just can't contain
  This feelin' that remains

  There she blows
  There she blows again
  Pulsing through' my vein
  And I just can't contain
  This feelin' that remains

  Additionally, the song has stylistic similarities to The Velvet Underground's "There She Goes Again," a song with overt references to prostitution and potentially references to drug abuse, as well.
• 

  (#9) Money For Nothing (Full Length Version)

  • Dire Straits

  Probably best known for the repetitive chanting of "I want my MTV" by Sting, the song is often believed to be an anthem for the MTV generation. "I want my MTV" even became a tagline, and slogan for the generation of people who grew up believing in music videos and the MTV phenomenon.

  But the four and half minute song is, in fact, a criticism of the music scene of the 80s - especially glam metal which was in its hey-day. In fact, bassist Nikki Sixx claims the song is specifically about his band, Motley Crue.

  Told from the perspective of a blue collar worker, the song contains lyrics that discredit and dismiss the musicians and their ability such as "See the little f*ggot [a word which is used liberally and with absolutely no hesitation throughout the song, and, according to the songwriter is actually part of the 'point' of the character who sings the song] with the earring and the make-up" and comments on how their music "ain't working." Still, he laments their ability to get "money for nothing, and their chicks for free."

  In the end, he decides that maybe he should learn how to play guitar.
• 

  (#12) Material Girl

  • Madonna

  So you think "Material Girl" is about a gold digging wh*re? Well, that's not exactly correct. Although the video directly alludes to Marilyn Monroe's gold digging anthem, "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend," the song is actually about a working girl who is looking to get into a relationship with a guy who is also successful... and working.

  She doesn't want someone who doesn't have enough on his plate and is so wholly devoted to her because she can't be devoted to him in kind. One of those "unevenly yoked" kind of deals. Basically, she wants to date a man she doesn't need to give constant attention to.

  In a 2009 Rolling Stone interview, Madonna said this about "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl": "I liked them both because they were ironic and provocative at the same time but also unlike me. I am not a materialistic person, and I certainly wasn't a virgin, and, by the way, how can you be like a virgin? I liked the play on words, I thought they were clever. They're so geeky, they're cool."
  
• 

  (#5) Like a Virgin

  • Madonna

  "Like a Virgin" isn't about a sensitive girl, and is, in fact, not about a girl at all. Lyricist Billy Steinberg explained in an interview with the LA Times that he did not intend for a woman to sing the song, and that the song was about his personal experiences of going through the emotional ringer in the past, and how he felt new and unhurt the next time he fell in love, as if he had never been hurt before. Like a virgin.

  I was beat, incomplete
  I'd been had, I was sad and blue
  But you made me feel
  Yeah, you made me feel
  Shiny and new

  Says Steinberg, "I was saying ... that I may not really be a virgin – I've been battered romantically and emotionally like many people – but I'm starting a new relationship and it just feels so good, it's healing all the wounds and making me feel like I've never done this before, because it's so much deeper and more profound than anything I've ever felt."
• 

  (#7) My Sharona

  • The Knack

  We all probably know that "My Sharona" is about sex or trying to get laid, but how about sex with underaged girl? Maybe not. In the tradition of "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, the song is about a man's serial lust for a girls several years his junior.

  In this case, the song is inspired by Doug Fieger, the band's lead singer, and his relationship with Sharona Alperin, who he met when he was 25 and she was 16. They dated for four years and she appears on the single's cover. While Fieger says he wrote the song from the perspective of a teenage boy, the lyrics are quite raunchy and rather uncouth in kinder circles:

  Such a dirty mind, always get it up
  For the touch of the younger kind...

  When you gonna give it to me
  Give it to me
  It's just a matter of time Sharona

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking