Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who’s involved with a woman in an open marriage. He said that when he and she got back together after several weeks apart, he sung her “Me and Mrs. Jones.”
(As the songs I’m discussing today deal with romance, I’m throwing in random romantic illustrations)
Me: “Why? That’s a song a guy sings to his wife about the good marriage they have. ‘Me and Mrs. Jones/We’ve got a good thing going on …'”
He: “No, it’s about a couple who are having an affair and feel bad but they also feel too good to stop.”
I checked the lyrics. Yep, he’s right.
Thinking back, I realized I’d never heard anything but the first line, or if I did, I didn’t pay it any attention.
I had a similar reaction a while back when I downloaded the ‘Til Tuesday album “Voices Carry” to my iTunes. I liked the sound of the song but again, I’d never listened to it closely. It’s remarkably downbeat: the protagonist sings about how when she tells her lover how much she cares for him, his response is “Hush, hush. Even downtown, voices carry.” I do not feel optimistic about the future of their relationship.
Question for today: what song did you hear where you completely misunderstood what it was about?
The video for “Voices Carry,” which I recall watching once when I was still in high school, actually does a pretty good job of conveying what the song is actually about.
A song whose actual meaning I only learned about 10 years ago was “Summer of 69” by Bryan Adams (mainly b/c I was never the biggest fan of either Adams or the song) – i.e., the 69 is not a reference to the year but rather a certain sexual position that he was apparently engaged in quite frequently over that summer…
Oookay, that last one I did not know.
For years I wondered what a “real sex train” was and why it was sold at the Five and Dime.
That is one truly remarkable mondegreen.
Edo beat me to it, on “Voices Carry.” The video shows what a controlling and abusive relationship the couple have, until she cries out, at the end.
I didn’t misunderstand it; but, I giggle when I hear The Stranglers’ “Golden Brown” played in my store’s music feed. In the middle of the day, in a retail store, we are playing a song about heroin!
I once discovered this pamphlet, on board my ship, called “The Truth About Rock and Roll.” It made all kinds of ridiculous fundamentalist claims about various rock and roll songs. The one that truly proved that they hadn’t listened to a single one was Pat Benatar’s “Hell is For Children.” The text read, “That’s not what I teach my children!” I would hope not. The song is about the “hell” of child abuse. Pat Benatar read an article about the subject and was moved to tears and anger and husband Neil Giraldo encouraged her to put her feelings into a song and that was the result. She sings it in most concerts to give voice to the victims.
My other example of misreading was a bit more deliberate. I think it was VH1’s Pop Up Video, though it might have been another of their themed programs, had one where the topic was “self love”. The three songs presented, in the half hour, were: Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop,” Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” and Peter Gabriel’s “Shock The Monkey.” The latter is actually about jealousy, according to Gabriel, but is often interpreted as being about animal rights, in relation to animal experiments. VH1 was deliberately suggesting another interpretation, which was out there, that conflated “Shock the Monkey” with “Spank the Monkey.” I do believe they clear it up in the pop ups.
That is an insane misreading of the Benatar song. I’d think it was intentional (see, they want your children in Hell!) except I’ve heard similar cluelessness, like a 1990s book by a conservative Christian trying to fit the X-Men into their cosmology.
“You shouldn’t have to pay for your love with your bones and your flesh.” is a chilling line. Benatar tackled a similar topic in. “Suffer the Little Children” (“Suffer the little children/At the hands of evil men/No baby dolls, no teddy bears/No lullabies for them”).
Wow, I looked up the Til Tuesday video and I’ve seen it but forgotten it. Yes, creepy as shit.
Oh the pamphlet was deliberately painting a picture of evil, just as attacks on heavy metal music and Dungeons & Dragons di the same. I heard similar nonsense from a neighbor who went to a private Christian school (and got into more trouble than anyone in y public school) claiming KISS stood for Knights IN Satan’s Service, back in the 70s. Please! There were mor televangelists doing Satan’s work than rockers. That’s why I always loved Ray Stevens’ song, “Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?”
Never cared much for Bryan Adams’s “Summer Of 69” before, learning what it is about makes him sound even more like a douche.
As for other song meanings, I recently had a coworker named Jenny who one day said Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny” was her song. I asked her if she knew what the song was referencing and she said yes, she was claiming it as a joke.
The Psychedelic Furs’ great “Pretty In Pink” is apparently not about a nice girl who looks pretty in pink clothes, but rather a woman who sees herself as intelligent, popular and sexually free, while everyone else sees her as a not very bright sex toy who they do not respect.