Ladies, behold the best song of the year: “Fuck You”, Cee Lo Green’s irresistibly catchy ode to the golddigger who broke his heart. The tongue-in-cheek homage to ’60s Motown makes the f-bomb heartfelt and subversively funny. But some women heard a creepy, sexist undertone to the song and a couple recorded response songs in the tradition of “Roxanne’s Revenge.” Listen to both and judge for yourself what “Fuck You” is really about.
PhDork’s posted about mondegreens, when people confuse the lyrics of a song. But sometimes listeners confuse the whole damn song. REM’s “The One I Love” is a classic example. People seem to think it’s romantic, despite lines like: “This one goes out to the one I left behind/ A simple prop, to occupy my time.” I had college friends who thought it was a great make-out tune. Michael Stipe gave up trying to disabuse listeners awhile back, saying “It’s probably better that they just think it’s a love song at this point.”
The most misinterpreted song of all time, though, is Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.” It’s the bleak, cynical story of a Vietnam vet and the big lie of the American Dream, but most Americans totally ignore that in favor of the fist-pumping chorus. I want to yell “No! No! FAIL!” every time I see people rocking out to it at July 4th barbecues.
Want to nominate a misunderstood song? Any songs that you loved until you’ve actually, y’know, listened to them? And if you think Cee Lo has challengers for song of the year…tell us!
“Every Breath You Take” is NOT a love song, people. And “Tears in Heaven” is not a good choice for a wedding reception.
“There She Goes” by the La’s is not about a cute girl who’s on birth control–it’s about taking heroin. Gah.
@PhDork: People actually use “Tears In Heaven” at wedding receptions?!?
“You’re Beautiful” is about a dude who is so high (so high, you guys) that he cannot mack on a woman who’s out with her boyfriend.
I have heard this song played at weddings.
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It’s not even like these songs are subtle, for God’s sake! People are just stupid. I loved it when the Reagan campaign wanted to use “Born in the USA” as a campaign song. Talk about clueless and tone-deaf.
“Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton isn’t a romantic love song. It’s supposed to be a guy saying, “Yes dear, you look wonderful. Can we go already?”
I was wondering how long it would take for “Every Breath You Take.” I have also heard “Yesterday” as a suggestion for a father-daughter dance at a wedding. Really, “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they’re here to stay, oh I believe in yesterday,” are lyrics you want to have at your wedding?
@Becky – if not for this post, I would have continued in my mondegreen delusion about that song..
Agreed Dorky! I heard an interview with the Police about “every breath you take” and how they thought it was an odd choice for people who declare their love for each other want to that song as part of the ceremony..
one song that makes me giggle at wedding receptions is an Aussie band’s, Hunters and Collectors, “Throw Your Arms Around Me”.. it’s not really a song about “ever lasting love” and staying together.. have a listen here (it’s the accoustic version, coz it’s the best): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4Lbn_t5dk
Pearl Jam did a cover as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3oA4BWQovk
I know a song with lyrics written for this post!
I projected my own ideas onto “the Hook” by Blues Traveler and loved it for the wrong reasons, just as the lyrics predict.
Then I listened and loved it even more because I was totally taken in by the hook.
Rush, “The Spirit of Radio” is not an anthem saluting the rock DJ, but is about how the business side of rock music tries to subvert the message of rock. I have often suspected that this is why their entrance into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been denied so many times — the hacks who run the show don’t want to reward a band so critical of the machine, though that didn’t stop them from inducting Pink Floyd.
@PhDork: Now that you mention it, I actually think “Every Breath You Take” might have to share the title with “Born In the USA”. It’s so creeptacular…but people still play it at weddings!
@MM: Ralph Lauren recently used the opening bars and first line of CCR’s “Fortunate Son” (“Some folks were born/ made to wave the flag/ ooh, the red white and blue”) in an ad for some line of upscale men’s summer clothes. I almost choked because the entire song— except for those lines —is a rant about how elitist motherfuckers sent young men off to die in Vietnam. FAIL.
I know most sane people don’t make this mistake, but when Mercedes Benz used Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” in an ad a couple of years ago, I did an honest to gods spit-take.
But I will nominate that stupid song by Extreme “More than Words” from the early 90s. You know, the song that instead of being the tender love song everyone thought it was, actually said, “Yeah, yeah, so you love me… Take off your pants!”
You know, I think “Every Breath You Take” is really the bastard child of “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell. It sounds so pretty and then you have that feeling of, “Dear GOD is that creepy.”
Becky and Geekgirls, I also liked it when Carnival cruises used Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” for one of their commercials.
Admittedly, I’m somewhat skeptical of this kind of thing—I write songs myself, and as soon as I record one of my songs, it’s as much the listeners’ song as mine. I’d never be one of those songwriters who says, “No! This is the ONLY meaning and EVERYTHING else is wrong!!”, and that’s always bugged me—sure, reading a song in the exact opposite way it’s intended to be is pretty fishy, I just don’t believe in the One True Meaning of a song.
That being said, apparently the lead singer of The Vapors has gone on record that “Turning Japanese” is not, in fact, about masturbation, but a straightforward love song. Yeah, right—too many coincidences in it for it to not be about wanking.
I once heard a great interview with Sting about “Every Breath You Take,” where he talked about people coming up to tell him they played it at their wedding, and he would say, “Ok, well, good luck with your marriage, I guess.” He sounded pretty frustrated by it.
“Daughters” by John Mayer? Not really great for your father daughter dance, in my opinion.
@Geekgirls: I give credit to MamaSharper for calling bullshit on that Extreme song. I was in high school and liked it—y’know, because it was in heavy MTV rotation and I wasn’t actually listening to it all that closely—and my mom scowled and said, “He’s telling the girl that if she really loves him, she’ll prove it to him by having sex with him.” Message received!
I think the song Peaches ‘n’ Cream by 112 should be the defining test to determine if a person is a child or a teen. Is it a catchy song about food or a catchy song about cunnilingus (tee hee)? My ex’s mom got home from work one day ranting about how horrible the song Stacy’s Mom is horrible, and I just know that she was singing along on the radio and suddenly realized what she was saying.
Adding (and I love that you’re all so clever!), “Against All Odds” another totally inappropriate choice for weddings – that keeps getting played at weddings!
The true difference between the sexes is that women usually do pay attention to the words. Guys like a tune because it RAWKS.
Not always of course.
Does anyone remember when Ford’s ad agency used “Bohemian Like You” by the Dandy Warhols for a Focus commercial? They left in the line:
You’ve got a great car
and cut out the next one:
And what’s wrong with it today?
and didn’t think anyone would notice! As I recall, the commercial ran well after their target audience had heard the song on the radio 43560 times.
@BeckyS: Please don’t tell me that John Fogerty has sold out. And to Ralph Lauren? Oh, the pity of it all. This week alone I heard commercials using the music of Sting, Cake, and Michael Franti. Sting surely doesn’t need the money, and as for the other two, I know you’ve got to pay the bills, but…sigh.
I think it’s called “Cooler than me” – about a super entitled jerk who thinks a girl is “uppity” and that’s why she doesn’t swoon when he lays his best lines on her. The Eminem and Rhiana song all about extreme domestic violence played off as though it’s “normal” functioning in a relationship. “What’s my age again?”, in high school they played it at a pep rally where the drill team danced to it and I remember asking my friends, ‘did they even listen to the lyrics?’. The admin at my high school seemed to be clueless because another pep rally was an “island” theme and the song chosen by the drill team was Easy Skanking by Bob Marley, all about the joys of smoking pot.
Lol, I think I might have missed something.
What’s “What’s My Age Again?” really about?
There’s this song that keeps playing in grocery stores that really creeps me out, with the lyrics being something like, “If I was invisible, I would stare at you in your room, If I was invisible, I would make you mine.” It’s pretty much a song about voyeurism and possibly rape, but it’s got this catchy background. It’s so CREEPY.
Ah, I thought of another one, from a commercial: Devo’s “Beautiful World,” which Target edited so as to undercut the whole point of the song. It goes “It’s a beautiful world, etc., For YOU. For YOU. NOT ME!”
Some credit card company was using Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today” in their ads. If that song is about what I think it’s about, it’s a pretty poor choice for a credit card company to use in a down economy.
Melissa, I always took “What’s My Age Again?” to be about a 25-ish guy who still behaves like he’s in highschool. Everyone around him is starting to give up on him and treat him like the loser he is. I could be wrong…
Argh, I HATE that “Daughters” song. Perhaps, I’m taking it too literally.
I think it was Toyota who used the Buzzcocks’ “What do I get?” in a commercial for the Rav4.
“What do I get?” is about someone who is lamenting a girlfriend/boyfriend who has moved on, and they haven’t.
“I only get sleepless nights,
Alone here in my half-empty bed,
For you things seem to turn out right,
I wish they’d only happen to me instead.”
Now I’m not sure if that’s a “I wish you were miserable and I were happy” or a “I wish I could be happy, too,” but I’m still not sure why it was useful for selling cars.
When Honda used Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” in their recent commercial I was dumbstruck. Such a perfect day for shooting smack, I think I’ll by a car while I’m at it!
I think ‘Perfect Day’ was also used recently in an AT&T commercial.
Do y’all think Cee-Lo’s song is creepy?? I mean, if you take it at face value (and like…it’s pretty much a pop song), it seems like a perfectly healthy anger (if you could call it that…I might say ‘disappointment’). He never threatens anyone, just vents a little in a way I think most of us do when we break up with someone.
I didn’t imagine him actually screaming “fuck you” at them or confronting them, but rather muttering it to himself…or maybe screaming it once they’re gone.
Although I haven’t seen an actual music video yet (if there is one?) so I don’t know if there’s some element there that I’m missing!
I have heard “One,” by U2, at several weddings. Why on EARTH would you want to want “your song” to include lyrics like, “You gave me nothing, now it’s all I’ve got.” Really? And I know it’s kind of unfair to expect most people to have read interviews or whatever, but in the case of both “One” and “Every Breath You Take,” both U2 and the Police/Sting have talked ENDLESSLY about the meanings. “One” came about because the damn band was about to break up. On the bright side for those who use it as a wedding song, though, I guess at least U2 is still together…
@kat: That’s a CLAY AIKEN song! Does that make it more or less creepy?
@Jenna: That song makes me want to stab somebody. Yes, dude, I think I’m “cooler than you.” It’s not that you’re an entitled toolbox who’s never actually had a conversation with me. It’s really all about my sunglasses. With respect to the Eminemn song, though – and perhaps it’s just the rarefied air in which *I* exist, being so cool and all – but I don’t know anyone who thinks that song is anything but a kind of brutally honest representation of both Eminem’s and Rihanna’s well-publicized violent relationships. It actually didn’t occur to me that people *would* take it as anything other than a sort of emotionally powerful warning – like a four-minute encapsulation of the Ike & Tina movie. But like I said, I think I’m cooler than most people. So.
@Adara: Why yes, there is a very cool live-action video of “Fuck You.” Here it is. I actually think the all-text one is more unusual and inventive, but the live-action is fun, especially because it plays up the Motown-ness of the song. I don’t find it at all creepy or misogynist—I think it’s in the best “my girl done me wrong” tradition of R&B (of which there are at least as many “my man done me wrong” songs to counter it.)
It’s the most cheesetastic song to begin with but my Mom always wondered why so many of her friends had “I Honestly Love You” as their wedding song. It’s a song about a married lady that’s in love with another lady’s husband.
“Melissa, I always took “What’s My Age Again?” to be about a 25-ish guy who still behaves like he’s in highschool. Everyone around him is starting to give up on him and treat him like the loser he is. I could be wrong…”
Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but since this thread is about songs that aren’t actually about what people think they’re about, there must be something I’m missing…
Well, if you took “What’s My Age Again” to be about what we think it’s about, using it for a highschool pep rally isn’t very peppy. It’s not celebrating the highschool mentality, it’s saying that they are immature. Then again, it could also be inapproriate because one of the lyrics is about starting (then failing) to have sex and another line mentions sodomy. If the school officials or coaches had paid attention to the lyrics, they wouldn’t have allowed the song to be used.
A couple weeks ago my friend walked down the aisle to “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve. I thought that was weird, though I like the music.
There seems to be a whole ‘inappropriate for your wedding/advertisement’ side thread here.
I remember seeing a car ad with ‘Bohemian like you’ by the Dandy Warhols. Focusing on the first line ‘you’ve got a great car’ and cutting out the next bit: ‘yeah, what’s wrong with it today?’
Elvis Costello’s got a lot of songs whose meanings seem to be generally unknown, e.g.
Oliver’s Army – despite the upbeat tune, an anti-military song (‘called careers information/have you got yourself an occupation … there’s no danger/it’s a professional career’)
Alison – not so much a love song as an angry song about a girl who jilted the ‘narrator’
Veronica – About his grandmother with dementia
@Penny Esq: I love love love the song “One”, but it is SOOOOO not a wedding song, with lines like “we hurt each other and we’ll do it again” and “Love is a temple/you asked me to enter/but then you made me crawl/and I can’t keep holding on/to what you’ve got/ when all you’ve got is hurt”. Awkwardest first dance song ever.
The first one that comes to mind is when some phone/cellphone company used Sheryl Crow’s “Home.” Like, there’s a song that would make me never want to return home again, let alone call home, and they’re using that song to sell me on a service to stay in contact with it? Say what now?
My application for songs that you really should (or shouldn’t) listen to the lyrics to is Train’s “Hey Soul Sister.” (Or really any Train song, come to think of it.) I think they may well be incapable of writing a love song that isn’t an ode to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
My sincere, as in I really do love this song, nomination for song of the year has to be Lawrence Arabia’s “Apple Pie Bed.” I’ve been rather indulgently listening to it on repeat. The phrase “incurable earworm” comes to mind. Here’s a link for either streaming or download: http://rcrdlbl.com/2010/02/11/download_lawrence_arabia_apple_pie_bed
“I did it all for love” is not a romantic song. First because it’s about the singer’s love for their craft (dance) not another person. And secondly because the whole point of the song is questioning whether it was worth it. The guy strived and endured all this misery to be able to dance and breaks his leg while auditioning. It’s about a dream unachieved; why are you playing it at your wedding?
And about the Born to Run thing, PBS has documentary on protest songs which while mostly mediocre summations has some really awesome interviews including Bruce Springsteen. The look on his face when he talks about the Reagan campaign…
@Kpants
My coworker and I sometimes dissect pop lyrics, and we decided that the only way “Hey Soul Sister” makes any sense is if it’s about the singer falling in love with a Black woman.
I also heard the song “White Flag” while on a cruise. The chorus begins, “I will go down with this ship.” Not exactly what you want to hear when on a giant ship.
I was just at a wedding last night where the groom requested Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie” as the second song to be played, after the first dance! I thought it was both hilarious and inappropriate, but no one else seemed surprised, as they all knew how much the groom loves all things Eminem.
“Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King – it’s not that the lyrics themselves are misinterpreted, but people who quote the song always seem to forget that the plot of the film frames it as a mistaken philosophy, one which leads the main character to temporarily shirk his duties, with bad consequences.
What commercial used a Michael Franti song?
@Penny Esq and BeckySharper
In defense of “One”. Mr. Ori and I do plan on using it as our wedding song because we thin it is actually appropraite for our relationship. We’re people who are trying to figure this love thing out and its been turbulent and sometimes downright nasty on both sides.
I think there’s a lot of good in “One” as well as a lot of awful, and it’s pretty reflective of our lives.
YMMV, of course, and I do know that U2 has said it’s pretty odd for people to use “One” at their weddings. We know what it’s about and we still think it work for us.
On another note (more related to the post, lol!), when I was 14 or so, I recieved my very first tape – by a regge artist named Pato Banton. I was very taken with it, and decided to do one of his songs for the class lip sync. I went to a *very* Catholic school and I stood in front of my whole class a lip synched a song about how to roll and smoke a joint properly. I think my poor teacher aged about 15 years that day.
The innocence of youth? I had *no* idea what the song was about.
John Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses” and “Our Country” continue to be misunderstood by right-wingers. McCain used both for his campaign, I think.
And, not like many people would actually miss the point of this song, but this thread reminds me of the “Arrested Development” episode where Michael Bluth and his niece Maeby choose “Afternoon Delight” for a karaoke duet.
Ha, Aunty! The Dude loves Arrested Development and has been revisiting them via DVD. The karaoke ep you mentioned came up the other night. AWK-WARD!
It’s weird when people play “I will always love you” at weddings, since it’s a breakup song. I might be nice for a father-daughter dance, though.