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Tom Jones’ “Delilah,” grandma’s favorite song after a few sherries, tells the story of a man who stabs his friend to death after finding her cheating on him.
“He stood there laughing / I felt the knife in my hand and he wasn’t laughing anymore,” Jones sings.
Why, why, Tom?
According to Adrian Hong, a Korean-American consultant, Psy’s 2012 hit “Gangnam Style” and its video are a satire of Seoul’s thriving Gangnam region and how other South Koreans aspire to this lifestyle.
“Koreans were into this spending to look rich, and Gangnam was the vanguard,” Hong told The Atlantic.
“I think a lot of what [Psy] issues is how silly it is,” he added. thinking he’s betting on polo or something and realizes he’s on a merry-go-round. “
Released in 1983 at the height of the Cold War, Nena’s “99 Luftballons” is a protest song that warns of the risks of conflict.
The song imagines a situation where 99 balloons are launched into the air from West Berlin and fly over the Berlin Wall to East Berlin, which at the time was under Soviet control. The balloons are mistaken for UFOs, resulting in a catastrophic war.
“Man, who would have any idea it would come to this?”Baby sings. ” 99 years of war leave no room for victors. “
The Eagles’ 1977 “Hotel California” is not, despite what its name might suggest, a hotel in California. Nor is this a guy who dies and goes to hell, as some enthusiasts have suggested.
“It’s a song about the darkest part of the American dream and the excesses in America, which we knew a lot,” frontman Don Henley said in a 2002 interview.
“I’ll never feel/like I did that day,” goes the chorus of the Red Hot Peppers’ 1992 song “Under the Bridge. “
The day lead singer Anthony Kiedis refers to at the height of his heroin and cocaine addiction when, instead of being at home with his girlfriend, he was “downtown with damn mobsters shooting speedballs under a bridge. “
Another song about drug use, this time buried under the guise of a tacky pop hit in a whirlwind romance, is “I Can’t Feel My Face” via 2015’s The Weeknd.
“I know she’ll be my death / At least we’re going to be numb,” the song begins.
The Weeknd gave the impression of verifying the song’s hidden meaning in 2017’s “Reminder” by referencing its nomination for Song of the Year at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards.
“I won a new award for a children’s show/Talking ‘end to face numbing a bag of punches,'” she sings.
A true independent anthem, Foster the People’s 2010 hit “Pumped Up Kicks” depicts the murderous mind of a troublesome guy named Robert, who is jealous of his peers’ shoes.
“Everyone else with the inflated kicks / You’d better run, you’d better run faster than my gun,” the chorus continues.
Mark Foster, the band’s lead singer, told CNN in 2012, “I wrote ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ when I started reading about the developing trend of intellectual illness among teenagers. It is frightening to see how the intellectual disease of young people has exploded in the last decade. . “
After dominating the global charts and promoting more than four million units, “Hey Ya!”It is one of the most successful songs of the 2000s.
Under its catchy melody and catchy chorus, it is also André 3000’s unhappy look at the state of relationships today.
“Why, oh, why, oh, why, oh/We’re so in denial when we know we’re not satisfied here (you don’t need to hear me, you just need to dance),” he sings.
Although considered a love song, The Police’s 1983 song “Every Breath You Take” is really about a possessive lover who observes “every breath you take” and “every move you make. “
“I didn’t realize at the time how sinister it was,” frontman Sting, who wrote the song after his split from Frances Tomelty, told The Independent in 1993.
As Don McLean alludes to in his 1971 “American Pie,” it’s about the “day music dies. “
The word refers to a plane crash in 1959 that killed Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens and ended the first era of rock ‘n’ roll.
“I don’t know if I cried / When I read about his widowed wife,” McLean sings.
Electric Avenue is the name of a grocery street in Brixton, London, which in the 1800s was the first in the world to be lit with electricity.
In 1981, the domain was the scene of the Brixton riots, which arose due to the high degrees of poverty and unemployment that reigned among Caribbean immigrants in Britain at the time.
Eddy Grant’s 1983 song is about the riots.
“Who’s to blame in a country / Can never succeed in that / Dealing with multiplication / And they still can’t feed everyone,” sings Grant, who emigrated to London from Guyana in 1960.
Thin Lizzy’s 1977 hit “Dancing in the Moonlight” sounds like a joyful song, in name and sound.
In reality, though, it’s a piece about heroin addiction, which frontman Phil Lynott has struggled with with his life.
“I have chocolate stains on my pants / And my dad is going crazy / He says I live in a trance,” Lynott sings.
Not to be with Thin Lizzy’s song of the same name, Boffalongo’s “Dancing in the Moonlight,” which was covered through Toploader in 2000, has a very dark history.
“On a trip to St. Croix in 1969, I was the first victim of a vicious St. Croix gang. Croix who in the end murdered 8 American tourists,” writes Boffalongo’s Sherman Kelly on his website.
“At that time I suffered fractures and injuries to my face and I was left for dead,” he added. “While recovering I wrote ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ in which I imagined a reality of exchange, the dream of a violent and joyful birthday party of life. “
The UB40 are known for their reggae wellness anthems, however, several of their songs have darker meanings, the maximum noted being “Red Red Wine”, which speaks, who would have guessed it, about alcoholism.
Another is “One in Ten. ” The song’s name refers to roughly 10% of the local workforce claiming unemployment benefits in the band’s home region of the United Kingdom in the summer of 1981.
“No one knows me, though I’m still here / A statistic, a reminder of a global who doesn’t care,” the song continues.
At first glance, “Born In The U. S. A. ” through Bruce Springsteen. It’s a birthday party for American patriotism.
However, scratch beneath the surface and what you get is a bitter critique of American society, told through the lens of a Vietnam veteran struggling to find paintings upon his return from the war.
“Go back to the refinery / The recruiter says, ‘Son, if it were up to me,'” Springsteen sings in the third verse.
In the fifth and final verse, he sings, “I’ve been burning on the road for 10 years / I have nowhere to run, I have nowhere to go. “