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What were those songs really about about....and do I really want to know?

firepoint525 said:
"Life is a skiffle, but the radio skiffled me." ;D

Brings up an interesting point. Were there ever actually any songs written about skiffle? I can't think of any.
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Henson Cargill, early '60s, Skiffle Rope ... just kidding.
 
Re: What were those songs really about....and do I really want to know?

Steely Dan lyrics are sometimes well-nigh impenetrable anyway.

Then there are some of Paul McCartney's post-Beatle songs, like "Jet" - "I thought the major was a real lady suffragette..." ...huh?

Doris Day's "A Guy is a Guy" is about Doris falling in love with a stalker!
Shawn Colvin's "Fill Me Up" could be from a stalker's viewpoint... "I know where you live/and I know who you are / so don't get too close/ and don't go too far..."
 
Re: What were those songs really about....and do I really want to know?

rnigma said:
Steely Dan lyrics are sometimes well-nigh impenetrable anyway.

Then there are some of Paul McCartney's post-Beatle songs, like "Jet" - "I thought the major was a real lady suffragette..." ...huh?
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Or America's "Tin Man": "Cause never was the reason for the evening, or the topic of Sir Galahad." I remember reading that the group admitted that the whole song was nonsense, just randomly selected words that fit the melody.
 
Re: What were those songs really about....and do I really want to know?

rnigma said:
Then there are some of Paul McCartney's post-Beatle songs, like "Jet" - "I thought the major was a real lady suffragette..." ...huh?
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Or, "Junior's Farm". Talk about nonsense lyrics - what's a Gee-Gee?

"Olly Hardy should have had more sense,
He bought a gee-gee and he jumped the fence,
All for the sake of a couple of pence."
 
Particularly with Top 40 hits, many people would not listen closely to the lyrics, just groove to the tune. To this day what people take from John Lennon's "Imagine" is the warm-fuzzy feeling of everbody being able to "live as one". Listen, and comprehend, even a little more and you'll find it's a dream song for athiests and the far-left..."Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky". Or this gem... "Imagine there's no countries, it's easy if you try".

Then there's the minor hit "Stop The World and Let Me Off" by Flaming Ember. The lyrics don't hide anything. It's a song about a guy in love with a girl whose become a lesbian after men, including her father, have treated her poorly. Late in the song he laments about "...Knowing that you're with her, and she's the one you prefer".
 
johnbasalla said:
Particularly with Top 40 hits, many people would not listen closely to the lyrics, just groove to the tune. To this day what people take from John Lennon's "Imagine" is the warm-fuzzy feeling of everbody being able to "live as one". Listen, and comprehend, even a little more and you'll find it's a dream song for athiests and the far-left..."Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky". Or this gem... "Imagine there's no countries, it's easy if you try".
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"... and no religion too." It's hard to miss the message of "Imagine," even if you are "grooving" to it. Lennon was an atheist and worked what he saw as the positives of atheism -- no wars over religion, no inquisitions, no Holocaust, no belief-inspired terrorism -- into a song. I would think that most religious people understood what Lennon was writing about and either rejected the song, appreciated its call for peace and harmony and its melody but chose to ignore the atheist subtext, or simply enjoyed the whole thing and gave Lennon a pass. Hate the sin, love the sinner, and all that.
 
I believe that Lennon had said somewhere in an interview that he wanted to put the same message in "Imagine" that he had put into some of his earlier solo songs that had not been really big hits. He believed that by putting the same message from all those earlier songs into a "softer" song, that it might work for him. And apparently it did. But despite entering the entire Billboard Hot 100 at #20 (one of the highest debuts ever, up to that time), it still stalled out at #3, and failed to go on to #1. Maybe people picked up on the message of that song, and then turned away from it.
 
firepoint525 said:
I believe that Lennon had said somewhere in an interview that he wanted to put the same message in "Imagine" that he had put into some of his earlier solo songs that had not been really big hits. He believed that by putting the same message from all those earlier songs into a "softer" song, that it might work for him. And apparently it did. But despite entering the entire Billboard Hot 100 at #20 (one of the highest debuts ever, up to that time), it still stalled out at #3, and failed to go on to #1. Maybe people picked up on the message of that song, and then turned away from it.
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Given the lyrics, I'd say making it to No. 3 was a remarkable accomplishment. Billboard used sales and airplay (and a little cash or cocaine under the table, so it's said) to determine the Hot 100 in those days. To reach No. 3, at least in theory, a song would have to be strong across the country in both. If people -- or radio stations -- were shunning "Imagine" because of its message, there were too few of them to really matter.

Just out of curiosity, what were the two songs ahead of "Imagine" the week it hit No. 3?
 
CTListener said:
Given the lyrics, I'd say making it to No. 3 was a remarkable accomplishment. Billboard used sales and airplay (and a little cash or cocaine under the table, so it's said) to determine the Hot 100 in those days. To reach No. 3, at least in theory, a song would have to be strong across the country in both. If people -- or radio stations -- were shunning "Imagine" because of its message, there were too few of them to really matter.
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Don't forget, Imagine (the album) also contained "How Do You Sleep?" his dig at Paul McCartney. So much for "peace and love." He also sang "imagine no possessions" in "Imagine," yet he owned a psychedelic Rolls Royce that sold at auction for (I believe) $650,000 after his death.
Just out of curiosity, what were the two songs ahead of "Imagine" the week it hit No. 3?
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For the week of November 20, 1971, "Theme from Shaft" by Isaac Hayes was #1, and "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves" by Cher (which had just been #1) dropped to #2 that week.
 
firepoint525 said:
For the week of November 20, 1971, "Theme from Shaft" by Isaac Hayes was #1, and "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves" by Cher (which had just been #1) dropped to #2 that week.
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I asked because Rolling Stone ranked "Imagine" as the No. 3 rock song of all time. Now I know what No. 1 and No. 2 are. ;D
 
I just watched Sunday Morning on CBS with a story about the group Heart and they said the song Barracuda was a song to tell the world that the two sisters were not lesbians (which was stated in some paper or magazine earlier)
 
stevations said:
I just watched Sunday Morning on CBS with a story about the group Heart and they said the song Barracuda was a song to tell the world that the two sisters were not lesbians (which was stated in some paper or magazine earlier)
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I saw the same story. Unless I missed or misunderstood something, "Barracuda" wasn't so much about denying being lesbians (which the Wilson sisters are not), but more about their anger at those behind a misguided, ill-advised PR effort which made them appear as such.
 
Re: What were those songs really about....and do I really want to know?

CTListener said:
Or America's "Tin Man": "Cause never was the reason for the evening, or the topic of Sir Galahad." I remember reading that the group admitted that the whole song was nonsense, just randomly selected words that fit the melody.
Click to expand...

Speaking of nonsense by America, what are "alligator lizards in the air" as mentioned in "Ventura Highway?"
 
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