Song lyrics

I have trouble hearing the words, let alone understanding what they mean!

Lou Reed's Walk on the Wildside. Not exactly shocked by it but I did once explain to a young woman on a craft stall, who had it playing on a continuous loop, what it was about. She'd no idea, thought it was about wild life.

I remember starting to sing "I'm so excited" by The Pointer Sisters at a karaoke night on holiday (chosen because I liked its catchy tune) when I realised the lyrics were all about a couple having sex! Never has a song gone on so long when I just wanted it to end so I could slope off back to my table, very red faced!

Lucy in the sky with diamonds! refers, I was told, to drugs.

I’m always horrified when I hear people sing enthusiastically along to “Because you’re gorgeous”. Just Google the lyrics!! It’s about a photographer who puts a girl into suggestive poses with the promise of fame as a model. Yuk!!

Lucy in the Sky with diamonds - about LSD.
I've got you under my skin - allegedly about cocaine.
Ebenezer Good - allegedly about Ecstasy (the drug).

Any Old Iron. Look it up.

My husband, when we first got together said Stay With Me by The Faces.
He didn't 'hear' the words just Stay With Me. I wasn't very happy !!

Bryan Adams - Summer of 69 is NOT about the year 1969. However, I still love Bryan and all his music

Honky Tonk Women by Mick Jagger.

The line She Blew my Nose, and then she Blew my Mind.

It is about when he was drunk and too tired for sex.
She blew my nose refers to snorting cocaine up the nose to wake him up.
She blew my Mind refers to the good sex that followed.
How very naughty Mick Jagger I call him Mr. Snake hips.

What about Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye - right out there!

So we've happily been listening to suggestive songs about young girls, drugs and sex for several decades without batting an eyelid because we never actually listened to the words. ?

I think the overall sound of the song is what captures us. If it sounds beautiful or has that certain 'something' then we don't bother with the detail.

Loch Lomond. It is being sung by a Jacobite in Carlisle jail awaiting execution and the "low road" is the way back to Scotland through the land of the faeries, which is how he'll be returning home after he dies, while the person he is singing to will go the normal way on the High Road.

Chain Reaction by Diana Ross was on the radio the other day and it suddenly struck me that it wasn’t as innocent as I’d ever thought.

I must be one of the few people who listens to lyrics and actually understands them then! Or do I just have a dirty mind?

Re the zina zina song. I lived in Indonesia and that "zina" means whore/women of loose morals, oops, my daughter in called Zena. The odd looks I'd get in shops when I called to her!!

Lola by The Kinks, about transvestites and innocent young boys.

The Candy Shop by 50 Cents a song about oral sex.

Listening to the words and lyrics of songs is great and you can always get what they are singing about but then a lot of music
is written that way.

I always listen to the words of songs - it's my thing. Doesn't stop me enjoying a particular song. It's all about the story.

Go away little girl is another one.

Even the holier than thou, Cliff Richard who, in Living Doll wanted to keep his gorgeous Girlfriend 'locked up in a trunk' and in Please Don't Tease Me, demands that she "pleases" him and thrills him "with her magic touch". Even at 13 I could work out what he was asking for

Young Girl by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap is one of the few songs that actually says what it means!
And I have just read that the big hit by Little Richard "Tutti Fruitti" is not about sweets but anal sex !!!

Actually, Lucy is not about LSD.
Apparently years later John Lennon said that it was all about the time that he was painting a picture of his son Julian with his friend Lucy and he decided to make it into one of the 70s cartoon type pictures and added diamonds to the sky!

Perfect Day is about heroin.
Peaches by the Stranglers is about ladies bodies.
Rod Stewart now won't sing a few of his earlier hits because of the misogynistic lyrics.
Hallelujah definitely wasn't a religious song....
Another brick in the wall (in fact the whole album The Wall) plots the gradual decline in a man's mental health.
Sledgehammer is about sex.....

Brown Sugar, by 'Mr Snake Hips' and the gang?

jaylucy Little Richard wrote the original Tutti Frutti but the record company brought in a female songwriter to clean up the lyrics. Little Richard said that he was embarrassed to sing his version to a woman, so he turned his back on her as he sang. It was actually only a few lines that were changed and they are pretty innocuous really.

I always listen to lyrics, so I usually know what a song is about but sometimes it is a bit hard to work out. Still on the subject of Little Richard, what is Long Tall Sally about? Bald-headed Sally has got what Uncle John needs but what is it? Drugs? Sex? Whatever it is, Uncle John doesn't want Aunt Mary to know about it.