Song lyrics

Rihanna her song Rude Boy : (which I like)

Opening lines '

Hey boy can you get it up get it up
Hey boy are big enough big enough

As the song goes on she cheekily lets you know what she is singing about.

I suppose 'Don't Stand So Close To Me by the Police, addressed to a schoolgirl isn't flavour of the month any more!

The one I always remember a right hooha over was Frankie Goes To Hollywoods "Relax". I loved it in the nightclubs in the 80s, it was so popular, but some radio stations banned it. The shock I had was when my poor wee mum sang away to it cos I played it so much, little did she know what the lyrics actually meant. The lyrics to some of Prince's songs were a bit raunchy too....

Hotel California all about drug use. Took me years to figure this out as I loved the melody.

Looking at this thread, I feel ignorance is bliss.

Just google the English lyrics to Despacito....... !

Still play Don't stand so close to me on the radio and I really don't know why.

More from Rihana i say!

I too love lyrics & irritate friends by saying many of the things mentioned above, and more!

I am however, a bit unsure about the herb concoction. I grew up in a traditional community, around women who 'saw to things' and the mix I knew of involved other herbs. We knew of parsley, sage, rosemary for medicinal properties (not thyme I think). However, i suspect it may have changed over the years - maybe with what sounded better!
Another version of the Elfin Knight song is Rosemary Lane (listen to Bellowhead's version!)

Loads of songs with double meanings - some fun and some not!
keeping the herbal theme, among my favourites are any of the 'bunch of thyme' songs:
Once I had a bunch of thyme, I thought it never would decay, then a handsome sailor (or soldier!) with a winning smile, he stole my bunch of thyme away.
And we'll all go together to pull wild mountain thyme....

My mother used to sing a version of Strawberry Fair that was very different from the one in the school songbook:
I've a lock without a key.....if you've the key sir, come along with me.....

I wouldn't say I was shocked exactly (it's only rock n' roll and all that) but I did blink a bit when I realised the the milk shake that brings all the boys to the yard is nothing to do with a lactose-based beverage.

Chestnut

I love Itchycoo Park by the Small Faces. 'It's all too beautiful' just sounds so good! But he tells the girl to skip off school so she can get high with him in the park.

To be fair on this one, the boys were all very young then too and quite likely to have teen girlfriends! And in the 6th form many of us skipped off school to get high in the park. There's no paedophilic intent here - just near contemporaries. Great record that as well as the first example of phasing between speakers, courtesy of a very inventive studio engineer.

Oh. Paperbackwriter, I really thought it was about milkshakes!

Second verse of "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" certainly shouldn't be sung now

I never understood why DJs used to play Phil Collins Separate Lives as an end of evening smooch song!

Jerusalem . My English teacher in 6th form told us that the poem was a cry for sexual freedom for women.

Lola...The Kinks about a sexual encounter where a girl is found out to be a boy at the crucial minute

Jerusalem . My English teacher in 6th form told us that the poem was a cry for sexual freedom for women

Jerusalem was my school song and possibly still is. It was a forward-thinking and liberal school, but I doubt it was quite that liberal!

rap songs are the worst, my 14 year old grandaughter had music playing and turned it off saying to me. you dont want to hear that granny, i asked her why not, she said they were swearing and very suggestive lyrics, thats from my 14 year old grandaugter, after that i did get some lyrics up and shes right

My Ding-a-Ling---Chuck Berry. Speaks for itself really

4allweknow. Actually Hotel California was about the excesses of show biz in the seventies - suppose that does include drugs but not exclusively. When asked about the lyrics Don Henley once said ‘this song is about materialism and excess. California is used as the setting, but it could relate to anywhere in America. ... It's a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and about excess in America which was something we knew about."

Ignorance definitely is bliss, but so is not actually hearing what they're saying! Lol

Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke sounds so obviously about date rape. The lyrics make me sick and I hate how popular it was.

I always pay attention to lyrics. I find ‘Rule, Britannia’ racist and xenophobic, and I cannot sing the first verse of ‘I vow to thee my country’ because I could not ever vow unquestioning devotion to anything.

We have a care home and convent backing onto our back garden. They got a new loud sound system last summer. The staff were practising with it and blasting out (with DGS2 age 2 in the garden) were rap songs with swearing in them! This year it's Vera Lynn, Proclaimers and Scottish songs like Mairi's Wedding, ABBA etc!

geekesse

I always pay attention to lyrics. I find ‘Rule, Britannia’ racist and xenophobic, and I cannot sing the first verse of ‘I vow to thee my country’ because I could not ever vow unquestioning devotion to anything.

Grief! Surely you can appreciate a beautiful song and join in singing it, without signing your life away. You're not in a court of law with a Bible in your hand.
Do you have to mean the words of every song you sing?

Chestnut asked ‘Do you have to mean the words of every song you sing?’

Well, I certainly consider them carefully, and don’t sing anything that I consider dishonest or offensive. I love Holst’s tune, and I’m happy to sing the second verse, but lying is never ‘beautiful’. I think that starting off with ‘I vow...’ and then singing a whole load of stuff that I heartily reject would be utterly dishonest. I don’t lie when I talk, so why should I lie when I sing?

In general, I think that popular songs often contribute to normalising things that are not acceptable - sexual abuse, stalking and drug abuse are all glorified in songs cited in this thread.