Songs that sound innocent, but with obscure lyrics

Lots of Bob Marley songs are played at parties because of the sunny reggae beat, even though many of the lyrics deal with racism, slavery, and armageddon.

 

even more so if you're talking the early (real) wailers with tosh and bunny. he kinda toned it down a bit when blackwell decided to make him a star in the u.s. and elsewhere outside of ja.

cheers,

 

Ha - glad I could influence you!

Like I said, my interpretation may be 100% wrong, but dammit, it's how I hear it!

 

Not sure how that one can be interpreted any other way! It barely tries to conceal its intent!

 

That one is widely misunderstood but not one with "innocent lyrics", IMO - Bruce makes his point clearly, but some dolts only pay attention to the chorus.

I don't see any way even the dopiest of dopes could view the lyrics in the verses as jingoistic...

 

Ha! I used to picture that as a Country Time Lemonade commercial type setting, or Little House on the Prairie. Maybe a baseball game going and some fireworks going in the afternoon on the 4th of July.

 

Your interpretation of Roll It Over is correct.

 

Everyone's Gone to the Movies completely eluded me. Looked at the lyrics. Wow. How could I have missed that?

 

The Vapors - Turning Japanese.

 

Barbie Girl - by Aqua

 

No kidding, Same applies with some of Midnight Oil

 

Rotersand-We Will Kill Them All (Lullaby), 2009

 

tried to get the video from you tube but cannot. bachelor mother by the turtles is also about a gangbang. sample lyric when five and one make two.

 

It's pretty disturbing.

 

More quirky than cute, Dinosaur Jr's "In a Jar" has these great strange lyrics:

I'll be grazing by your window
Please come pat me on the head
I just want to find out what you're nice to me for
When I look up, don't think I don't know
About all the scabs you dread
It's hard to stomach the gore

I know you don't have the patience
To peel them off no more
In a jar where you believe
All I could do was lick your hand
In a jar the scars are plain to see
I hope somehow you'll know I understand

I'll be grazing by your window
Please come pat me on the head
I just want to find out what you're nice to me for
Then you smile and decide to take me in
'cause I look you by your bed
But I can feel it just a little more

I'll watch you fall apart, babe you know it
You know I'm young and stuff, babe don't blow it
Just unscrew the top, yeah
Pick me up now just can't stop

In a jar where you believe
All I could do was lick your hand
In a jar where scars are plain to see
I hope somehow you'll know I understand
Scabs collect beneath your bureau
From the knife wounds you got

 

Stereolab's "Ping Pong" is my favorite example of this. Such a sunny, upbeat song, but, "It's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing."

 

Genesis - Snowbound

 

The Archies are a classic example. I'll never understand how "Jingle Jangle" and "Archie's Party" got past Tipper Gore and the PMRC.

Not that the lyrics are all that obscure.

 

I read somewhere that Please Please Me was about a boy complaining that he didn't receive oral sex. I thought it was a strecht, but who knows.

Also, Pulp's lyrics usually have a dark twist at some point.

 

Third Eye Blind - Semi Charmed Life

Perhaps more on the obscene side.

 

I think that is quite a stretch.

 

Sweet Cream Ladies Forward March by The Box Tops.

A song about the ladies in the oldest profession. Hard to believe this was actually played in AM radio stations in the late 60s.

 

Prince certainly mixed sexual metaphors into some of his big charts: Take "Little Red Corvette" and "Sugar Walls" (given to Sheena Easton) as two examples.