Have you ever misunderstood the meaning of a song?

[BlueKota]

Have you ever heard a song many times while growing up, then heard it again when you're an adult and realized
for all those years you misinterpreted the meaning of the song? I heard Bread's, "Everything I Owned," this morning and it finally dawned on me it was about a person mourning the loss of a parent, not a romantic partner.

I was watching a video, that features a musical artist listening to music from previous generations, that he'd never heard before. When the opening lyrics played about being sheltered from harm, and,"you gave my life to me," I said to myself damn it's about a parent. Then when the video host broke in, for his first comment on the song he said right away, it's about the loss of a parent. I was like damn how did I not pick up on that long before now?

[CincyDem]

1. Go listen to Vehicle. Pretty creepy when you actually pay attention to the lyrics.

[BlueKota]

2. Will do.

Just googled it and read the lyrics. You're right, it's very creepy.

[Oeditpus Rex]

6. The 'Ide' of March was

a pimp.

[CincyDem]

7. Don't know about that. Could be. But he sure made a bundle on "Eye of the Tiger".

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Agreed

And, the weird part for us is that when my wife was 14, Jim Peterik (who wrote & sang that song) gave her & her best friend a ride home from their show.
Nothing happened & he was a gentleman. He was only 17 at the time, so not as creepy as the song.

[Sogo]

3. Tangentially: Mis-hearing lyrics can create some amusing results.

When in high school, many years ago, a friend told me that she thought the song with the repeated phrase, "kind of a drag," was an advertisement for "Canda Dry."

[CincyDem]

5. How about "Tenth Devil in the Freezer"? Great Springsteen tune. Lolol.

[BlueKota]

16. 🤣

[electric_blue68]

24. 😅

[BlueKota]

15. That's funny.

I always remember how some people thought the Eagles were singing it's a goat my lord in a flat bed Ford!😁

[surfered]

4. Two stories:

1) One friend believed that Creedence Clearwater was singing “There’s a bathroom on the right,” instead of “There ‘s a bad moon on the rise.”

2) another from Ohio, with little experience in Spanish, misunderstood the lyrics of Guantanamera (woman from Guantanamo). She thought they we were singing “She’s a one ton tomato.”

[underpants]

9. Mike Nesmith did "One Ton Tomato" on his TV show Elephant parts

I can’t find a clip. He’s stopped by the Mariachi band backing him up to tell him he had it all wrong.

[surfered]

10. Did not know that. Once , when landing at Ixtapa airport,

a Mariachi band was greeting the arriving tourists, singing “Besame Mucho” (kiss me a lot). Except they were actually saying “Besame Culo” (kiss my ass).

[underpants]

12. 😆

[Marthe48]

32. Oh you dredged up a memory

My Dad used to randomly and loudly say Besame Culo. lol

[BlueKota]

14. I remember that.

[BlueKota]

17. Loved CCR

[justaprogressive]

8. and then there's "Purple Haze"

'scuse me while I kiss this guy!

[BlueKota]

18. 🤣

[underpants]

11. I'm lyrically deaf.

I thought Chumbawumba’s hit song lyrics were:
I get up
but I get up again
cause it happens on the lead guitar

Grateful Dead “Sugar Magnolia”. I’d heard that song hundreds of times given that there were a lot of Deadheads around. We lived 20 minutes from the Hampton Coliseum “The Mothership”.
The lines are:
Takes the wheel when I’m seeing double
Pays my tickets when I speed

I finally realized it wasn’t:
Takes the wheel when I’m seeing double
Feeds my chickens when I sleep.

Hundreds of times.

[BlueKota]

19. 🤣

[Paladin]

13. "Nessun Dorma."

Don't understand a word of it...

[CTyankee]

21. It means "Let no one sleep." Puccini just took the opera to a new height.

He also wrote the cute love song "O mio babbio caro." It's a big song, too! Context is everything here...

[Paladin]

22. Yeah, I know.

I looked up the English translation of the lyrics. after listening a few dozen times to Pavarotti's version of it. Good stuff.

[CTyankee]

25. I think sometimes that the song transcends the lyrics. It has to, because otherwise you have to explain the back story

on why this guy is singing "let no one sleep." It detracts from the beauty of the song cuz the back story is kinda loony...it's a context thing...

[CTyankee]

26. here's the story in case anyone wants to know what the hell we are talking about...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nessun_dorma

[Ocelot II]

30. "O Mio Babbino Caro" isn't exactly a cute love song. It's from the opera "Gianni Schicchi,"

and it's sung by Schicchi's daughter, who is begging her father to allow her to marry her lover or she will throw herself in the river.

Oh my dear papa
I love him, he is so handsome.
I want to go to Porta Rossa
To buy the ring!
Yes, yes, I want to go there!
And if my love were in vain,
I would go to the Ponte Vecchio
And throw myself in the Arno!
I am pining, I am tormented!
Oh God, I would want to die!
Father, have pity, have pity!

[CTyankee]

34. I've not seen the opera however I have read the interpretation that she's a teenager with a mad crush on a handsome

young man. Throwing herself into the Arno if daddy ("babbo" is Italian for daddy) doesn't let her get to know him!??!

[Ocelot II]

35. Teenagers, all that emo stuff.

When you're 15 and your boyfriend dumps you or your dad won't let you see him, you think your whole life is ruined.

[Iggo]

23. I thought "Tattooed Love Boys" was victim blaming.

I was pissed at Chrissie Hynde for years. Dead-to-me pissed.



(I’m all better now.)

[happybird]

27. Not really misunderstood, just never thought about it...

A couple years ago the lyrics to One Way Out by the Allman Bros finally sunk in and I realized what the song was about lol. I’ve known the lyrics for decades and always sing along, just never really thought about them. Classic rock radio osmosis, I suppose.

[FadedMullet]

28. I once heard someone in a Mexican restaurant ask the band if they would play "One Ton Tomato". Think about....

.....it for a minute. You'll get it.

[Lokee11]

29. EWF - Reasons

I guess not really On Topic - Whoops

From the first time I heard it and forever since - until fairly recently (Maybe 5 years ago) - thought it was a very deep song about a love that was / is undefinable, and loving someone after you are past the point of "infatuation" and you start loving all the things about them, the good and the bad, and your REASONS for loving them in a sense FADE because you LOVE their ENTIRETY, literally everything about them.

Then read somewhere an interview, with I think it was Maurice White , and come to find out, it was literally about a one night stand! That the lyrics were pretty much literal, Reasons wanted to be with / get with each other start to fade, and the fear was actually fallin' for that 1 night fling

In the interview (which I cannot locate - dam-nit) he said so many people have approached EWF over the years talking about how that was their wedding song and how deep and beautiful it was, and that he was thinking "Wedding song? It is about a 1 night stand!"

[applegrove]

31. I almost never listen to the words.

[Marthe48]

33. I misunderstood Blue October's Hate Me

I thought it was a love song about coming up short. But it is about letting his Mom down. I liked the song, then I loved it.