| Billy Joel – You May Be Right Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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Combat Zone should really be capitalized here. He's referring to the often dangerous red light district in Boston that was still around at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Zone,_Boston |
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| David Bowie – Suffragette City Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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Probably more about drugs than bisexuality and sexual confusion. Heroin and other opiates can effect sexual potency and cause impotency. Bowie tried to balance his drug use with his need for sexual gratification. I don't think Bowie was all that confused about his sexuality. He enjoyed sexual experimentation, but had a clear preference for women. He primarily had sex with women, had sex with TONS of women and always had female partners like Angie or Iman and not male partners. I doubt he ever "bottomed" for instance. Not a knock on those that do, but I don't think Bowie was into that. |
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| Elton John – Island Girl Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| @[exobscura:44275] Elton (or Reginald as it were) doesn't even write the lyrics. That would be Bernie Taupin. | |
| Peter Frampton – Do You Feel Like We Do? Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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This is missing the lyrics from the third verse: Champagne for breakfast and a Sherman in my hand White top, White tails, never fails Must have been a dream, I don't believe where I've been Come on - let's do it again |
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| Jackson C. Frank – I Want to Be Alone (Dialogue) Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| These aren't the lyrics to the Jackson C. Frank song. It's to an unrelated song called "I Want to Be Happy". | |
| Lou Reed – Andy's Chest Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| I think the lyrics are for the original song. Andy changed them slightly for the solo remake. For instance he says "you have a hairy minded pink bare bear" and not "you've got a hairy minded big bare bear". He also says "mountain tops" not "mountains, dear". | |
| Alice in Chains – Rain When I Die Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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@[drinkthepoison:38828] BOTH Cantrell and Staley wrote the lyrics, although ALL of the band members were credited for writing the song. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirt_(Alice_in_Chains_album)#Track_listing |
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| The Pretenders – Tattooed Love Boys Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[rockabit:38745] It's actually haywire. | |
| The Pretenders – Tattooed Love Boys Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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The blow job references in this song are pretty blatant. Specifically, she's referring to an incident where she was hanging out and doing drugs with bikers and they offered to take her back to their place, which she accepted. When she got there, they told her to "start sucking" and flicked lit cigarettes at her. She wrote about this in her memoir. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/17/reckless-my-life-as-a-pretender-chrissie-hynde-review-memoir |
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| The Clash – Inoculated City Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| For what it's worth, the original version with the 2000 Flushes commercial audio included is on the 2013 remastered version of Combat Rock. Personally, I've never heard the version without it. But I imagine it wouldn't be quite as good. | |
| Elton John – Little Jeannie Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[Thia007:36844] Not sure why woman is in quotation marks. Elton John didn't write the lyrics. Gary Osborne did. And yes, he was attracted to women and fell in love with them. So the song is not secretly about a man. It was inspired by a woman. While Elton John is gay, his lyrics were written by straight men (usually Bernie Taupin). | |
| Elton John – Little Jeannie Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[Thia007:36843] Not sure why woman is in quotation marks. Elton John didn't write the lyrics. Bernie Taupin did. And yes, he was attracted to women and fell in love with them. | |
| Steely Dan – Aja Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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A fair amount of things to unpack here... Let's address the title first. Aja is a reference to a beautiful Korean woman who was the wife of the older brother of a friend of Donald Fagen's. Fagen liked her name and the image it evoked of a quiet relationship with a beautiful woman. The "up on the hill" refrain that repeats at the start of the verses is a reference to elite society. Considering Fagen is a successful rock star, he's most likely referring mainly to people in the record industry at the top, other rock stars, producers, executives, etc. The first up on the hill part is: Up on the hill People never stare They just don't care It's not a very judgmental scene in this sense. They don't really care if you look like a "freak" or you do drugs, or have a lot of casual sex, etc. Unlike mainstream society which tends to stare at people who stand out or judges them, especially back in the time that the song was written. Up on the hill They've got time to burn There's no return There's a lot of free time when you're a rock star and you're not recording an album or touring. You don't have the hassles of working a 9-to-5 job. "There's no return" means that when you're a star, you'll always be known for what you did, even if you're a has been. Hell, people still listen to Steely Dan songs from almost 50 years ago, and will be 50 years from now, even when Donald Fagen is no longer with us, just like Walter Becker is remembered after his death. Up on the hill They think I'm okay Or so they say Steely Dan were successful, but they sort of did things their own way. They got rid of the original band members besides Fagen and Becker. They stopped touring after 1974. They sold albums, but they weren't the biggest band either. They were accepted, but the industry was always looking for the next big thing and it's hierarchical. There's always a bigger star than you. The rest of the lyrics are a bit more cryptic and other people here have done a good job trying to interpret them, but I really love the "up on the hill" refrains throughout the song, so that's my take on them. |
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| Steely Dan – Janie Runaway Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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It's about an older, affluent New Yorker who picks up a young runaway named Janie who came to NYC from Tampa. He probably picked her up in Gramercy Park where she was hanging out after getting off the Greyhound bus from Tampa (he refers to her as "the wonderwaif of Gramercy Park). He gives her food (including luxury food from places like Dean & Deluca, shelter and a place to stay (his expensive apartment) in exchange for a sexual relationship. They have sex in the morning (which makes it "fabulous") and she performs sex acts on him while they're waiting in traffic (to make it "interesting"). They have roleplay sex as well, where she's a showgirl and he's Sinatra ("way back in '59"). He decides to take her for a weekend trip to Pennsylvania, where his friend "Binky" has allowed him to use his "sugar shack". Technically, a sugar shack is a small semi-commercial cabin used for maple syrup production in northern New England and Eastern Canada. However, I think he's using the term more loosely here to refer to a relatively small private cabin in Pennsylvania where they can get away from the city and have a lot of privacy to do what he wants to do (mainly have sex). His only apprehension is that transporting her across state lines could be a "federal case" which implies that she is a minor and transporting her across state lines for sexual purposes would violate the Mann Act. Finally, her friend Melanie (implicitly another teen girl who may also be a runaway) is introduced. He "reminds" her that she likes "to try new things", such as having a threesome with Melanie and him. He imparts to her that her reward for having a 3-way with him and Melanie would be getting to spend her birthday in Spain. The song ends there, but Janie likely agreed to the threesome since she's already showed herself to be agreeable to travel and to performing sexual favors for rewards. It's also worth noting that Spain has historically had a low age of consent relative to the US. The age of consent was raised from 12 to 13 in 1999 and wasn't raised to 16 until 2015. The song was released in February 2000 and likely written in 1999 or earlier (the album was recorded between 1997-1999). So it's likely no mere coincidence that the song's protagonist takes this young girl to Spain instead of somewhere else. |
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| Steely Dan – Midnight Cruiser Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| Pretty sure this song is about cruising around for street-walking prostitutes late at night, i.e. Midnight Cruiser. Neighborhoods like "Harlem or somewhere the same" tend to have the most hookers on display and they tend to be out at midnight or another time late at night and "gentleman losers" cruise around in their cars and pick them up. It's not totally on the nose, but few Steely Dan songs are. The album cover for Can't Buy a Thrill depicts prostitutes waiting for customers in a red light district, so it seems like that was a theme they were exploring at least somewhat on this album. This is the only song on the album that has lyrics and subject matter that even hint at prostitution. Dirty Work refers to an affair with a married woman rather than prostitution. This is about prostitution, though. | |
| Steely Dan – Midnight Cruiser Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| Pretty sure this song is about cruising around for street-walking prostitutes late at night, i.e. Midnight Cruiser. Neighborhoods like "Harlem or somewhere the same" tend to have the most hookers on display and they tend to be out at midnight or another time late at night and "gentleman losers" cruise around in their cars and pick them up. It's not totally on the nose, but few Steely Dan songs are. The album cover for Can't Buy a Thrill depicts prostitutes waiting for customers in a red light district, so it seems like that was a theme they were exploring at least somewhat on this album. This is the only song on the album that has lyrics and subject matter that even hint at prostitution. Dirty Work refers to an affair with a married woman rather than prostitution. This is about prostitution, though. | |
| Alice in Chains – Nutshell Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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It's mainly about Layne dealing with fame. His gift of self is compromised by people treating him like a star instead of a person. They want something from him, money, drugs or the prestige from being associated with a rich and famous person. His friendships aren't as real as when he was just a regular guy. And the media and the fans are constantly invading his privacy. He wishes he would just be left alone. It's not worth it to him anymore. He worked so hard to be a rock star and now he doesn't even want it, he's ambivalent about being alive and realizes that he's slowly killing himself. |
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| Alice in Chains – Died Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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@[rock_hawk:31722] Yeah, you're right about that. Jerry Cantrell said of the song: I wish we'd have got a bit more work on that one. It's more "Alice In A Jam Room", it's not as finished as "Born Again". It's vicious, it's got teeth, it doesn't have many overdubs and it's maybe a purer, rawer form of what Alice is. It isn't pretty and that's not a bad thing at all. As far as the vocals go, a large part of it was the effects of Layne's extended heavy drug use for years, especially his rotting and missing teeth and slurred words. Personally, I still love the song, it's one of my favorite songs of theirs along with Get Born Again, which were the last two songs Layne recorded with Alice in Chains, in 1998, before he died in 2002. |
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| Peter Frampton – Lines on My Face Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| While I thought this might be a drug song before I listened to it, when you listen to it and pay attention to the lyrics, it becomes apparent that it's about a man whose wife is cheating on him and their marriage is falling apart but he has to keep going because he's got bills to pay, as the song says. | |
| Stone Temple Pilots – Sex Type Thing Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| It's about the mentality of a rapist. Scott Weiland wrote the song based on the experience of his girlfriend being gang-raped by three high school football players. One of the major themes is projection (I know you want what's on my mind, I know you like what's on my mind). The song was widely misinterpreted as being about sex (Weiland said it's about control, violence and abuse or power) or promoting rape (it was a pointedly anti-rape song). | |
| The Guess Who – American Woman Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[SimpleKindOfBoy:30920] There was no lack of success in the US. It was a #1 hit, it was covered by American artists and charted again in the US, it is well liked and well remembered in the US. The closest thing to a backlash that you could mention is that the band was asked by First Lady Pat Nixon not to play the song when they performed at the White House. However, they were still invited to play at the White House despite not being American. It was a sign of how well liked they were in the US. | |
| Queen – We Will Rock You Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[MoonlitKnight:30710] Especially since Freddie didn't write all or even most of the lyrics. Brian May wrote the song all by himself. Some people think Another One Bites The Dust is about AIDS. John Deacon wrote that one and it's quite possible he didn't even know what AIDS was at the time he wrote the song. I've even heard that Bohemian Rhapsody is about AIDS. Literally nobody knew what AIDS was when Freddie wrote that song. The only song that Freddie wrote about AIDS was I'm Going Slightly Mad which was a witty, humorous take on the cognitive decline he was suffering at the time. I've also heard people say The Great Pretender is about Freddie being gay or something like that. It was a freaking cover song from the 1950s, LOL. | |
| Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| I don't think Heaven is intended to be literal, but rather figurative. She thinks she's finding fulfillment through material things but her metaphorical stairway to Heaven is lying upon the whispering wind, basically meaning that it's blowing away and she may never get it back. She thinks she can buy a stairway to Heaven, but of course she can't. | |
| Queen – I'm Going Slightly Mad Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| It's a humorous take on a serious subject matter. Freddie Mercury was suffering from AIDS-induced cognitive decline at the time he wrote the song. However, he tried to find the humor in it. Inspired by the witticisms and one liners of Noël Coward, Mercury and his friend Peter Straker stayed up one night trying to outdo each other with one liners about losing it. The results of that session was this strange witty song. | |
| Curtis Mayfield – (Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| It's about collective responsibility for society's problems and about empty words and promises. And how it goes all the way from the top (Nixon) to the bottom (educated fools from uneducated schools). If we don't all do something to make a change, we're headed straight to hell (if it even exists). | |
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