What?! Oh Hell No! Hold up. Huh? Oh Ok

(Or, what’s that song really about?)

Wake Me Up When September Ends – Green Day

So, we hear this song every year when a football team starts out 0 and 4.

We also hear it when we are seeing tributes to the September 11^th attacks.

It was used as a tribute to Hurricane Katrina

The video itself is a long sweeping love story about a young couple torn apart by the war. The sadness of waiting for a loved one to come home, and everything we feared during the Iraq war.  

Obviously none of that is what the song is about at all.

But the band never told anyone not to use it.  I think good musicians are aware that, even when their words are misconstrued, they can still help others heal.  (ok maybe not the football stuff)

The song’s real meaning came from Billie Joe Armstrong’s childhood.   They mention it in one line in particular, but at the age of ten Billie Joe lost his father in September of 1982.  So the line “Like my father's come to pass”  is the whole meaning behind the song.

The video was okayed because Billie Joe felt that it still conveyed loss, along with their disdain for the war.

Closing Time – Semisonic

20 years later, bars are still playing this song as they turn up the lights.

Seems simple enough, we all know the bar culture, “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here“ has been around for years, hell, it’s in the Blues Brothers

So, ok, what’s the song really about?

Childbirth.   Yep, just listen to the damn lyrics, take the bar context out of it, and realize that the bar is a womb, that  “won’t be open until your brothers or sisters come”    

It’s the baby that knows who it wants to take him or her home. 

Yep. 

Don’t believe me, Singer Dan Wilson breaks it down line by line in the video below.

Say It Ain’t So – Weezer

I don’t get to talk about this song enough, and more people should know what it’s really about.

So if you don’t understand the importance this has to me, recognize that the symbol on the bass drum head is on my arm.  Or realize that when I am talking about Rivers the next couple of lines, I am talking about the leader of Weezer; not my son, but recognize where I got my son’s name.

So I don’t know what you think the song is about, I’ve known for years, so I don’t know what people think it’s about.

Anyways Rivers’ real parents split when he was a kid, and when that happened Rivers believed it to be due to the fact that his father was an alcoholic.  I can’t confirm that he was, only that this was what Rivers believed.

Flash forward to Rivers in High School and he comes home and there is beer in the fridge, So Rivers immediately thinks of the worst.  He now thinks that his step father is going to become an alcoholic and leave his family just as his real father had done.

So, listen to the lyrics now, it’s all there,  a Heineken in the fridge,  “like father , step father”   really the words were there the whole time, so if you missed it, well yeah  I can understand.  That’s a lot of personal history to know about. 

Damn.

Semi- Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind

You didn’t realize what this was about because on the radio and video edits, they backmask  the word, and in the video, lead singer  Stephan Jenkins covers his mouth .

But if you watch the video, he also walks backwards as he says it, which, means nothing, but come on, backmasking and showing that you did it.

Fucking genius.

The radio and vide edits also take out the post bridge.  I mean, you aren’t missing much, but the lyrics make sense if you know what you are hearing.  

There are other edits that take a shit ton more out. They use those on “light” radio stations nowadays, and those edits make it impossible to understand the true meaning.

Ok fine, I’ll tell you

Crystal Meth.  The song is about  a downward spiral into a slow addiction to Crystal Meth. The original chorus was, “I want nothing else”

So, yeah, he says “Doing Crystal meth will lift you up”

Drugs man, drugs.  Has anyone ever written a straight up song about drugs and got it on the radio?  Maybe someday soon. 

So here is the official video

Here is an unofficial fan made lyric video of the whole song intact as it appears on the album 

Love Song – Sara Bareilles

So, you may think that it’s a break up song, or a fuck you to a former lover.

It’s actually a fuck you to her record label.

She was trying to make an album and she was writing song after song, and the label, Epic, was still looking for a hit.  They weren’t ready to put out an album without a radio hit.

She was running into writer’s block and just became frustrated.

So Bareilles just wrote out the way she felt about the record label’s pressure and the way that they would just offer no help other than to shoot her down.  They wanted a love song.

That’s exactly what they got.

The Freshmen – The Verve Pipe

Depending on who you ask, the song means a lot of things. 

Only two of them are acceptable answers. 

The song is usually referred to as a song about suicide, and lyrically that’s what it’s about, the lead singer’s ex committing suicide.

Except that it never actually happened. 

The girl in question did have an abortion, and that’s what the song is really about.  There’s only 1 line that truly refers to it, but it’s there and you probably never  noticed it. 

“Stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice”

I don’t know what the rice part means.  But yeah, it’s a really deep dark song.

And here’s the darkest version out there.

And here’s the brightest:

Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler

So the song was written by Jim Steinman, the man who wrote and produced Meat Loaf’s Bat out of Hell.

So right off the bat (no pun intended) you know it’s going to be some crazy shit.  The song was originally longer, I mean you’ve heard Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Jim Steinman writes some long ass crazy songs. 

The video is crazy as fuck too, and if you haven’t seen the Literal version, you owe it to yourself to see it. Click Here.   Watch other literal videos too.

So anyways, the song is a love song, but it’s not just any love song, it’s a vampire love song.

I would’ve watched more of Twilight had they used it.

So yeah, it’s a god damned Vampire love song.  So it’s about literally living in the dark all the time and that will be the only time for love or anything. 

Obviously the eclipse represents that moment of darkness in the middle of day. A brief moment where you can be totally out and free.

Summer of 69 – Bryan Adams

Seriously?

Bryan Adams was 10 in the summer of 69, you really think he had a band then?

And that one of the members would have left the band to get married?

Sex.   As in the sexual position of 69ing.

There’s some nostalgia in there and you can say it’s about young love, but 69 is there on purpose.

So that’s it for today.

 I’m sorry if I ruined your ideas as to what this music was really about, I know that you probably won’t look or hear the songs in the same way again.

But hey at least you know the truth right?

One last fun story,  Randy Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive has a brother named Gary.   Gary had a stutter. 

So when BTO was making the Not Fragile album the guys were playing around with a fun song, it was a nod to The Who, with the chorus progression being the same as Baba O’Riley. 

The song was not supposed to be a part of the album and Randy Bachman stuttered through the chorus as a joke to his brother, Gary was supposed to get the only copy of this song.   

Well, the rep from their label was still looking for a hit, and this was proposed, Randy re-recorded the lyrics without the stutter, but no one liked it, so they used the original with the stutter, and they had a number 1 song. 

Ok, Bye Now, 

See you later.

Woops??!?

Ok, bye now,  see you next week or something .