Over 100 Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of 16 Normal-Sounding Songs With Not-So-Normal Lyrics
Voting Rules
Vote up the songs that hit different when you take a closer look at what the lyrics actually mean.
Have you ever sung along or danced to a song thinking it's fun and happy, and then gone back to read the lyrics and realized they were really dark? If so, you're far from alone. Many songs have been misunderstood, from “romantic ballads” that actually have to do with stalking, to supposedly patriotic anthems that in reality are criticizing life in the US.
Let's take a dive into the meanings behind the lyrics of some of the most misunderstood hits of the past 50 years. These seemingly normal songs have subversive lyrics, oddball lyrical meanings, surreal lyrical concepts, or just plain weird lyrics - disguised in an otherwise straightforward pop song. Vote up the ones that hit differently after learning about the intentions of the songwriter/s.
In 1979, American rock band Blondie hit the airwaves with “One Way or Another," a song about obsessive affection and stalking. Co-written by lead singer Debbie Harry and bassist Nigel Harrison, the lyrics were inspired by one of Harry's ex-boyfriends. As she told Entertainment Weekly in 2011:
I was actually stalked by a nutjob so it came out of a not-so-friendly personal event. But I tried to inject a little bit of levity into it to make it more lighthearted. I think in a way that’s a normal kind of survival mechanism. You know, just shake it off, say one way or another, and get on with your life. Everyone can relate to that and I think that’s the beauty of it.
In another interview, Harry said her ex “was so wild, I had to move out of New Jersey.” She said he worked during the day in a chemical plant and drank all night, at which point he would “start after me," calling her every hour and hanging around outside her door.
My original music for “One Way or Another” was this psychedelic, Ventures-like futuristic surf song gone wrong. Jimmy [Destri, a former Blondie keyboardist] really liked this piece of music, and we would play it while on the road. Then Debbie picked up on it. She came up with the “getcha getcha getchas.” The ending, where it gets crazy, was [producer Mike] Chapman’s idea.
'The A Team' Was Inspired By A Sex Worker Ed Sheeran Met At A Homeless Shelter
Ed Sheeran was still an unknown musician when he played a charity gig and met a sex worker who inspired what became “The A Team,” the lead single off his 2011 debut album, alternately called + or Plus.
“The A-Team” came from an experience I had when I did a gig at a homeless shelter. I was 18 at the time and being naïve; I was taken aback by some of the stories I had heard. I got home that night and I just wrote a lot of lyrics. I just wanted to write it so it sounded kind of upbeat so you wouldn’t really know what’s it actually about because it’s quite a dark subject…
"The A-Team” was written on the experiences of a woman named Angel… when talking to her she told me she’s a member of the “class A team.”
In the UK, crack cocaine is considered a “Class A” drug. So Angel's comment was a way of telling Sheeran that she was a drug addict.
The song changed some details of Angel's life (Sheeran said he didn't want to steal her story) while still relating the tale of a drug-addicted woman who has turned to sex work in order to survive. As Sheeran sings:
'Cause we're just under the upper hand And go mad for a couple grams And she don't wanna go outside tonight And in a pipe, she flies to the Motherland Or sells love to another man…
“The A Team” became Sheeran's breakthrough hit, peaking at No. 3 on the UK singles chart and No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Alive” was the lead single off Pearl Jam's 1991 debut album Ten. It was originally an instrumental titled “Dollar Short," but became part of a demo tape circulated by the band in the hopes of finding a singer.
Eddie Vedder got the demo and wrote lyrics to several of the instrumentals, including "Dollar Short." That’s how he became Pearl Jam's lead singer and “Dollar Short” became “Alive.” In 1993, Vedder told Rolling Stone how “Alive” had been misinterpreted by so many listeners:
Everybody writes about it like it's a life-affirmation thing - I'm really glad about that. It's a great interpretation. But “Alive” is... it's torture. Which is why it's f*cked up for me. Why I should probably learn how to sing another way. It would be easier. It's... it's too much.
As he explained on VH1's Storytellers series, “Alive” is semi-autobiographical, and he thought of it as a curse:
The original story is of a young man being made aware of some shocking truths. And one was that the guy he believed to be his father while growing up was not, and number two was that his real father had passed away a few years before… The guy [in the song] was me, but I barely knew me then… So he took this to be a curse, like fine you told me this secret, but I've gotta figure a way to deal with this. And fine the dad's dead but I'm still alive and I've gotta deal with this.
Son, she said, have I got a little story for you What you thought was your daddy was nothin' but a... While you were sittin' home alone at age thirteen Your real daddy was dyin', sorry you didn't see him, But I'm glad we talked…
It also includes a fictitious incestuous relationship between the son and his mother. So, the lyrics definitely don't fit the image of an uplifting anthem. However, Vedder has admitted that the positive way audiences reacted to “Alive” changed his view of it:
And folks are jumping up in the aisles, using their bodies to express themselves and singing along “I'm still alive” en masse. So every night when I look out at this sea of people reacting on their own positive interpretation, it was really incredible. The audience changed the meaning of these words and when they sing “I'm still alive” it's like they're celebrating… And here's the thing. When they changed the meaning of those words, they lifted the curse.
Because Of The Dark Topic, Suzanne Vega Was Shocked When Her Manager Suggested 'Luka' Could Be A Hit
Suzanne Vega released the song “Luka” as the second single off her 1987 album Solitude Standing. It was nominated for multiple Grammys and hit Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it the biggest hit of her career.
Its success shocked Vega, as she had argued with her manager about even releasing the song as a single. Her doubts were because, although the melody was happy sounding, the subject matter was very dark: child abuse.
Vega told Top 2000 a gogo that when she played “Luka” live before its release as a single, audiences become uncomfortable when they realized what it was about. However, her manager had a different opinion: “I think it's an important song; it's a song about abuse. This is the '80s and no one's writing songs about issues anymore. Music changed the world.”
The lyrics are from an abused boy's point of view. The first chorus hints at trouble, while the second is more explicit:
If you hear something late at night Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight Just don't ask me what it was Just don't ask me what it was Just don't ask me what it was
…
They only hit until you cry After that you don't ask why You just don't argue anymore You just don't argue anymore You just don't argue anymore
Vega explained her inspiration for the emotive song on a 1987 Swedish television special:
A few years ago, I used to see this group of children playing in front of my building, and there was one of them, whose name was Luka, who seemed a little bit distinctive from the other children. I always remembered his name, and I always remembered his face, and I didn't know much about him, but he just seemed set apart from these other children that I would see playing. And his character is what I based the song “Luka” on. In the song, the boy Luka is an abused child. In real life I don't think he was. I think he was just different.
According To Sting, 'Every Breath You Take' Is Too Sinister To Be A Love Song
In 2019, The Police's “Every Breath You Take” earned an award for being the most played song in radio history. Written in the midst of frontman Sting's breakup with his wife Frances Tomelty and start of his relationship with future wife Trudie Styler, “Every Breath You Take” has been misinterpreted as a romantic song, but an examination of the lyrics shows it is anything but.
According to Sting, the 1983 single is about obsession with a lost love and the jealousy that follows the split. The lyrics suggest the man is stalking his former lover. The song opens with:
Every breath you take And every move you make Every bond you break Every step you take I'll be watching you.
Every single day And every word you say Every game you play Every night you stay I'll be watching you.
I woke up in the middle of the night with that line ["every breath you take"] in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour… It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.
Sting has also admitted he's surprised about how romantically some listeners have interpreted the song's meaning:
One couple told me, “Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!” I thought, “Well, good luck.” I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite.
Los del Río originally released the Spanish-language track “Macarena” on their 1993 album A Mí Me Gusta. But it was a remix by the Bayside Boys - who added English lyrics and a new dance beat - that made the song an international hit while also spawning a dance craze.
The song's new incarnation topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in August 1996, making unlikely stars of singers Antonio Romero Monge and Rafael Ruiz Perdigones, the duo behind Los del Río - both were in their 50s at the time.
The joyful-sounding track masks the fact that the lyrics don't exactly tell a feel-good story. In the English translation, the first verse reveals the song is about a girl named Macarena who is unfaithful to her partner:
Macarena has a boyfriend who they call Who they call by the name of Vitorino And when he left to sign up for the army She was giving it away to his two friends
The lyrics later reveal that not only did Macarena cheat on her soldier boyfriend, but her dream is to leave him, buy a whole wardrobe of trendy clothes, move to New York, and find a new boyfriend.
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