14 Famous Songs That Have a Much Different Meaning Than People Think

1.

Even while writing the song, frontman Dan Wilson thought it would be a great song for bartenders everywhere to use at the end of the night. However, partway through the process he started thinking more and more about the upcoming birth of his child, and decided to make the song into a metaphor about having a baby, with lyrics like “time for you to go out to the places you will be from,” and “This room won’t be open till your brothers or your sisters come.”

2.

“Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind: Fans of the 90s might have missed out on the fact that the upbeat classic is about about a couple on a crystal meth binge. The line “doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break” was edited for the radio, so most didn’t know the drug was included.

3.

“Slide” by The Goo Goo Dolls: It sounds like a love song, but according to frontman John Rzeznik, "it’s about a teenage girl raised in a Catholic environment who gets pregnant. The girl and her boyfriend are debating about having an abortion or getting married.

4.

Writer Jim Steinman included this power-ballad in his Broadway musical Dance of the Vampires because the song was actually written to be a vampire love song. Actually, the original title was “Vampires in Love.” Steinman says “It’s all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love’s place in the dark.”

5.

“Harder To Breathe” by Maroon 5: Levine said in a 2002 interview with MTV: “That song comes sheerly from wanting to throw something. It was the 11th hour, and the label wanted more songs. It was the last crack. I was just pissed. I wanted to make a record and the label was applying a lot of pressure, but I’m glad they did.”

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“I Shot the Sheriff” by Bob Marley: According to Marley’s ex-girlfriend, the song was inspired by their disagreement over birth control, and the “Sheriff” was the doctor who prescribed her the pill.

7.

“Summer of 69” by Bryan Adams: A lot of people think it’s about the year, but Adams would only have been 10 years old in 1969. In 2008 he told CBS News that it’s actually about the sex position, and about having sex in the summertime.

8.

“The One I Love” by R.E.M: Guitar-player Peter Buck says he’s baffled when he hears couples say it’s ‘their song,’ because it’s actually all about violence and anti-love. Singer Michael Stipe said in 1992 that he almost didn’t even record the song because it was “too brutal” and “really violent and awful.” He then however took a complacent stance on the song when he said “It’s probably better that they think it’s a love song at this point.”

9.

“American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: There’s a huge urban myth that the song was inspired by a University of Florida girl who committed suicide by jumping from a balcony. Even though the second verse references a girl standing “alone on her balcony” and the “cars roll by out on 441,” (a highway that runs near the university campus) Tom Petty has shot down this belief on several occasions, and says that “it’s just a really beautiful love song.”

10.

“In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins: A lot of people think that the song was written about Collins’ brush with a man who refused to save a drowning swimmer. Instead, he swears that he actually pulled the lyrics together really quickly, and he’s not even quite sure what the song is about. He admitted this to BBC, saying “What makes it even more comical is when I hear these stories which started many years ago, of someone come up to me and say ‘Did you really see someone drowning?’ I said, ‘No, wrong’… This is one song out of all the songs probably that I’ve ever written that I really don’t know what it’s about

11.

“The Way” by Fastball: The chart-topping 1998 single was inspired by a series of newspaper articles following the story of a missing elderly couple from Texas who drove off one morning to attend a festival and never returned.

12.

“Blackbird” by The Beatles: Paul McCartney actually wrote the song about the bird whose wings are broken as a metaphor for the American Civil Rights Movement.

13.

“Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day: Although it’s a staple at proms and graduations, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong actually wrote the song after a frustrating breakup when his girlfriend moved to Ecuador.

14.

“London Calling” by The Clash: The song is less about British politics and more a song about Joe Strummer’s fear of drowning. In 1979 band member Mick Jones recalled that the song was inspired by the band’s nervousness from a news headline about the possibility of the Thames River overflowing and flooding London. That fear of being swept away by the water propelled Strummer’s first drafts of the song, until it became a warning about everyday life as well.