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196 comments

  • Hey there Delilah

    The dude who wrote it is a creep

    • Dang. Just looked it up. It's a song about a girl he met once and was dating someone else, but he still wrote a damn ballad and sent her a copy. Then she had to live her life surrounded by a song about a stranger's feelings for her.

      And looking at the lyrics, they're sweet if said about a long-distance partner, but really weird to sing to a vague acquaintence.

      • It's also one of the most inescapable songs on public radio ever.

  • I think it's really interesting how people interpret music completely different than other forms of art. People sometimes assume the worst instead of realizing that the singer is speaking from another perspective. So for example if a writer has a first person perspective of a killer/rapist you wouldn't make an association that the author is anything of the sort. But if they wrote a song and sang it then people would question if they really felt that way. Polly is a great example. By many accounts (Kathleen Hanna , Kim Gordon) Cobain championed feminism and woman's rights but the lyrics of Polly are brutal and from the perpetrator view. Randy Newman's - Rednecks is a tough one to listen to. You can understand how it is trying to point out ignorance and racism like Blazing Saddles but it's sung in first person and should never be played in a public setting. Oingo Bongo's - Little Girs was always a bit creepy now seems to age poorly the more time has gone on. Minor Threat - Guilty of being white is a tough listen because you know racist people think this is a rallying cry instead of the emotionly reaction from a a teenage kid who was bullied in highschool for being white.

    • So for example if a writer has a first person perspective of a killer/rapist you wouldn’t make an association that the author is anything of the sort.

      That does happen all the time in movies, shows, books, and other forms of art. "What kind of a person would come up with that" isn't an uncommon accusation.

      • Sure but I think it is less immediate. In music we have to make a decision if they are speaking about themselves nonfiction or fiction and in a book or movie we assume they are creating fictional character.

    • If you know anything about the history of punk music and east coast hardcore, Ian MacKaye was clearly one of the most principled people in the scene, and a genuinely good and decent person. So it's really weird to hear that people ever got the weird idea that he was pro-racism or something.

      Then again, The Dead Kennedys had to make "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" because they were sick of their shows being infiltrated by the wrong kind of skinheads.

      • Oh I know. But minor threat and black flag used to have these neoNazis show up at their shows. I think he acknowledged that once he realized they wanted to use his frustration for oppression they stopped playing it. I think it was in, "this band could be your life". Much like X hating the fans who cheered on "Johnny hit and run Pauline" from "decline of the western civilization". It's crazy how people twist things.

  • Hard Habit To Break by Chicago is pretty straightforward, but I liked it on the radio as a kid because it's peppy and has an orchestra.

    Decades later I get access to music service libraries and give it a listen.

    I was a jerk and you left me, and now you're with another guy. I'm not sorry. I'm not going to do better. But I have an orchestra!

    I still like it, but have perspective now.

  • the two Who rock operas are chock full of stuff that went over my head because i heard them when i was younger than i probably should have been. in this case the songs are written from character POVs so i wouldn't say they make me think less of the band because of the content, but jeez, 10 year old me never would've figured Love Reign O'er Me for example was about a suicide attempt as opposed to, you know, feeling loved

  • Nuttin No Go So
    The original "football moves" clip went viral a long time ago, and the song goes along well with it. Took me a while to understand just how awfully reactionary the lyrics are.

  • Not so much found out about but songs that didn't used to bother me now kind of bother me. I was a very big Stone Temple Pilots fan, Even though the rhythms slap the songs are a little too rapey these days for my taste.

196 comments