I happened to be listening to Sailsbury Hill earlier today. Always been a good song, got horribly overexposed a few years back but a good 'un nevertheless. It struck me that: "Pack your bags I'm going to take you home" is the only line I actually know the words to.
In short, I haven't got the faintest idea what the song is actually about.
Now some songs are obvious (LA Woman) or just a bit of fun (Back in the USSR) and some songs are deliberately meaningless, just a lot of great lines strung together (American Pie).
But lots and lots of songs are presumably about something or other and are sung with a heap of emotion, but I (and probably most other people) have absolutely no clue what that something is!
What song strikes you as meaningful and coherent, and you know it quite well, but have no clue what it's actually all about?
Comments
For me most of R.E.M.’s early stuff is pretty opaque. For example, Moral Kiosk
Trying to shock but instead
Idle hands all orient to her
Pass a magic pillow under head
Inside the moral kiosk
Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
She was laughing like a Horae
Put that knee in dour landslide
Take this step to dash a roving eye
Inside the moral kiosk
Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
Trying to shock but instead
Idle hands all orient to her
Pass a magic pillow under head
Inside the moral kiosk
Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
Bandcamp
Mostly I don't know what lyrics are about and make no attempt to. Unfortunately clichés tend to jump out at me which is my annoyance with about 99% of modern blues and why I often like songs not in English (might be cliched bollocks but at least I'm unaware).
Solsbury Hill I thought was probably about taking the dog for a walk up a hill.
I am the guy that listens to lyrics, that tries to understand what I am hearing, what the song is about, so this is a question I am keenly aware of.
I like a lot of the earlyish-mid Simple Minds but my goodness is that stuff lyrically impenetrable! Some of it doesn’t even make sense grammatically. That said, modern Simple Minds lyrics tend to be far too literal and, as a result, trite.
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
Tutti frutti, oh rootie
A wop bop a loo bop a lop ba ba
But apparently not.
There is no 'H' in Aych, you know that don't you? ~ Wife
Turns out there is an H in Haych! ~ Sporky
Bit of trading feedback here.