What is this song about?

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TanninTannin Frets: 6216
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?

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Comments

  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 11225
    It's about leaving Genesis and striking out as a solo artist "open doors will be shut" etc
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 11225
    Sometimes the writer doesn't know what the song is about. You can start writing a song and find the lyrics are going off in a different direction. I'm always content for that to happen and for the lyrics to be ambiguous. A song can mean more than one thing to different people. 


    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • droflufdrofluf Frets: 4429
    <Pedant mode> it’s “Solsbury” but I’ll forgive you as, from your perspective, the two places are virtually next door

    For me most of R.E.M.’s early stuff is pretty opaque. For example, Moral Kiosk

    Scratch the scandals in the twilight 
    Trying to shock but instead 
    Idle hands all orient to her 
    Pass a magic pillow under head 
    It's so much more attractive
    Inside the moral kiosk 
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight 
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
    They scratch the scandals in the twilight 
    She was laughing like a Horae 
    Put that knee in dour landslide 
    Take this step to dash a roving eye 
    It's so much more attractive
    Inside the moral kiosk 
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight 
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
    Oh, oh
    Scratch the scandals in the twilight 
    Trying to shock but instead 
    Idle hands all orient to her 
    Pass a magic pillow under head 
    It's so much more attractive
    Inside the moral kiosk 
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight 
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight 
    Inside, cold, dark, fire, twilight
    Trading feedback thread:https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/172761/drofluf

    Sporky: "Drofluf is a reverse vampire, who always appears in mirrors."
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  • See Bob Dylan
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  • tony99tony99 Frets: 7607
    I think Noel Gallagher wins the prize for the consistently most meaningless lyrics.


    Bollocks you don't know Bono !!
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16943
    I was watching an old TOTP the other week and they had Julian Lennon singing Saltwater with the explanation that it's about environmental damage. I don't think I've ever read the lyrics to it but I'd presumed it was a sad love song so that really surprised me. 
    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. 
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • tony99 said:
    I think Noel Gallagher wins the prize for the consistently most meaningless lyrics.


    That explains why he was always asking if we knew what he meant.
    I'll get a round to buying a 'real' guitar one day.
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  • merlinmerlin Frets: 6998
    tony99 said:
    I think Noel Gallagher wins the prize for the consistently most meaningless lyrics.


    Sir David Jones Bowie had a good old crack at pretentious lyrics from time to time. 
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  • This won't be to many people's taste, but it literally cracked me up: the first Body Count album had the lyrics printed in the CD sleeve, and that included this stone cold classic, called "Killin' Floor":

    No
    Help

    It's the killin' floor
    Killin' floor
    Yeah, ah
    Killin' floor
    No
    Killin' Floor
    Ah
    Killin' Floor

    Bodycount, motherfuckers

    :lol:
    Too much gain... is just about enough \m/

    I'm probably the only member of this forum mentioned by name in Whiskey in the Jar ;)

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  • So, so many songs.

     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.

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  • MusicwolfMusicwolf Frets: 3919

     I like a lot of the earlyish-mid Simple Minds
    Yeah.  What was that one?  "Don't you, something, something, something....."  I can't remember the rest.

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  • thecolourboxthecolourbox Frets: 10619
    edited October 19
    When i write stuff, i often ascribe meaning to whatever comes out of my stream of consciousness after the fact. I assume I'm not alone in that?
    I'm scared and I'm waiting for life
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  • OffsetOffset Frets: 14757
    edited October 19
    Probably easier to list artists whose lyrics transparently mean something.
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  • HAL9000HAL9000 Frets: 10229
    Tutti frutti, oh rootie
    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
    I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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  • GrunfeldGrunfeld Frets: 4128
    edited October 19
    I made the mistake of clicking something which reckoned it was the meaning of Genesis, The Carpet Crawlers.
    The person who wrote the explanation didn't have a clue either but now I've got his tortured wank images in my head ruining the only song I've ever liked from that band. 
    It was so much better when it was just Gabriel's strange lyrics and not knowing anything. 

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  • TanninTannin Frets: 6216
    HAL9000 said:
    Tutti frutti, oh rootie
    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
    That's an easy one. It is about three things - sex, sex, and sex.
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  • bluecatbluecat Frets: 681
    I always thought the Eagles Hotel California was about an Opium Den.
    But apparently not.
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  • HaychHaych Frets: 6614
    Ah, and then we have artists like Tori Amos, whose lyrics are probably incredibly deep but written in such a cryptic manner than nobody can understand what she's on about most of the time.

    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.

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  • tony99tony99 Frets: 7607
    Haych said:
    Ah, and then we have artists like Tori Amos, whose lyrics are probably incredibly deep but written in such a cryptic manner than nobody can understand what she's on about most of the time.
    Well I know that Cornflake Girl is about female genital mutilation rather than well known popular branded breakfast cereals.
    Bollocks you don't know Bono !!
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