Entertainment & Music The stories behind the songs

[deanc]

Nobody gets addicted to acid but some people just shouldn't touch it. Syd was one of them.

Concur, but although never formally diagnosed at the time, Barrett was a schizophrenic - so combined with regular use of acid or even marijuana
it's easy to understand why the poor bastard basically only existed physically for a large part of his life...!

Also note, unlike today, medication and/or known treatments for such conditions back in those days still included electric shock 'therapy' and Lobotomy...

 

[Shell]

Damn that Noiseworks Take Me Back... of course the lyrics are so obvious but sometimes they just dont sink in, no matter how many times you hear it.

Its such an emotional song.

 

[rank and file]

"Your So Vain" by Carly Simon,great tune and it sounds like Warren Beatty is a bit of a dickhead.

 

[deanc]

"Your So Vain" by Carly Simon,great tune and it sounds like Warren Beatty is a bit of a dickhead.

Famous quote years ago from Faye Dunaway about Beatty; 'Warren's circle of friends is an oxymoron as he doesn't have enough to form a circle'.....

 

[DickieKnee]

Thin Lizzy - The Boys are Back in Town.

Phil Lynot was related to an underground crime gang and was living in a pub in Manchester when the song was written. The gang had just returned after a long spell away from a big bank heist in London and were partying. Hence Lynot wrote the song.

 

[the_interloper]

Metallica - Fade to black

Lyrics are the final thoughts of someone suicidal, but was written after the band's gear got nicked on a European (I think) tour. Hetfield was depressed and wrote the song in the hotel they were staying at.

 

[Gough]

Thin Lizzy - The Boys are Back in Town.

Phil Lynot was related to an underground crime gang and was living in a pub in Manchester when the song was written. The gang had just returned after a long spell away from a big bank heist in London and were partying. Hence Lynot wrote the song.

The somewhat amusingly named Quality Street Gang, a bunch of Brummie crims.

 

[Spongebob]

Anything by Taylor Swift.

She hated whoever happened to be her most recent ex-boyfriend.

 

[Spongebob]

Sail Away by Randy Newman

A song trying to sell the “benefits” of Africans going to America, unfortunately as slaves.

 

[Catfish Alley]

How about Outta Know. Alanis and Uncle Joey getting up to shenanigans in the theatre.

 

[Shell]

How about Outta Know. Alanis and Uncle Joey getting up to shenanigans in the theatre.

I said that one already.

 

[Shell]

But yeah, talk about a weird af couple...

Like Warne and Hurley

 

[Catfish Alley]

I said that one already.

Ah. Clearly didn't go back and read all the pages. They were just talking about it on a podcast I listened to this morning.

 

[RedmanWasHere]

How about Oughta Know. Alanis and Uncle Joey getting up to shenanigans in the theatre.

FTFY.

 

[rank and file]

Bikini Red by The Screaming Blue Messiahs was based on the story of Russian Liliana Gasinskaya who jumped off a cruise ship into Sydney Harbour and defected to Australia.

 

[Shell]

Bump.


FYI- there is a great series "The Story of the Songs" screening on SBS, Monday nights at.. 9.30pm.

Last night was Eric Clapton, the week before was Sting.

 

[Catfish Alley]

Tears in Heaven? Yeah, that's a terribly sad one.

 

[Gough]

Clapton is a bit fashy though, you'd think a man who earned has corn playing black music might be a bit more aware.

 

[Shell]

Tears in Heaven? Yeah, that's a terribly sad one.

No its more a "biography" on the singer's life, mainly focusing on the music side of it, but also personal.

And they use 3 of their most important/popular/etc songs in their career to focus on, as they are telling that ^ story. People who knew them or worked with them professionally.


Eps run for 1 hour.

Whitney Houston was on a couple weeks ago. IIRC her songs they picked were I wanna Dance with Somebody, Waiting to Exhale.. and.. idk.. cant recall.
Sting was Every breath you take, Roxanne.. and something else.

 

[Shell]

Bump.


FYI- there is a great series "The Story of the Songs" screening on SBS, Monday nights at.. 9.30pm.

Last night was Eric Clapton, the week before was Sting.

Aretha Franklin on right now

 

[Lord_Flashheart]

Pearl Jam - Jeremy - about Jeremy Delle who committed suicide in front of his English teacher and class mates in 1991.

 

[DFWGrapher]

Sleater-Kinney, "Jumpers" - deals with the suicide of 14-year old Marissa Imrie, a girl who seemed to have everything going for her in life and one day left school, paid a taxi driver the $100 she had saved up to take her to the Golden Gate Bridge where she walked to the middle of it, and jumped to her death.

Weezer, "Say It Ain't So" - deals with Rivers Cuomo's father's alcoholism and fear of his stepfather leaving his family as well. The bridge of the song explains it quite well-- "Dear Daddy, I write you in spite of years of silence. You've cleaned up, found Jesus, things are good or so I hear. This bottle of Steven's awakens ancient feelings. Like father, stepfather: the son is drowning in the flood."

Weezer, "Pinkerton" album - originally was supposed to be a space rock opera called Songs From The Black Hole; this was scrapped and remade into a concept album loosely paralleling Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Several songs from the original plan still made it into the final album (Tired Of Sex, Getchoo, No Other One) and three others got used as B sides (I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams; Devotion; Longtime Sunshine).

Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On?" - Written by Obie Benson of the Four Tops after seeing a protester beaten by police when they were on tour in San Francisco; the rest of the Tops thought the song was great, but not good subject matter for them, so Benson took it to another Motown songwriter (Al Cleveland) who took it to Marvin Gaye, and they created a finalized version. Gaye insisted on recording it while Berry Gordy thought it was terrible; Gaye, who had been out of music for a couple years said either he records it or he doesn't record ANYTHING. Gordy relented but refused to put it out as a single. So Gaye and a few other execs who realized the song's greatness waited until Gordy was out of town, released it as a single, and it sold 300,000 copies in its first two weeks. Gaye's double-tracked vocals were done by accident: he meant to have them separate and let a producer decide which version he liked better, but it got mixed as one and the producer loved the effect. Bob Babbitt was originally going to record the bassline but was struggling to get the exact feeling. Gaye was known for having a major perfectionist streak, but also remarkable patience and sat there just wanting the right sound no matter how many tries it took. Babbitt was getting frustrated and told Gaye and the producers that James Jamerson would likely be better for it; the problem is Jamerson was playing with a jazz combo at a bar down the street that night. They went to the bar and found Jamerson so intoxicated he could barely stand, hauled him to the studio where he couldn't stay sitting on his stool. So Jamerson told them just to lay him on the floor on his back... and nailed the bassline in a single take. James Jamerson was absolutely amazing and it's a damn shame he was never recognized for his brilliance until well after his death, and it's an absolute travesty that Carol Kaye takes advantage of this by trying to take credit for many of his tracks. Kaye is a great bass player (and guitarist) in her own right-- no worse than top 10 all time in the rock and roll world and one could make a case to put her in the top 5-- but she doesn't need to take credit for things she didn't do in order to boost her legacy; if anything, that diminishes her actual accomplishments.

Dropkick Murphys, "Boys On The Docks" - bassist Ken Casey wrote this as an ode to his maternal grandfather John Kelly, an Irish dockworker in Boston in the early 1900s. This song is a big influence on my own songwriting, both in the music style and the subject matter. Had I stayed with my previous band, I had two Murphys-influenced songs that I had some big plans for-- record them and try to release them as a single benefitting Casey's charity, The Claddagh Fund. I eventually recorded the one that would have been the B-side completely on my own but haven't touched the main one yet since it just has too much going on in it to do effectively on my own.

Going off the "musicians who hate their songs" foray earlier, Slash hates "Sweet Child O'Mine" and Rivers Cuomo for a long time hated their debut album and Pinkerton. And yeah, Beastie Boys hated "Fight For Your Right" because it was meant as a tongue-in-cheek send-up of those who have a rebel attitude and no idea what they hell they're fighting for or against; while this satire has all the subtlety of a hammer to the forebrain, everyone apparently suffers from obliviousness and STILL missed the point of it and took it to be this big party anthem glorifying anarchy.

"Songs everyone mistakes the meaning of" could be a whole other thread entirely. Springsteen's "Born In The USA," The Guess Who's "American Woman," and Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" are not positive, yay-for-America's-awesomeness songs, but American obliviousness and dick-waving overshadows everything.

 

[Plugger35]

Everyone of Irish stock knows the story behind this song.

 

[royboy2]

School shooting
Pumped up kicks are cool shoes

other lyrics talk about gun


Robert's got a quick hand
He'll look around the room he won't tell you his plan
He's got a rolled cigarette
Hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid
Yeah, he found a six shooter gun
In his dad's closet, in a box of fun things
And I don't even know what
But he's coming for you, yeah, he's coming for you
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run faster than my bullet
Daddy works a long day
He's coming home late, yeah, he's coming home late
And he's bringing me a surprise…

I remember Triple M were reporting on the Orlando gay nightclub shooting and then went to a song and played this, until somebody had a "WTF?" moment and it was pulled about half way through.

 

[royboy2]

Everyone of Irish stock knows the story behind this song.

I know Bono can be a preachy campaigner, but I've never seen a bloke who can hold 80,000 people in the palm of his hand like he can.

Plugger35 have you seen the Slane Castle version of this song?, he has the whole crowd screaming No More, No Union & No IRA and at the end says the names of the 29 people slain from memory