Discovering the meaning, does it change how you listen?

[UnderAGlassMoon]

First of all I am posting this in the OT forum since i don't want to limit it to just progressive music.

So the idea here is, when you discover the actual meaning of a song, usually lyrically, does it change how you listen to that particular track?

The best example for me is probably Peter Gabriel-Solsbury Hill.

For years I just thought of this as a nice catchy tune when I would hear it on the radio. I never really gave much thought to the meaning behind the lyrics. When I discovered that the song was actually about him leaving Genesis, it totally changed the way I heard the song. I payed much more attention to the lyrics and related them to how he must of felt at the time. And now every time I hear it, I think of what the song actually means.

So I figure there has to be some other examples out there and I am hoping this can be a way some of us could learn some new things about some songs.

[MudShark22]

6:00 with lyrics from K. Moore is his goodbye to DT. Didn't know it initially at the time but figured it out once Chroma Key hit.

[rcarlberg]

Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is about a life-threatening illness her husband suffered. Once I heard that, the lyrics became heartbreaking.

[Kai]

Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is about a life-threatening illness her husband suffered. Once I heard that, the lyrics became heartbreaking.

Where did you hear that? None of her comments suggest I've read suggest that it was directly about Del Palmer (not an husband, but her partner at the time).

[NogbadTheBad]

If I find out kobaia lyrics are all nazi nonsense I'll be pissed.

[markwoll]

If I find out kobaia lyrics are all nazi nonsense I'll be pissed.

Ha!

I used to really like Supertramp. Catchy, sounded good. Then I started parsing the christian-ness of the lyrics and dropped them cold.
This was a long time ago, fences have been mended so to speak.

[JKL2000]

This is a good idea for a thread, and timely.

The other day on Sirius XM’s Beatles channel they played Elvis singing I’m All Shook Up (as a song that influenced The Beatles). One song for which I’d NEVER listened to the words.

But I paid attention and heard Elvis sing:

“A well'a bless my soul
What's a wrong with me?
I'm itchin' like a man in a fuzzy tree.”

Definitely cracked up at that one!

[DocProgger]

Ha!

I used to really like Supertramp. Catchy, sounded good. Then I started parsing the christian-ness of the lyrics and dropped them cold.
This was a long time ago, fences have been mended so to speak.

Did you have the same experience with Kansas, Barclay James Harvest, Flower Kings, some Genesis?

[Trane]

If I find out kobaia lyrics are all nazi nonsense I'll be pissed.

it would be known by now, as there are hundreds of people who've learned Kobaian

Ha!

I used to really like Supertramp. Catchy, sounded good. Then I started parsing the christian-ness of the lyrics and dropped them cold.
This was a long time ago, fences have been mended so to speak.

how do you figure?? I mean, I'm about as atheists as they come, but I've not stayed away from Coltrane's spiritualism

OK, I've heard some references to god (more in the Hodgson's tracks than in the Davies ones), but I've never detected in their lyrics that they were god-crazy or fundamentalists

[Mythos]

I remember the horror I felt when I discovered the meaning behind the Ramones' Beat on the Brat...!

[alucard]

Definitely,
there are a couple of artists where I read through the lyrics after or while listening and try to get a picture what the song is about, Bob Dylan , Joni Mitchell, Bill Fay, Jackson Browne , Leonard Cohen , Lou Reed, Randy Newman , Peter Blegvad, Robert Wyatt among my favourites. Sometimes I read an interview or see a documentary and learn some details about the lyrics like the characters in Walk On The Wild Side, but I don't really care.


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[thedunno]

When I first heared Peter Hammill's 'just good friends' I thought it was just yet another song about a lost love (and one of his cheesier ones too) .

When I read it was actually about his relationship with the music biz it put the song in a completely new perpective for me. It is now a favorite.

[markwoll]

it would be known by now, as there are hundreds of people who've learned Kobaian



how do you figure?? I mean, I'm about as atheists as they come, but I've not stayed away from Coltrane's spiritualism

OK, I've heard some references to god (more in the Hodgson's tracks than in the Davies ones), but I've never detected in their lyrics that they were god-crazy or fundamentalists

Like I wrote, it was a long time ago, in the 1980's.
Anymore I don't pay much attention to lyrics to that extent. I try and listen to the 'whole package'.
Sometimes I regret that choice and never revisit that particular music.

[Halmyre]

I've occasionally read about or worked out what a particular song was about - "ah, so THAT'S what they're singing about" - but apart from the enlightenment it brings I can't say it affects my attitude to the song. Case in point - "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me" from Tull's 'Benefit'. Wasn't until I read the lyrics that I twigged who Michael Collins was and what the song was about.

[SteveSly]

Depends on the album / song, but knowing the meaning certainly can make a difference. A good example might be Steven Wilson’s “Hand Cannot Erase”. Once I heard the backstory behind the album I listened to it quite differently and think he was really able to capture something special. It remains my favorite SW solo album to this day.

[progmatist]

There's 99 Luftballons by Nena. Everyone in the States thought it was just a catch pop song sung in German, not knowing its true meaning as an anti-war song.

[Buddhabreath]

I know Hammill's already been mentioned, but knowing that his album Over is the real thing: about a break-up of a long-term relationship where apparently Alice left him for a close friend made an authentic work of sometimes violent catharsis even more compelling. What an album! "Betrayed" can still brings shivers up my spine.

[simon moon]

Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is about a life-threatening illness her husband suffered. Once I heard that, the lyrics became heartbreaking.

According to Kate Bush herself, that is not the meaning.


The song itself has often been misinterpreted. Bush herself has said,

I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman can't understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each other's roles, if we could actually be in each other's place for a while, I think we'd both be very surprised! [Laughs] And I think it would lead to a greater understanding. And really the only way I could think it could be done was either... you know, I thought a deal with the devil, you know. And I thought, 'well, no, why not a deal with God!' You know, because in a way it's so much more powerful the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you. You see, for me it is still called "Deal With God", that was its title. But we were told that if we kept this title that it would not be played in any of the religious countries, Italy wouldn't play it, France wouldn't play it, and Australia wouldn't play it! Ireland wouldn't play it, and that generally we might get it blacked purely because it had God in the title.

[simon moon]

Did you have the same experience with Kansas, Barclay James Harvest, Flower Kings, some Genesis?

I am an atheist, but religious lyrics never bothered me. Unless they get preachy, like Neal Morse.


Genesis like the imagery of Christian eschatology, but they were not particularly religious.

[NogbadTheBad]

I am an atheist, but religious lyrics never bothered me. Unless they get preachy, like Neal Morse.


Genesis like the imagery of Christian eschatology, but they were not particularly religious.

Same here.

[mozo-pg]

This is a good thread idea but I have a counter point. I rarely pay attention to lyrics and see the "voice' as an instrument like any other in the band. That's likely why I like Italian prog so much.

[Progbear]

Sometimes it enhances it. Sometimes it spoils it, like learning that Chris Rea’s “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” is about coming on to jailbait. Or “Orange Song,” the opening song from Rupert Hine’s Unfinished Picture album. My stomach turns whenever it comes on now, thanks to having read David MacIver’s two-sentence explanation of the lyrics in the liner notes: “A ritual circumcision song. Anachinaeva does it with her teeth.” Eeeeeeeewwwwww! What is wrong with you, David MacIver?

This is a good thread idea but I have a counter point. I rarely pay attention to lyrics and see the "voice' as an instrument like any other in the band. That's likely why I like Italian prog so much.

Discovering the meaning of “750.000 anni fa...l’amore” kind of ruined it for me. As much crap as English lyricists like Jon Anderson and Peter Sinfield get, at least they never wrote a tender ballad about an ape falling in love with a Cro-Magnon woman.

On the other hand, I think a lot of non-Spanish-speakers would laugh their asses off if they knew what Azahar’s “¿Qué malo hay, señor juez?” was really about: all about a stoned hippie pleading his case to a judge after being caught in possession of marijuana.

[arabicadabra]

Yeah, I guess it depends. I'd love to say the lyrics never affect me but sometimes they do. And sometimes in a way opposite to the way I'd expect, i.e., a particularly vivid description of something I disagree with might get me empathizing with someone I'd disagree with. More hilariously, a song lyric that mocks an attitude or belief I agree with can become a feel-good anthem for me, knowing the whole time it was meant to insult that point of view.

[Trane]

I am an atheist, but religious lyrics never bothered me. Unless they get preachy, like Neal Morse.


Genesis like the imagery of Christian eschatology, but they were not particularly religious.

As I said, if I had to pay that much attention to the meanings, I wouldn't like much of the music I like... As long as it doesn't get proselytist.

Hell, I even like :

Discovering the meaning of “750.000 anni fa...l’amore” kind of ruined it for me. As much crap as English lyricists like Jon Anderson and Peter Sinfield get, at least they never wrote a tender ballad about an ape falling in love with a Cro-Magnon woman.

ROTFLMAO rotflmao.gif

[Gruno]

Doesn't really change how I listen to the song. Maybe it used to when I was younger, but I've come to find out that the artists have usually run a PR spin on the meaning of the song, so it's still fictional writing.