Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’ being turned into some instant-nostalgia anthem & popping up on so many TV shows in recent years is very distasteful to me. The song is much more bitter than sentimentally sweet, but tell that to those who don’t recognize the basic F**K OFF! quality in the lyrics.

Don’t forget “Lust For Life,” selling family cruises in the Caribbean.

I love how liberals criticize people for thinking Born in the USA is a pro America song. Yes, how can anyone make this mistake. The cover of the album has a huge flag. The only lyrics that you can hear clearly are “Born in the USA”, the rest of the song is garbled and mumbled. During concerts its sung as an anthem, with fists punching the sky. Yes how ridiculous to think this is a patriotic song.

Alive, by Pearl Jam, is a good example for this list. Eddie Vedder explains the misinterpretation here: http://www.gather.com/viewVideo.action?id=11821949021866723

@Horace – yeah, who listens to the lyrics anyway? Only liberals care about garbled, mumbled words! U-S-A! U-S-A!

You should check your Richard Ashcroft story. His father died suddenly of a brain anerysm when Richard was 11.

“Jack and Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp…

Jen, if you read about the song, it also says he wrote the song about his father and the medication not working. Oh the conflicting opinions on the internet. No one really knows what it’s about,except Richard Ashcroft, and even he might not know why he wrote those lyrics.

Well DID you actually listened to the lyrics in this song? Cause it actually talks about Drinking sangria and feeding animals in the zoo..
Where do you get your “smak” references from?
Ok he was an addict, but he did write pretty explicit songs about that like ‘heroin’ for example…why would you think he became shy all of a sudden and feel the need to call ‘the smak’ sangria?

Why is the author being so patronizing? We are not all a bunch of dummies, sitting around singing songs, the lyrics of which we don’t understand. We all know what Percy Sledge means, for example, and REM. And the ones who don’t know what they’re singing about – well, it’s actually pretty cool for a bunch of right-wingers to sing along with Bruce Springsteen’s criticism of who goes to war and how they’re treated when they come back. Maybe it will sink in someday.

How about a highly edited version of CCR’s “Fortunate Son” being used to sell jeans?

I’m surprised the author didn’t pick White Riot by The Clash. It seems like such an obvious choice. White racists/supremacists have used the song as an anthem demonstrating that 1) they don’t actually listen to the lyrics and 2) they know absolutely nothing about the band’s politics.

One of the reasons is that people aren’t listening to the lyrical content, they are listening to the emotional content that comes through with the music. Sometimes songwriters will aim for irony and write lyrics that are at odds with the musical feeling.
Springsteen has said that his songs are structured so the verses are the sad reality and the chorus is the spiritual uplift.
In the case of Every Breath You Take, there’s a minor chord that underlines and emphasizes the sense of menace throughout the song, but it changes in the outro, which is noticeably “happier” sounding.
As any romantic comedy shows, there is a blurry line between idealized romantic love and acting like a stalker, or the idea that suffering is part of true love (as in When a Man Loves a Woman).

Really? Suicide Solution isnt on this list? Really? Pool yourself.

Let’s not forget “you and me and Leslie….” Groovin’ (The Rascals)

Heroes by David Bowie, which is about the fall of the Berlin Wall–not two lovers swimming like dolphins.

How about Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright?” (note the question mark in the title), one of the most-covered songs of the late 60s/early 70s, universally understood to be a feel-good anthem by millions who failed to notice the sad-sack despair of the verses, and the CHORUS ITSELF which goes, “Feelin’ alright?/I’m not feeling too good myself…” The fact that the hook SOUNDS so rousing managed to camouflage the depressive, despairing tone of the song overall.

Erm, “There She Goes” by the La’s?

I have to nominate Billy Squier’s “The Stroke”. If you ask most anybody what it’s about, you’re probably going to hear that it’s a thinly veiled masturbation tribute, but it’s actually about shady promises from record executives.

and what about Randy Newman’s bitter parody of irrational prejudice, ‘Short People’, which was criticised by er, short people, and others who couldnt recognise satire when it punched them on the nose?

For LC, I doubt that Heroes was about the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was released 10 years or so before that happen. It was the sound track of a movie, Cristina F, about a junkie in Berlin.
More over, I do not see understand that interpretation of Perfect day. I am not an English native speaker, but the song always make me think of a kind of Lou Reed trying to be a good, normal guy for a change, for the sake of that “you”. But, if not, please help.

Oops, my husband says that YOU is heroine!!!

Ops again: Christiane F.

The The- “This is the Day” It’s not a happy, optimistic song. I can’t believe how much crap has been flogged on American telly with this as a soundtrack.

Another good one for this list is Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) by the Pet Shop Boys. From Wikipedia: “Written as a satire of Thatcherism and its embodiment in conspicuous consumption and yuppies in the United Kingdom during the 1980s…” I heard after it’s release it was the #1 most used song for corporate conventions.

What about The vapors’ turning Japanese? Is that about masturbation? & I thought that it was obvious that “perfect day” was about heroin.

@disconcerted: the sangria is not the smack. As guada was informed, the “you” (as in: “you make me forget myself, I thought I was someone else, someone good”) is heroin.

What is there to misunderstand about “when a man loves a woman”? The boy is whipped as we said in the 60s. Love song? no. But misunderstood? Seems clear to me.

How about Money For Nothing by Dire Straits?
Most ppl think it is glorifying the rockstar lifestyle, when in fact it is a parody of them

Quinn The Eskimo must be the most misinterpreted song ever.

Random reference, but Extreme’s “More than Words” is a good one, too. Acoustic ballad from a metal band. Sweet sound but a bitter F You to an ex. Totally branded them in the main stream as something they weren’t, then the lead singer joins Van Halen. Wonder what that guy did to make the universe hate him so much.

Babybird — ”You’re Gorgeous” – part of rock and roll history. That’s f-d up right there

Did you realize that “Face Down A$$ Up!” by 2 Live Crew isn’t actually about enjoying Greek, but is merely a playful reference to doggy style? Garbled words man.

Pink Houses, also co-opted by the right. And JM isn’t even mumbling.

I think you’ll struggle to find a single person that missed the metaphor in The Verve’s song. A lot of people thought it was about a girl, but I don’t think there’s a man or woman in Britain who took that line as literal. Rubbish.

The doors – the end(the oedipian section)
2 oasis songs…wonderwall and don’t look back in anger…again mistaken for love songs.
Wonderwall’s basically about a schizophrenic person talking about/to his alter ego…don’t look back in anger probably means absolutely nothing and noel gallagher must be very amused at people waving lighters on this one