The Giant KoreanWhat song did you love until you found out what it was about?
GrayBackgroundMusicSex Type Thing by Stone Temple Pilots. Great music, love STP, but it’s basically about raping someone.
I got that back when it came out and always wondered why folks treated it like alternative pop. It’s seems like a dark mirror on rape to me though.
[deleted] in lemmyThat is what it was.
It was criticizing something from the first person perspective like Nirvana’a Polly, or The Police’s Every Breath You take.
Scott Weiland was compelled to write the lyrics after an incident in which a girl he was dating was raped by three high school football players after a party. Thus, Weiland has stated the song is an anti-rape statement, not a song simply about sex, saying: “This song is really not about sex at all. It’s about control, violence and abuse of power.”
Weiland found himself in the position of defending “Sex Type Thing” to individuals who took the first-person approach he used in the song (“I am a man, a man/I’ll give ya something that ya won’t forget/I said ya shouldn’t have worn that dress”) literally. "It was, ‘All right, the “Cop Killer” controversy’s dead, let’s try to find something else,’ " says Weiland, who has been outspoken in the press about women’s rights and contends that he wrote the song in the mind-set of what he has called “the typical American macho jerk” because he didn’t want to sound peachy. “I never thought that people would ever seriously think that I was an advocate of date rape.”
Well, one that maybe went full circle for me is “bring the pain” by mindless self indulgence. At first, it just seemed like a really fun song that I loved. Then one day, a black dude was in my car listening with me, and he was like “wtf is this song about?”. That’s when it hit me that the song actually sounds REALLY racist. I looked up the lyrics and that just confirmed it for me. And then years later, I found out it was actually a cover of a method man song, and not really racist at all, I guess. But thats a weird one, maybe best not for white guys to be singing it…
Yeah I used to love MSI and never really listened to the lyrics closely. Dude covers songs by black artists and straight up sings the N word.
See also his cover of “Big Poppa”
The more I looked into Jimmy Urine, the more problematic it got, like grooming a teenage girl.
NotyouI saw MSI sometime in the mid to late 2000s. It was at a club in DC and Jimmy Urine said, sorry I can’t stay after the show and make-out with anyone because I got mono for some teenagers I made out with a few days ago.
It was very odd to announce in the middle of the set. I knew he was a year or so older than me and I found it very disgusting that he was talking about making out with teens so nonchalantly. Jimmy was probably about 30 at the time as I was late 20s.
OldManBOMBINAh, what? Fuck man, I listen to Jimmy Urine every day :-(
Fuck.
That second one sucks because I love Fighting with the Melody, it’s just such chaos
The cover definitely goes hard though. I’m legitimately stunned to see MSI mentioned at all, especially at the top of a thread. I’ve been a huge fan of theirs for decades, and rarely if ever see anyone mention them.
Did you know Jimmy played a ravager in Guardians of the Galaxy?
I did. Apparently him and James Gunn are close friends. But he’s only in the second one.
I about shit when I saw him
Wild BillSame. I don’t condone them but their songs go hard. I don’t fund them either since I downloaded the music. Did you listen to their most recent release?
No, but you’d better believe I’ll be bumping that on the way to work tomorrow. Even though they’re one of my top bands, I haven’t check much as of late since their last release was about 9 years ago, and I didn’t think it was too good.
felixwhynot“All that she wants” by Ace of Base. I read a deep dive into the band and it seems like they may have been formed after a neo-nazi group and that song might be about Jews trying to dilute the bloodline… so yeah kinda weird now.
Ooof, TIL…
Oh fuck, no way.
cracked.com/…/how-90s-pop-band-secretly-sold-nazi…
That was my first exposure to the theory, I’ve never been able to confirm nor deny it conclusively, especially since cracked.com back in those times was only mostly satire. Like 99% of the pieces were satire, and then they’d publish something that wasn’t satire, and this could be a good example of that. Either way, I bought their CD way back when.
That seems completely serious and not satire at all. Since I never saw the videos, my assumption was that ‘wants another baby’ was wanting multiple partners as in ‘I love you baby’, not a literal baby. The six pointed stars and the cradle is pretty fucking clear.
Now I’m guessing that the Sign is a swastika.
Thanks for the link, I’m gonna go throw that album in the trash and feel like a jackass for not catching on earlier.
Their song “Happy Nation” sounds pretty questionable to me, too.
What!!! I wish this wasn’t a thing. But thanks for the info. Arrrrgh though…
Semi-Charmed Life, by Third Eye Blind. Basically, it’s a song about doing meth… Spent almost twenty years just singing the chorus with absolutely no idea what the rest of the lyrics were. Now, it kinda feels weird, ngl.
I, as a child, did a music class presentation on “my favourite song of the year” on this little ditty.
Whoops!
Much of the time I can’t even make out the lyrics, so I listen to music the same way
I listen to music the exact same way. I will maybe pay attention to the chorus or catchy line, but a lot of lyrics are lost on me.
I think it’s fairly common to not always pay close attention to the lyrics. Most of the time, you hear a song on the radio, and you can’t always make out what it’s saying, but you’re still able to enjoy the music and the singing melody. Until you pay more attention or you seek out the lyrics, then you’re often surprised about what it’s saying, cause the lyrics weren’t the point when you used to listen to the song. It doesn’t mean that it’s world-changing or anything, but it just takes you by surprise.
I’m the same way, actually.
JWBananasITT: People on the spectrum
SharkEatingBreakfastWoo woo! Auditory Processing Disorder!
Ok, uhhhh… you are saying here that difficulty understanding the words to music is an autism thing?
You’re not alone there, snoop had an album come out the year before and after that both sold as explicit but that album didn’t.
WhiteOakBayouBut it’s about how the excitement of meth, like that of a new relationship, fades and leaves the speaker wanting something more substantial while still fondly reminiscing about the good times.
The speaker thinks of the girl as a “sunburn” he “would like to save.” He describes meth as something that “will lift you up until you break.” I think these characterizations point very strongly toward nostalgic longing and away from the glorification of addiction or even that of drug use. So no reason to feel weird I think.
I think these characterizations point very strongly toward nostalgic longing and away from the glorification of addiction or even that of drug use.
There’s also an extra verse, which wasn’t in the radio edit, that I think further supports what you’re saying.
I guess you’re right, I just never gave the song much thought. It’s just that it kinda felt like some happy song and I never paid attention to what it was saying, then I looked them up one day, out of curiosity, and I guess it juat felt unexpected to me, and that’s why it felt weird. Thinking about what you said makes me want to give the song another listen with an open mind, I guess.
zaphNot so much a song about doing meth as it’s a song about the ramifications of doing meth. “Doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break” it mentions lockjaw at the end and even talks about watching the love of his life die to an od.
I didn’t know it was about Crystal meth for a really long time because I only heard it on the radio for many many years and they only played a clean version where the phrase “Crystal Meth” is cut out in a way that’s not really obvious it was edited so I just never understood the lyrics.
“The sky was gold, it was rose, I was taking sips of it through my nose…” didn’t clue you in?
Nope. That song came out when I was ten, so I had no clue it was about anything like that until probably a decade later.
Oh. Never mind, I’m old.
ddittyI took the hit that I was given then I bumped again, then I bumped again
I love people being surprised by this song when a verse literally says ‘doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break’.
“It won’t stop, I won’t come down
I keep stock with the tick-tock rhythm
I bump for the drop, and then I bumped up
I took the hit that I was given, then I bumped again
Then I bumped again”
That entire verse, but honestly rereading the lyrics, I’m amazed that got radio play in the Bible belt. I know it did, because I heard it uncensored in southeastern Indiana.
Fun fact: Semi Charmed Kinda Life made it into a late '90s Disney film about surfers. They didn’t even bleep anything because, I assume, they couldn’t understand what he was singing.
Another fun fact is that the original radio edit that charted is different from the album version / version that is on streaming these days. It lacks verse 3
And when the plane came in, she said she was crashing The velvet, it rips in the city We tripped on the urge to feel alive But now, I’m struggling to survive Those days you were wearing that filthy dress You’re the priestess, I must confess Those little red panties, they pass the test Slides up around the belly face down on the mattress one And you hold me And we are broken Still it’s all that I want to do, just a little now
The period between hearing and knowing what the song was about was nearly instantaneous but “Smack my bitch up” has an incredibly catchy tune.
It’d be really nice if they released an instrumental version one day.
For what it’s worth, that line is a sample from an Ultramagnetic MCs song.
Give the Drummer Some
Honestly, that’s worth a fair bit to me.
Yeah, I feel like what that insight “means” is in the eye of the beholder. It’s definitely not great in the context of the original song either, but it’s a bit less in-your-face.
You might also be interested in Prodigy’s Dirtchamber Sessions which features the song youtu.be/7a1rkOsYn2A?t=230
Liam Howlett (Prodigy) - The Dirtchamber Sessions Volume One - Full Album
JayWhen I first heard it my brain convinced me that the lyrics were “Snap my Picture” for some reason.
Then I saw the video.
Honestly, that sounds like it’d make a pretty good Weird Al parody.
Jump by Van Halen when found out that it’s about hanging yourself.
Well, I still like it but it’s with a double feeling.
I thought it was about starting a fight.
From genius.com : “The original inspiration for the lyrics came from David Lee Roth watching a person on TV who was threatening to commit suicide by jumping off of a building and Roth figured someone in the crowd must be thinking, “Go ahead and jump”. It was, however, not written about suicide – the song is about ‘jumping’ on the opportunity to hook up with someone.”
Though I can see where you got that.
The lyric “I jump up and nothing gets me down” jumping off a stool/chair but because of the noose he doesn’t get down.
But I can see your point.
Doesn’t it say “I get up and nothing gets me down”? I always thought that sentence described being motivated and not letting anyone ruin your good mood.
We played this song in high school marching band lol
ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠“Freshmen” by the Verve Pipe