Music Tropes/Fridge: Difference between revisions

* Funny how Summer of 69 by Brian Adams isn't REALLY about the Summerof 1969, eh?-- [[Flawed Design]]

* Tracy Chapman's song ''Fast Car'' drove me bonkers when I first heard it. The verse was just so monotonous and repetitive, and the only part that seemed free and light and airy was the chorus. Then I got it. -- PANTS

* Iron Maiden end their album "Somewhere in Time" with Alexander The Great. Think about it. The album has a futuristic sound and theme, and then they end it with Ancient History. Pretty cool!-- [[Flawed Design]]

** I'm not sure if this counts, but on the subject of that song, I never understood the clips they played with it. Then when I finally finished Death Note I watched it again...and the clips all made perfect sense. -Michelle

** Norwegian wood. The guy set's fire to her house. Norwegian wood is ''pine''! The refrain "isn't it good?" is about how easily it burns!

** I was listening to "Act Naturally" (I know, [[Covered Up|not really The Beatles, but they're pretty much the only reason anyone cares about the song anymore]]) when I noticed that it actually has sort of a depressing subtext to it. The movie featured in the song is "about a man that's sad and lonely," and the narrator is so confident in his performance "'cause [he] can play the part so well" - all he has to do is "act naturally," meaning that he's naturally sad and lonely. Throw in the fact that he can't help but call himself "the biggest fool that ever hit the big time" every chorus, and suddenly this silly little song about fame and celebrity has a pretty [[Self-Deprecation|self-deprecating]] tone. [[The Garfunkel|Very]] [[Sad Clown|fitting]] for [[Ringo Starr|Ringo]]. -[[Yellow Yoshi 398]]

* I used to think metal was just loud and abrasive rock. However, I bought ''Megadeth's Greatest Hits'' at the urging of various internet users. I figured out that Dave Mustaine was talking about the modern world with all of his songs, taking whatever power he had to tear down the arbitrary rules of the world bureaucracy. Plus, the riffs grew on me, and the lyrics gained true deep meaning. - [[Golem The Troper|Golem]]

* [[The Beach Boys]]'s album [[S Mi LE]] (or at least, the bootlegs and the Brian Wilson solo version) has a lot of musical fridge brilliance, notably in the way it re-uses melodies in different songs. A good example is how the melody of the waltz introduction of ''I'm In Great Shape'' is actually the counter-melody of the "Catina" section of ''Heroes And Villains'' on a different tempo. It's pretty subtle, but once you hear it, it's brilliant.

* Originally I thought P!nk's song 'Long Way To Happy' from the "I'm Not Dead" album was about a relationship break-up, as is standard in pop music. Then I listened to it again and actually listened to the lyrics and realised it was actually a rape recovery song - making it instantly quite a creepy thing to find yourself singing along to. - [[Derek Des Anges]]

* I had been listening to [[The Beatles]] since I was a small illiterate child, so the spelling of the name didn't mean much to me. It wasn't until I was in my early teens that I realized it was a pun, and not the insect, and I thought it was just about the most brilliant thing ever. - Revolos55

* I'm a big fan of [[Queens of the Stone Age]] and I enjoy their album ''Songs for the Deaf''. But it wasn't until looking at the lyrics to all of the songs combined that I realized they refer to a heroin addiction. --Elk

* When I was young, I was initially forced into a negative impression of the song ''Colors Of The Wind'' by a relative who thought it was all a bunch of new age treehugger hoo-ha. When I was old enough to think for myself, I listened to the song again and realized it was ''brilliant.'' Remember the lyrics ''How high does the sycamore grow?/If you cut it down, then you'll never know''? She wasn't singing about deforestation! That sycamore is the native Americans, whose people and cultures were "cut down" by European settlers. Now we can never know what they might have become if we hadn't oppressed them. -Syera

* I ''just'' realized that "Gollum's Song" from [[Lord of the Rings|the soundtrack to the Two Towers]], isn't sung ''about'' Gollum, it's sung ''by'' Gollum. - Jarl

** I just recently spotted a moment of sheer brilliance in [[Lord of the Rings|the soundtrack to the Return of the King]]. Six triumphant, joyous notes ring out as the good guys win. They are the opening bars of Mordor's theme, rewritten. This is exactly what happens to {{spoiler|the music of Sauron's boss Morgoth in ''The Silmarillion.''}} In fact, the major themes of the soundtrack for all three movies are as described by the late J.R.R. Tolkien in that book! Somewhere in Heaven there is a pub, and in that pub there is very good beer, and Professor Tolkien is sipping it and humming (probably badly) all of the best bits. - Jenny Islander

* Long ago (about 6 years ago, give or take), when I first heard Interpol's "Turn On the Bright Lights," I thought it was a sweet album, but I felt that there was nothing more to it other than being a great entrance album for people who didn't understand what indie rock was. As I've lived in a city for the better part of 4 years now, elements from that album popped into my head here and there, but I couldn't understand. Now, as a music journalist, a few weeks ago (in April 2009), it all came to me: The album wasn't a random meshing of 90's indie-rock atrophy. It was a band making an image of New York City, the New York City outside of a few blocks that had everyone's attention because some buildings blew up, the New York City that existed and lived as though September 11, 2001 was really just another day in the grand scheme of all things. And it was prolly NYC at its best: Before the security lockdowns, before clean-up and glamour went into overdrive, before Williamsburg became gentrified and created a cancer that is killing Brooklyn, before the hipsters were identified as the new counterculture, cannibalized, and commodified. A New York City that was, in many ways, '''''real.''''' But more importantly, because of this imagery, it was the last great album to symbolize a regional sound outside of hip hop, just before [[My Space]] decimated the concept of regional music. It was, very much, an album that was perfect for its time, like Michael Jackson's ''Thriller.'' -- brokenwit

* A little more of a lighthearted example to follow: The first time I saw the skit Space Olympics on SNL, I hated it. It was boring. It was stupid. There was autotune. It seemed like a dumbass excuse to put Andy Samberg in a wig and have shiny costumes. I have no idea what changed when I heard it again on Incredibad, but for some reason, it became my favorite song on the album. So delightfully stupid! -- tibieryo

* [[Randomfanboy|I]] hated [[They Might Be Giants|The Statue Got Me High]] the first few times I heard it. It sounded like TMBG at their worst, with lyrics that sounded vaguely meaningful without it actually meaning much. After listening to it a bit more ([[Genre Savvy|due to having lived this trope before]]), I realised it was ''very deliberately'' meaningless - unlike most of their songs, it's just a song about a guy whose head blows up because of a statue. I love it now.

* "Self Inflicted" (by Kevin O'Donnell's Quality Six) seems to have a title completely at odds with its lyrics, which are specifically about how the singer ''didn't'' bring his suffering on himself, ''isn't'' melodramatically exaggerating or wallowing in it, and would do anything to be rid of it if only he could. Eventually it hit me that the title refers to something never explicitly mentioned in the song: {{spoiler|the fatal wound}}. - [[Tropers/Maso Tey|Maso Tey]]

* The intro the song YYZ by Rush always bothered me. It seemed irregular and out of place. Ever since I found out the intro was, in fact, the phrase "YYZ" in morse code, repeated several times, it's fascinated me. - Neopolis

* 'Shasta' by Vienna Teng sounds like a getting over a breakup song. Listening intently to the lyrics reveals it's about a woman who decides to not get an abortion. - killerlynnja

* "Crownless" by Nightwish is a song about arrogance, but it didn't seem to make a lot of sense, lyric wise, until I thought about it in the context of 'Macbeth.' The first two stanzas are the people of Scotland talking about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the refrain is always Macbeth himself, the bridge is Lady Macbeth, the first two lines of the last stanza is also Macbeth, and the last three lines of the last stanza is the ghost of Macdonwald. - Kintatsu

* A lot of songs by ''Pulp'' passed me by when they first came out, being dismissed as just more of the usual "Britpop" of the era. Then, revisiting the songs about ten years later and actually ''listening'' to the lyrics really brought home the incisive and vicious wit behind the songs. To this day I am convinced that the version of Common People I heard was an emasculated radio edit that took out all the bile and barbed turns. And talking of lyrics, Me and Mia by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at first appeared to be an [[Ear Worm|incredibly catchy]] power pop song - then you realise Anna and Mia are shorthand for Anorexia and Bulimia, and it's suddenly the most compassionate song written for a sufferer of eating disorders ever - Slave

** It probably ''was'' an emasculated radio edit. The version played on radio was cut down by about half. - Q4

{{quote| Even the wrong words ''seem to'' rhyme.}}

** Bonus points for actually emphasizing seem for completely reasonable rhyme scheme reasons, in context. - [[Tropers/Red Wren|Red Wren]]

* When I first listened to Hüsker Dü's album Zen Arcade, it seemed like a messy collage of violent noise with very little going for it. How people fell in love with the album baffled me. And then I read that the album had a story to it. A young boy disappointed with his family life, runs away from home, and then discovers that the world outside is colder and harder than the world he used to know. And then it hit me: this is exactly the type of music that someone in those circumstances would make. It's loud, angry, angsty, full of guitar distortion and screaming, and ballsy. Awesome. - Riosan

* I'd always thought it was ironic that the most well known piece of circus music is called "Entrance of the Gladiators," as gladiators were men who violently fought to the death, and the circus is a silly spectacle. It wasn't until just the other day that I made the connection that gladiator fights were the main attraction of Roman circuses. -Tatterdemalion

** The band is named after [[The Monkees]].

* For the longest time, I never understood "Thumb Cinema" by [[The World Inferno Friendship Society|The World/Inferno Friendship Society]]. I got that it was a rant about consumerism, materialism and excess, but it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the songs on "Addicted to Bad Ideas", which is about [[Peter Lorre]]'s life and generally narrated from his point of view. Suddenly, a year and a half later, it occured to me that since the album was heavily based on a recent biography which elaborates more on Lorre's friendship with [[Bertholt Brecht]], the song might be from Brecht's point of view instead. After three songs where Lorre rants about his career decline while deciding to just give in, Brecht criticizes the excesses of Hollywood and how they've damaged Lorre, and begs him to return to postwar Germany with him: "You're not happy, well, no one gives a shit/ This is a game and you're part of it/ Maybe it's time for you to quit." It would fit the album's timeline as well with the next song, "Addicted to Bad Ideas", being about Lorre's growing addiction and despair after returning to Hollywood when his German comeback film flops. - [[Tropers/Technicolor Pachyderm]]

** I got one while watching the ''Haifisch'' video. "Haifisch" is German for shark. During the video, Richard and Paul (I think, it's been a bit since I've seen the video) got into an arguement that devolved into the five remaining members fighting. The fight started when one of them got punched in the nose, drawing blood...which attracts sharks. - [[Kazokuhouou]]

*** Not to mention that at the end of the music video, Till sends a postcard to the rest of the Rammstein band with a picture of him catching a Tiger Shark.

* The song "Hella Good" by No Doubt is actually about sex not dancing. What she really wants him to do is keep on screwing not dancing. This explains why the waves keep on crashing on her and why his love keeps on coming like a thunderbolt. It also explains why she keeps gasping as she sings the song. - [[M King 49001]]

* The song "Death Cab For Cutie" by the [[Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band]]. I enjoyed it, though preferred others like Humanoid Boogie -- until I realize that what the doo-wop singers were really singing, instead of generic doo-wop nonsense (best transcribed as 'Veygahran doo-wah'), was {{spoiler|''baby, don't do it''}}. She enjoyed it a lot more since then.

** Also, Humanoid Boogie has its own -- despite having read the lyrics, I prefer to hear the chorus as 'Some people say they're glad, some people say annoyed, but you know, ain't many tryin' to say they're humanoid' instead of what it actually goes like. Why? Because if you hear it like that, it's easy to interpret it as a group of aliens coming to Earth and trying to ask people if they're, well, humans, using the nearest socially-acceptable term for 'what are you' -- 'how are you'. Finding no people answering with 'Human', they make the song to put out a sort of wanted-poster for humans on the radio, like the rat catcher of Hamelin...

** "Busted". I thought of the song as mostly nonsense...until I heard one verse that went "''I think it'd do more good to try and understand the other guy''". That combined with the chorus made me realize that the singer had been, well, busted for a crime (or just busted up in the skull, for even more simplicity, or busted like a toy, or even ''bested'') and driven to madness by the pressure put on him by society to either reform or prove he didn't do it (or prove he really was as good as he seemed, et cetera). All he wants is some sympathy, but due to society stamping labels on him, he never gets it.

*** Or, considering that Vivian Stanshall, the singer, does his "Look At Me I'm Wonderful" voice, you can even think [[Epileptic Trees|it's the same singer from "Look At Me", busted as a fraud/hack/with no skill]].

** "The Trouser Press". Your everyday pop novelty song, really -- I found it average, but prefered others. Then I learnt two things -- that the line "''Oh, you're so savage, Roger''", spoken from a [[Ho Yay|decidedly male voice]], wasn't just a one-shot joke with random name -- Roger-Ruskin Spear was one of the fellows in the band and the one who had discovered them, saying "I couldn't believe anyone was that bad" before changing his mind. The line could have simply referenced his savage critique. And the second thing was that it had featured a solo on an ''actual trouser press''.

** "We Are Normal". The slow, strange, spoken intro always bugged me -- until I realized that was what it was supposed to do. The song began with a bubbling sound, which I didn't understand -- until I understood it was a metaphor for a new type of people (or, heck, aliens) bubbling up to the surface. The title, too -- it's not meant to be 'We are ordinary', they actually ''call'' themselves 'Normal'. The spoken words were basically jeers, with lines such as "''Well, here come some normals! They look like...normal...''" and "''Look at his head! 'E--'es got a head on him like a rabbit!''" These continued through slow pace, as a slow, fast-forwarding sound appeared, which turned into a quicker fast-forwarding sound, which turned into a jittery rapid fast fast-forwarding -- until it became the actual song. This represents the years of insults that seem to pass so quickly, so uneventfully -- up until rebellion, as the song itself is rather [[The Power of Rock|rocky]], the verses going mostly "''We are normal, and we want our freedom!''" And, finally, the song closes with around fifteen or so seconds of ocean-against-the-beach noises, calling back to the bubbly opening. In the end, despite a few new bubbles, the ocean is big and alike.

* I was recently listening to the song Wander, by Kamelot, and something occured to me. The lyrics in the first half of the chorus isn't just Ariel reflecting on how much he misses Helena. It's an eerie character-doesn't-realize-it foreshadowing towards the events that occur later on. -themagicdance

** Just realized something else. In both Epica and Black Halo, the center of the universe is also called "Epica", where you find the meaning of life. On the Epica CD, Ariel calls his homeland the center of his universe. He finds the meaning of life, or more specifically HIS life, in his homeland. I think my brain just exploded from the..er..epicness.

* At first I thought [[Taylor Swift]]'s "Love Story" was just your typical pop teenage love song. I was always disappointed that she used "Romeo" and "Juliet" for the names of two perfect lovers for obvious reasons and I assumed that she simply [[Did Not Do the Research]]... but then I noticed a very subtle change at the bridge. The whole song, she sings to her "Romeo" directly, referring to him as "you". At the bridge though, the precise line is "Is this in my head? I don't know what to think/''he'' knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring..." In other words, the entire climax of the song may very well entirely be in her head, the wistful dreaming of a heartbroken girl, which fits the Romeo and Juliet imagery perfectly. (Also makes more sense of the echo at the end.) Now I hear the song as a bittersweet love that never was, rather than the bubblegum pop love that everyone seems to think it is. - [[The Mayor]]

** Or the switch to the second person means that her really Romeo, the one who proposed, is someone else, and she's sharing the story with the boy who missed his chance. Never thought about it that way before... [[Tropers/Molly Walker|Molly Walker]]

*** I listened to Billy Joel's own explanation of this song and then re-listened. Notice how all the negative characteristics are nearly all in the second person "She can ruin ''your'' faith", 'She can lead ''you'' to love" but the key phrase is 'She's always a woman to ''me'' '. And the penultimate line is 'Blame it all on ''yourself'' '. Its a man defending his love to an ex-partner and saying that all her supposedly negative characteristics were down to the way he treated her. [[Culfy]]

* I never understood or fully appreciated the song "Hole Hearted" by Extreme until I realized that it was not a love song but a hymn to God. (Apparently there is even some linguistic support for this: someone here told me before someone inexplicably erased the previous version of this entry that the literal meaning of the Hebrew word "sin" is "to fall short".) -[[Ziggy Zag]]

* It took many years of loving the [[[Pet Shop Boys]]] song "Being Boring" to realise it's meaning, I thought the melancholic music and wistful words were merely evocing a lost youth. Then I heard the line "All the people I was kissing, some are here and some are missing in the 1990's" and I realised it was a eulogy to a friend who'd died of AIDS.

* The titles of albums (that aren't collaborations) by Finnish experimental electronic duo Pan Sonic mostly consist of single Finnish words, so their 1999 album called simply ''A'' may seem merely a weird exception from this rule. Not quite... Pan Sonic first named themselves after a certain well-known electronics corporation, and were forced to drop one letter from their name to prevent having further action taken against them. Guess what ''A'''s album title most probably pays tribute to. -Litis

* One of Sting's albums, 'Brand New Day' commences with the song "A Thousand Years" which is basically about the constancy of love even through reincarnation ... and ends with the song "Brand New Day" which talks about resetting the clocks to zero and starting all over again. The very end of Brand New Day is the same riff that starts "A Thousand Years". The whole album is a cycle of rebirth.

* At first, it seemed that the Korean song "Wannabe" by Epik High had very little to do with the otherwise amusing music video which was based on the Korean horror movie ''The Host'' and had many references to other movies, such as a [[Star Wars|lightsaber]]. But after looking closer at the lyrics, the song is singing about imitation, hence why the one singing the song is a ''wannabe''.

* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik_ghfvFJzs In Noctem]", from the [[Half Blood Prince]] soundtrack, just sounds like your typical (if hauntingly beautiful) [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]... Until you take a good, hard look at [http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/In_Noctem the lyrics] (which are the same in English as they are in Latin). It's the "Love Conquers All" message of the entire series in two minutes, ''and'' it underscores the parallels between Harry and {{spoiler|Snape}}. [[Tender Lumpling]]

* Not necessarily Fridge-y for everyone, but: I was listening to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for the singer's emotional delivery and tune, because the lyrics just seemed sort of...eh. I still picked up "Total Eclipse of the Heart," because [[Title Drop|you have to.]] I figured it was talking about how she was without his love, her heart was in total darkness ([[Meaningless Meaningful Words|whatever that means...]]), and then another line made its way in: ''Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time.'' She is in complete darkness because he loves her that much. And suddenly it fit much better with, "Turn around, bright eyes." She knows he loves her, and ''that's'' what the song is about, not how "every now and then [she] fall[s] apart." When she asks him to hold her, ''he's there''. And then it went from weepy to dramatic expression of love. --[[User:Red Wren]]

* When first listening to the Therapy? song ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNdTs9Ar3h4 Polar Bear]'', the song seemed very simple and the lyrics monotonous. However, think about what the lyrics say about being a polar bear in a zoo. Out of all of the zoo animals, the polar bear is not only one of the the most potentially vicious (there have been several past cases of suicide by polar bear) but also one of the most out of place and out of its natural environment. Add that to the fact that the music gets slowly more out of control, going from tight basslines to the messy pick scrapes and strings being caught on the guitar to the final bludgeoning outro. It's lyrically and musically a journal of being alienated and completely out of place and becoming more and more agitated to the point of losing control - Slave

* Why do so many Japanese songs have upbeat melodies but depressing lyrics? It's because it's an "in the moment" song. The times between the people mentioned in this song are good, but there are also bad times, and even with those still going on, it makes the good times even sweeter. Even if there's a melancholy to the lyrics, the song stays upbeat because the "memories" that come with them are worth it. (originally by [[Tropers/anelaidlives|anelaidlives]])

* "Love (Can Make You Happy)", a big hit ballad for the [[One-Hit Wonder]] band Mercy in 1969, is one of the sappiest songs of all time. The whole thing seems like a banal celebration of how wonderful it is to be in love. Until you look at the lyrics a little more closely. Most of the lyrics are written in a conditional tense: "love ''CAN'' make you happy/''IF'' you find someone who cares.." or "''IF'' you ''THINK'' you've found someone you'll love forevermore." The narrator isn't saying "love has made me happy", so odds are they aren't currently in love, but they're trying to distract themselves from thinking about their current lonely state by imagining a perfect romance. Or, they've just suffered a horrible breakup and are pondering how elusive true love can be. Love can make you happy if you find someone who cares, but when you don't it's a living hell. Or the narrator is going through unrequited love: "Your mind is filled with the thoughts of a certain someone that you love/your life is filled with joy when she is there." It doesn't say anything about her reciprocating those feelings. Also, the song is sung as a male-female duet, so maybe it's about ''mutually'' unrequited love. - Ezclee4050

* "Absolutely ([[Refrain From Assuming|Story of a Girl]]), or, as you may know it, [[Trope Namer]] for [[When She Smiles]]: At first I thought that, "And though she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her [[When She Smiles]]," being shortened and, "And though she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her," was just a cut off, the sort of thing you end with a dash. Then I realized, no, that's a complete sentence. [[Heartwarming Moments|And the, "aw..." factor went way up.]] --[[User:Red Wren]]

* This is probably an obvious one, but... I enjoyed the song "High School Never Ends" by [[Bowling for Soup]], but I thought it was a bit repetitive. Then I realized the song was all about how when you leave high school you think things will be different, but they're not. The entire world is filled with people who are "just as obsessed with who's the best dressed and who's having sex". So, it makes perfect sense for a song about how nothing changes anywhere to be repetitive! - [[Hackey Sack]]

{{quote| Rose, all that I ever could show you was love...<br />

And Rose, you taught me how to let go of love..'' }}

''I know nothing of it'' }}

* I had a fridge brilliance for Techno (this stripped-down, dark and robotic subgenre of electronic music) recently: why was there no melodies, cool fat synths like in Electro-House? 'Cause it's made for live performance. Live, cool synths often get completely squashed: only remains the drums and the bassline, which are THE elements that will make a human dance. Since that, I love techno. -Stay'n Alive

** It took a few listens for me to get this bit of Drumming Song. It's about a girl who tries to hide her love for another person and drowns herself in the ending. Perhaps a reference to Ophelia from "Hamlet" - the narrator of the song tries to hide her heartbeat by hiding in a church (vaguely mirroring the 'Get thee to a nunnery!' scene in "Hamlet"), then drowns herself to stop the beating (Ophelia drowns herself in the play).

* I was listening to "Happy Birthday" by [[The Birthday Massacre]] again, and it hit me: in the chorus, when she sings "'You're a murder tramp, murder tramp'/I think he said/'You're a murder boy, birthday boy'/I think I said", he's not repeating 'murder tramp', it's what he's ''calling her by'', just like how she's calling him 'birthday boy'. - [[Tropers/Zadia|Zadia]]

* A while ago, I was listening to [[Lady Gaga]]'s 'So Happy I Could Die' and I realised something: there's more than a few references to masturbation in there, along with the repeated line 'So happy I could die'... and 'die' was repeatedly used by Shakespeare to mean orgasm. - [[Tropers/Zadia|Zadia]]

** It's not just Shakespeare, "the little death" is the literal translation of the French word for orgasm, hence 'why' Shakespeare used it. He didn't make it up, it's just archaic.

** I think "heel" was used in common language to mean an unpleasant person well before it was adopted into use in professional wrestling. - [[Tropers/Devils Advocate|Devils Advocate]]

* Patron is an expensive brand of tequila that has made its way into a lot of rap/r&b lyrics. I thought that, because a bottle costs so much, Patron was popular with music artists because of this association with the excess of success. Then I realized that Patron just rhymes with a lot of words. I think you can make a similar case for Henny and Goose.

* The song ''Your Woman'' by White Town. I already knew most of the lyrics had double meanings, but reading a quote from the song writer made it clear that he meant wanted it that way. From [[The Other Wiki]]: "The lyrics could mean 'Being a member of an orthodox Trotskyist / Marxist movement. Being a straight guy in love with a lesbian. Being a gay guy in love with a straight man. Being a straight girl in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-ass Marxist. The hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals.' Many listeners also likened the song to a breakup letter, where the man reading the breakup letter imitates the woman's voice."

* On first listen Tim Minchin's ''You Grew On Me'' is a funny song that just can't be taken as a serious love song. But then I realised that all of it is one deep, intelligent love simile/metaphor. It's really quite beautiful. - [[Blade Satoshi X]]

* The song "Ironic" contains absolutely no irony in the lyrics. ''That's what is ironic about it.'' -[[Tropers/The Number|The Number]]

** Well, my mind was just blown. Irony ''is'' getting the opposite of what is expected. You'd expect a song called "Ironic" to be, well, ironic. It's ironic because it ''isn't'' ironic.

*** [[Mind Screw|My aching head...]]

* "NTF" by illScarlet: The other day I was listening to this, and in an instant, the meaning dawned on me. Initially, I just assumed it was a generic break up song. But then I realized it was actually about get repeatedly rejected by a girl, and trying to move past his feelings for her. Not an amazing epiphany, but it hit me right where it hurts, because I've been there before. -[[Tropers/The Great Cool Energy|The Great Cool Energy]]

** Carnival of Carnage: The rise in violence and arrogance. Humanity getting into wars and killing each other in a carnival of madness and chaos. The political slant is also rather brilliant, as it points out that the governors of the world will be the initiators of the chaos, which is represented by the Dark Carnival visiting their rich neighborhoods.

** The Ringmaster: The rise of the Antichrist and the second coming of Christ. The "Forks up, Forks down" symbol is about more than gang harmony, it's the contrast between good and evil.

*** I might be reading too much into all of this, obviously, but it's still rather interesting. Also, as another piece of Fridge Brilliance for you, you might be asking yourself: "That's all well and good, but why dress as clowns? Why are they so vulgar?" Here's the reason: Because they can spread their message easier that way. A court jester, in the medieval era, was actually one of the king's most intelligent advisors. However, rather than risk being decapitated by insulting the king's idiocy, he would [[Obfuscating Stupidity|play the fool]] and drop hints that the king is fucking up under the guise of playful acts of comedy. Insane Clown Posse are modern court jesters for society, explaining our flaws to us and the solutions that are within our grasp under the guise of two high-school dropouts who wear paint and act hard, and even this could be a satirical statement about mainstream rap being gaudy and ridiculously commercial drivel hiding under a loose facade of toughness. Why has nobody mentioned this yet? -[[Tropers/Ometta 7|Ometta 7]]

**** [[Word of God]] confirmed this.

* When I first started listening to [[OK Go]], I wasn't much into 'A Million Ways.' But today, I was listening to it in the car when I heard them chanting. I started it again and laughed when I realized they weren't chanting, they were saying one million as a numerical value.

* The Minutemen included a live version of their cover of "Don't Look Now" by [[Creedence Clearwater Revival]] on ''Double Nickels On The Dime'', which is otherwise entirely a studio album. I had always wondered why this was, especially since it's not a very clear recording of the song, and you can hear the audience talking over most of it. I figured maybe they really wanted the song to be on the album, but couldn't seem to do a good studio performance of it, so they just grabbed the best live recording they happened to have of it. Then I read the book from the 33 1/3 series on the album, and it was noted that a friend of the band had made the recording from the audience, and convinced them to use it because he thought the audience chatter actually added something to the song. It suddenly started to make sense: "Don't Look Now" is sort of about taking conveniences for granted (and more specifically the hard work that goes into those conveniences), so using a live recording where the audience seems to be too busy talking among themselves to hear the message of the song adds a level of irony. -[[Tropers/Mike K|Mike K]]

* Hate to do another one of these so soon, but: There's a line in The Wrens' "Everyone Choose Sides" that makes much more sense when you know a bit of the backstory to ''The Meadowlands''. The Wrens put out their first two albums on an independent label called Grass Records. After this, the label was bought out and the new owner wanted the band to sign a bigger contract and record more radio-friendly songs. When they refused, they were dropped and their albums were pulled out of print. Grass Records subsequently became Wind-Up Records (whose most successful act was [[Creed]], by the way), and The Wrens were left quietly working on new material while simultaneously looking for a new label, which they eventually found 6 years later. Thus the somewhat punny [[Take That]] "Greener grasses fade from where you wind up". -[[Tropers/Mike K|Mike K]]

* In Ana Ng by [[They Might Be Giants]] there is the line "I saw this painted on a BRIDGE, "I don't want the world I just want your half." Guess what section of the song it happens in? Here's a hint, it's not in the verse, chorus, intro, or outro... also the answer is in caps. - [[brainlesswonder]]

* I was just listening to [[Steely Dan]]'s song "Black Friday", and the first line is "When Black Friday comes, I'll stand down by the door, and watch the gray men when they dive from the fourteenth floor." It just hit me: Many buildings don't have a thirteenth floor; they go straight from twelve to fourteen, so ''technically'' the fourteenth floor is actually the thirteenth. - [[Tropers/Cuchulainn|Cuchulainn]]

* For a while, I've been wondering why [[Angelspit]] named a song "Homo-Machinery", as I was thinking of the name as the insult. Several months, many Biology lessons and another look at the lyrics later and it hit me... their point is that by following constant routines, we are becoming humanoid machines, or Homo machinery- Homo as in the genus. God, I'm an idiot sometimes...- [[User:Zadia]]

* I kept misreading the song on [[Them Crooked Vultures|Them Crooked Vultures']] self-titled as 'Interlude with Lutes', which made no sense but I figured it was just another [[Word Salad Title]] that Josh Homme appears so fond. When I actually looked and saw it was 'Interlude with LUDES', the reason why it seemed so psychadelic compared to the rest of the album was suddenly so obvious - {{spoiler|the 'Ludes' of the title refer to Quaaludes.}} - [[Be]]

* "Grenade" by Bruno Mars would make so much more sense when viewed as being from a bodyguard's point of view. The bodyguard gets into a brief affair with his client, who decides to toy with his feelings. And although it hurts him, he's got no choice but to keep protecting her because it's his damn job. -- [[Tropers/Mira Shio|Mira Shio]]

* In [[They Might Be Giants]]' "Weep Day", there are the lines "I didn't write the words you hear me singing \ I didn't sing the line before this one", which fits in perfectly with the [[Mind Screw]] self-contradiction of the rest of the lyrics. But John Flansburgh repeats those lyrics right after John Linnell sings them, and when ''he'' sings them, they're both true: Flansburgh didn't write the lyrics and didn't sing the previous line. - [[Tropers/Mike K|Mike K]]

* I fell in love with 'Wedding Song' (the first track) from "[[wikipedia:Hadestown|Hadestown]]" by Anais Mitchell almost the first time I heard it. For those of you who don't know, the whole album is a "folk opera" based on the Greek myth [[wikipedia:Orpheus|Orpheus and Eurydice]], which is about a husband who goes down to Hell to bring his wife back to life. Originally I could only think about how sweet and romantic it was. Then after hearing 'Hey Little Songbird' all the way through a couple of times, I realised: 'Wedding Song' ''is'' sweet, but it's what brings Eurydice into this mess. She's freaking out about the wedding and he's all "don't worry about it, my natural talent will bring everything about because I am totally awesome", leaning on his voice to bring them all they'll ever need. And then when she sees Hadestown and meets Hades, he tempts her with riches and things that her husband isn't willing to work for to provide, leading to their eventual downfall. - [[Tropers/Sadiebird|Sadiebird]]

* Re: Talking Heads - the Sand in the Vaseline collection drew connections I hadn't seen.

** 'Once in a Life Time': "You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?" answered by "we're on a 'Road to Nowhere'" not just as a Q and A, but one is coping with life being no great meaning, and the latter accepts that, but says to enjoy it anyhow.

* In [[Pink]]'s music video for "Raise Your Glass", it bothered me that the non-outcasts were being treated like...um. Outcasts. Then came the prom scene: ''everybody's'' having fun; it's not the closer-to-average people who are being treated like that, just bullies. --[[User:Red Wren]]

* [[Queen]]'s ''39' isn't about someone who returns from [[World War II]]. It's about an astronaut in 2039, who returns from colonising other planets to find that time dilation has made him only one year older while his love has grown old.

* I always thought Papoose's song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-eJODRWZI ''Gun of Mines''] (also known as ''Drop It'') was just another gangsta rap track he put out, but when I took my first look at the [http://www.lyricsmania.com/drop_it_lyrics_papoose.html lyrics] realized the song title should have been "Gun to Mind", because it's a song that explores the advantages of both. For example, the chorus. It's basically Papoose asking, "Knowledge or Power/Violence: which one is more important to survival, and why?" The rest of the first half of the chorus is him saying knowledge is more important because the mind drives all action refines the ignorant, and gives man a way to protect himself from anything he may encounter, while the rest of the second half is him saying that when the shit hits the fan, power/violence is your umbrella. Further backed up by the fact that the first verse is the argument in defense of knowledge, while the third verse is the same for power. But that leaves the question: What about the second verse? The middle verse by Busta Rhymes basically bridges both ideas by basically saying they're both valid (and necessary) means of survival, which is why he lives by both.

* [[Frank Zappa]]'s "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee" is obviously a parody of over-dramatic rock opera songs, and based on some crude humor, but consider this: What can be more heartbreaking than contracting an STD from someone you love and trust implicitly? -[[Tropers/Cuchulainn|Cuchulainn]]

* Self's "Trunk Full Of Amps" would practically be a [[Single-Stanza Song]] if not for the fact that every verse namechecks a different rock band or vocalist ("Got a trunk full of amps, motherfucker / like (insert musician here), motherfucker!"). What do all the acts mentioned have in common beyond being famous rock musicians? They all have songs prominently featuring the word "mother" (or "mama") in their titles or lyrics! Lenny Kravitz's "Mama Said", [[Electric Light Orchestra]]'s "Mama" (or possibly "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle"), [[Queen]]'s "Tie Your Mother Down" (or less obviously "Bohemian Rhapsody") and of course [[Danzig]]'s "Mother". - [[Tropers/Mike K|Mike K]]

* [[Blue Man Group]], "The Complex". The line in question is "I work on the highest floor / there's nothing in my way / but I saw my picture on the bathroom door / today". It took me a while to figure out what that means. Why would they put someone's picture on a bathroom door? And then I remembered that a lot of bathroom doors have one of [http://www.clker.com/cliparts/8/2/c/d/12065700491766772417johnny_automatic_Accommodations_2.svg.med.png these], and realized: The singer is concerned about losing his individuality and identity.

* I've listened to ''Les Miserables'' for years, since I was too little to understand it. Recently I realized how "What Have I Done" (Jean Valjean's epiphany from Act One) and "Javert's Suicide" (Javert's epiphany from Act Two) basically mirror each other musically - except for the ending. Valjean, having been shown true Christian kindness by the Bishop, sees an opportunity to become a new man and make up for the time he has lost. Javert, on the other hand, is shown Christian kindness by Valjean and is forced to see what ''he'' has done to himself by doggedly pursuing Valjean, and sees no other way out except to kill himself. -[[Cute Queen Pika]]

** On a related note, Javert is the only character in ''Les Miserables'' who actually dies ''miserable.'' Think about it: Fantine dies knowing Cosette is safe, Eponine dies saving the love of her life, Enjolras and the other students die fighting for their causes, and Valjean dies surrounded by the family he has created. Javert is the only one who dies alone and conflicted. -[[Cute Queen Pika]]

* I used to hate Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi," because I have done a lot of reading about true crime, I learned a lot about stalkers who act all romantic long enough to control a person, isolate them, and possibly kill them if the real person doesn't measure up with the image the stalker has invented to feel good about him/herself, so I hated listening to people singing "I'll follow you until you love me" as though that was romantic and loving when I knew how many people had died in situations like that, until I told my brother about this and he explained that, in the music video, people actually did die, so appearently Gaga knew what she was talking about, so now I love to listen to the song to mock the people who listen to the song.

** Second level of FB that just occurred to me reading my previous: people think the song is romantic, but it's actually about a type of psychopath that people think are romantics, so they fall for the fake romance in the song the way they would fall for it in real life

** Also on Tenacious D is the subtle realization that everything J.B.'s father said to him in "Kickapoo" was correct. The Pick of Destiny, the source of all great rock musicians, was forged from the Devil's fang. Gaining its power cause J.B. to fall out with his best friend and lose direction in his life. Eventually, it causes them to deliver the Pick into the Devil's hands. His father had warned him that rock came from the Devil and would cause J.B. to lose his heart and become a puppet of the Devil. -- TSBasilisk

* At first I thought the Lupe Fiasco's 'Dumb It Down' was just a bit of irony; the lyrics in the song are far from dumbed down, they're possibly the most complicated lyrics i've read. But when I saw the video for the song, which is in black and white, and only really features Lupe and a few other people, I realised how brilliant the song was. Everything has been dumbed down, EXCEPT the lyrics. The song also ends with 'but I flatly refuse I ain't dumb down nothing.' Which confused me until I realised that he hasnt dumbed down anything that matters. He's dumbed down everything but the lyrics, and uses just the lyrics themselves to show how much he doesnt need fancy videos and money etc. The lyrics are all that matter.