Wham! Line/Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Chuck Berry's song "Memphis, Tennessee", which became a big hit for Johnny Rivers under the title "Memphis" ("Long distance information, give me Memphis, Tennessee"), sounds like the singer is trying to call his girlfriend Marie, who was separated from him by a disapproving mother ("But we were pulled apart because her mom did not agree"). That is, until the final verse, where the singer tells the operator that "Marie is only six years old", revealing that she's his daughter, and the family was split up by the wife/girlfriend.
  • From the David Bowie song "Space Oddity:"

Ground control to Major Tom.
Your circuit's dead. There's something wrong.

    • From "Cygnet Committee":

And the road is coming to its end.
Now the damned have no time to make amends!

    • "The Width of a Circle":

When I realized that God's a young man, too!

  • The song "Polly" by Nirvana contains a Wham Line in the second line of lyric:

Polly wants a cracker
Think I should get off her first

  • "Open your eyes, Nicholas."
  • Kate Miller-Heidke's Caught in the Crowd" "I turned my back...and just walked away."
  • Given away somewhat by the title of the song, Fucker by Eels seems like such a sweet song until: "Something about you / Something about spending the afternoon asleep in your arms / I hate you / Fucker."
  • The Long Winters' "The Commander Thinks Aloud" is a relaxing if slightly trippy-sounding track with happy, mildly space-themed lyrics. The last line changes the tone of the song from serene and hopeful to shocked and helpless as it's repeated over and over, with absolutely no change in key.

The crew compartment's breaking up...

  • The Protomen include a Reveal towards the end of their first album on the track "The Stand (Man or Machine)"

You came to avenge your brother's death. But here he stands, in the shadow of the man you've come to destroy.

I'm your truth, telling lies
I'm your reasoned alibis
I'm inside open your eyes
I'm you!

  • Randy Travis's country song, Three Wooden Crosses, is a song about four strangers (a farmer, a teacher, a preacher and a prostitute) whose paths cross when they all ride a bus together, bound for Mexico. When the bus is hit by a semi, all but one of the four die that day, and we're given this set-up:

That farmer left a harvest, a home and eighty acres,
The faith an' love for growin' things in his young son's heart.
An' that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children:
Did her best to give 'em all a better start.
An' that preacher whispered: "Can't you see the Promised Land?"
As he laid his blood-stained bible in that hooker's hand.

Most of the remainder of the song is used to compound the lives that were tragically cut short, and to argue that the value of one's life is in the things one leaves behind. Then, at the very end, we get the real Wham! Line:

That's the story that our preacher told last Sunday.
As he held that blood-stained bible up,
For all of us to see.
He said: "Bless the farmer, and the teacher, an' the preacher;
"Who gave this Bible to my mamma,
"Who read it to me."

  • Atmosphere's "Yesterday" tells the story of a man who thinks he catches a glimpse of someone who he hasn't seen in a while, presumably an ex. He spends the song reminiscing about everything he misses from the relationship. Then, toward the end of the song we get this line:

I thought I saw you yesterday
But I knew it wasn't you
Cause you passed away, dad.

    • Similarly, In "The Waitress", he tells the story of a bum who constantly visits a cafe to see a woman. She treats him badly when he comes in, but she also notices his absence on the days he doesn't visit. She is the one woman who acknowledges his existence. It seems like he could be in love with the woman since his life seems to revolve around seeing her, then at the very end of the song he says

So there it is, and I have to live with it
I had the chance to make a difference but I didn't.
In a cafe bathroom drinking free tap water
Thinking damn I should have been a better father to my daughter.

  • The very last lines of Ayreon's album The Human Equation:

Forever of the Stars: Emotions. I remember.

So now what's next? It ain't nothin' left to sell
So she sees sex as a way of leavin' hell
It's payin' the rent, so she really can't complain
"Prostitute Found Slain"

And Brenda's her name

She's got a baby.

Forever, I'll be forever holding you
Forever, I'll be forever holding you
Responsible, responsible, responsible

  • Typical in Tom Lehrer, provided you don't know the title or that his songs are comedic:
    • "All the world seems in tune on a spring afternoon when we're poisoning pigeons in the park."
    • "But still I keep your hand as a precious souvenir."
    • "In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize."
  • Devo's "Beautiful World":

It's not for me.

  • An indie band, Kirby Krackle, played a song called "Up, Up, Down, Down" which is basically about a random guy falling in love with a girl who plays video games. Turns out she's a cannibalistic murderer that's been stalking the guy for a while now. She kills him right after their first date and he sings about how he's dead.

I said we should do it again
that's when you stabbed me with a pen

Then a knock at the door, the gun's in my hand, he opens the door, I can't believe it's a man!

Now pause the movie because what I'm about to say to yall is so damn twisted! Not only is there a man in his cabinet, but the man...is a midget! Midget! Midget!

    • Twice? More like at the end of every episode.
  • Wilco's "She's a Jar". Sounds like a bittersweet love song, then the last line changes everything:

She's a jar, with a heavy lid
My pop quiz kid
A sleepy kisser, a pretty war
My feelings hid
She begs me not to hit her

  • "Eva", by Boudewijn de Groot, is told from the perspective of a God who creates Paradise. The last verse starts with:

Here I stand like a fool in my chamber gown
I thought I could do anything.

    • Also by Boudewijn de Groot, the ending of his fairy tale song "De Kinderballade" ("The Children's Ballad"), about a fairy-like preteen girl and a prince-like preteen boy who elope together:

When, by the barking of dogs, he was found days later
The pallid prince lied tainted in the corn, without his fairy
With his big dead eyes, he motionlessly stared upwards and
Slowly, the blood still seeped from a horrid cut.

  • The Vocaloid song "Love Disease" is a perky little number about a girl who's just happy to be spending time with the guy she likes. Then, after they've spent the day together and she starts heading home, we're treated to these lines, which mark the point where things start to go downhill:

Look this way and call my name
But I guess that's just my wish
That's right, because you still
Don't even know my face.

    • 15 Years of Pursuing a Cute Boy starts off sounding like a goofy Stalker with a Crush song, but then:

In the 15th year my memories returned
I remembered everything, and burst into tears
Because I remembered...
That you died 15 years ago.

  • From 'Coward of the County: "But you could've heard a pin drop, when Tommy stopped and blocked the door." Made more effective because it was spoken, not sung, by Kenny Rogers. Tommy was about to beat up the three men who had raped his girlfriend. They laughed at him earlier, because he was thought to be "the coward of the county."
  • "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who sounds like it's mostly about self-pity. That is, until the second verse...

No one knows what it's like to feel these feelings/Like I do/And I blame you!

  • "Rosetta Stoned" by Tool has an amusing example where the narrator describes his abduction by aliens and being told vast secrets of the universe:

Overwhelmed as one would be placed in my position...
Such a heavy burden now to be the one
Born to bear and bring to all the details of our ending.
to write it down for all the world to see.
But I forgot my pen...

  • "What's Your Mama's Name", by Tanya Tucker, is about a man (named in the song as Buford Wilson) who is imprisoned after asking a little green-eyed girl what her mother's name was, offering her a piece of candy if she would tell. The people overhearing the conversation misconstrued his interest, and he was sent to prison for a month, suffering emotional ruin and dissolving into alcoholism. After the man died thirty years later, a letter was removed from his ragged jacket, revealing, in the song's final verse that the girl was his daughter, Buford having identified her by her eye colour (which was the same as his) and he was trying to confirm it by asking for her mother's name.

"Inside the old man's ragged coat, they found a faded letter. It said "You have a daughter, and her eyes are Wilson green"."

  • One song appears to be about a mother offering her child advice and encouragement on his or her first day of kindergarten, including admonishing him or her not to cry. The final verses, repeated for effect, turn everything on its head.

No, Mommy doesn't always act this way, but it's my first day of kindergarten.

  • "All Your Life", by The Band Perry: It's a sweet love song to a boyfriend, right up until "You could be the centerpiece of my obsession/If you would notice me at all".
  • An old but nice one from "Come Sail Away", "I thought that they were Angels but to my surprise, we climbed aboard their starship, we headed for the skies!"
  • Sound Horizon's "Yield" at first sounds like a simple song about a lonely girl during the harvest season, albeit one with an odd passage about subtracting from an unstable number to bring back stability ([3-1+1-2]). Then comes the line revealing that the "sweet fruits" the girl is harvesting aren't actually fruit:

Ah, but isn't that a head?

  • Eminem is very good with these Stan being the best example:

Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge.
And had his girlfriend in the trunk, and she was pregnant with his kid.
And in the car they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to.
Come to think about it his name was Sta... IT WAS YOU!

Then I got Mary pregnant, and man, that was all she wrote.

  • Prince's B-Side "Another Lonely Christmas" - at first it just seems like the narrator spending Christmas Day alone reminiscing about an ex-girlfriend who he still loves, but the situation changes when:

Baby, you promised me you'd never leave
Then you died on the 25th day of December

  • The Living Tombstone's "September." The entire song is about an amnesiac who wakes up to find everyone in his town dead. And just when you're least expecting it, the final stanza comes:

I just remembered
What happened in September
[[Amnesiac Dissonance I'm the one who killed them all
I survived after the fall]]

  • The Magnetic Fields have two songs with these on their album 69 Love Songs. 'Abigail, Belle of Kilronan' sounds like your average song about a couple breaking up or being torn apart. The lyrics are sad enough and talk about a time "when I come home, if I come home". Then we find out:

I'm off to the war but you can be sure,
I will know you're what I'm fighting for.

    • Then there's The One You Really Love which sounds like a regular love song about a love triangle, with one party thinking about someone else... until the end of the song where we find out that 'the one you really love' is 'the corpse you really love'
  • The Arcade Fire song "(Antichrist Television Blues)" is about an amoral Stage Dad who forces his daughter to become a glorified stripper and uses his religion to justify his acts. The first verse of the song seems unconnected to the rest of the song, as it describes post-9/11 fear of working in buildings downtown that may be attacked by terrorists. The final lines bring it back full circle:

Do you know where I was at your age? Any idea where I was at your age?
I was working downtown for the minimum wage
and I'm not gonna let you just throw it all away!
I'm through being cute, I'm through being nice
Oh tell me Lord, am I the Antichrist?!

  • The Notorious B.I.G.
    • Me and My Bitch: "I saw my bitch dead with the gunshot to the heart"
    • Suicidal Thoughts: "I'm sick of niggas lyin', I'm sick of bitches hawkin', matter of fact, I'm sick of talkin'." (BANG)
  • Everything Else: In "Religion Song (Put Away The Gun)", the middle section sounds like a bigoted rant, claiming "There's no such thing as a Black Man/Asian/Woman/Christian/etc., but it is all turned around by the line "Because we're all the same."
  • Norwegian Wood by The Beatles tells about one poor guy who goes home with a woman, drinks her wine, and is ultimately brushed off when she goes to sleep alone. The final line:

And when I awoke, I was alone. This bird had flown.
So I lit a fire. Isn't it good? Norwegian wood.

  • "Sk8r Boi" by Avril Lavigne seems to be a 3rd person story and you expect the girl to see the error of her ways and get together with the titular character until the bridge

Sorry girl you missed out
Well tough luck that boy's mine now
 

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