Hello One and All!
Songs are pieces of art that are open to interpretation the moment they are released. Anyone that listens to music has theories about some of their favourite songs. The strange thing is though, we frequently get it wrong, and the real meaning is wildly different from what we would expect. I will discuss a number of these examples.
You're Beautiful-James Blunt
What people thought it was about: A guy being romantic to a girl that he loves
The song “You’re Beautiful” dominated radios in 2004, and left people everywhere sighing at how romantic it all was. Many even chose to have it as their wedding marches. In 2017 James Blunt disclosed the “real” meaning though:
“It’s about a guy who’s high as a fucking kite on drugs in the subway stalking someone else’s girlfriend when that guy is there in front of him, and he should be locked up or put in prison for being some kind of perv.”
Uuuuh…..okay. It all makes sense now. Sucks to be all those people that had the song as their wedding marches though. Dub all of those videos of the wedding with some safe bets, like maybe the Bridal Chorus from Wagner? Blunt then proceeded to basically apologized for creating the “annoying” love song.
Wonderwall
What people thought it was about: About Noel Gallagher’s girlfriend Meg Matthews
It was widely circulated that the song Wonderwall was about Noel Gallagher’s girlfriend Meg Matthews, who he would marry in 1997. She didn’t have a job and he apparently wanted to cheer her up (according to this explanation). In 2002, after a divorce, Noel said:
"And how do you tell your Mrs it's not about her once she's read it is? It's a song about an imaginary friend who's gonna come and save you from yourself."
So in actual fact he couldn’t bring himself to tell her it was really about an imaginary friend. Awkward. The media also latched onto the false explanation and ran with it. “Wonderwall Music” was the title of George Harrison’s first solo album, so it could also have been an homage.
In the Air Tonight
What people thought it’s about: A friend drowned and a person on shore could have saved him, but didn’t.
According to urban legends Phil Collins’ 1981 song “In the Air Tonight” is about how he saw a man drowning and someone else was close by and could have saved them, but didn’t. This is untrue though. The song came out of a period of frustration for Collins-he was exhausted after a long tour with Genesis and his wife had just left him. According to him, he actually had no idea what it was about:
“I just wrote a sequence, and it sounded nice. I wrote the lyrics spontaneously. I'm not quite sure what the song is about, but there's a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration.”
That characteristic reverb drum sound, which would become a feature of 80’s music, was a happy accident. Phill Collins and engineer Hugh Padgham discovered that it sounded wonderful through the “talkback” microphone, and that it gave an interesting distortion sound.
Like always, thanks for reading!
Sources:
You're Beautiful:
Wonderwall:
In the Air Tonight:
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