WTF Moments in Music

A.K.A. Like a what in the what?!

Okay, this thread isn't about misheard lyrics. It's about lyrics that you've listened to hundreds of times before, but never actually realized what they were saying till just recently.

To start it off, the local radio station I listen to when I'm in my car comes out of Cedar Rapids, and tends to play a combination of new music and what they refer to as 'oldies.' By oldies we're talking mostly Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, Dio, and their ilk. The sort of stuff I grew up listening to as a teenager and young adult, not realizing that the lyrics, in most cases,weren't supposed to actually mean anything, because they written while the artists were using mass quantities of drugs. Due to my religiously restricted upbringing, I wouldn't figure this out till years later, which explains why the stories I wrote during that period of time tended to read like they'd been written by someone with who was hallucuinating freely.

So I'm driving home from the gas station today, radio turned up, and Dio's 'Rainbow in the Dark' comes on. Now this is a song I've heard so many times I can sing it without musical accompaniment.

But despite having heard it all those times, for some reason, I never stopped to contemplate what he was singing. So he goes into the chorus, and what jumps out at me is "Like a rainbow in the dark.'

WTF? Like a rainbow in the dark? What the hell does that mean? You're brightly colored and appear after rainstorms, but no one can see you because it's pitch black outside? Despite the fact the only way you can see a rainbow is if the sun comes out immediately after it rains? So how can something (or someone) be 'Like a rainbow in the dark'? :headshot:

The answer, of course, is that they can't, but it sure sounds cool, doesn't it? Like Serj Tankanian's 'The sky is over.' How the hell can the sky be over. Unless he's referring to it being over the Earth, but that's not the vibe I get. I get 'The sky is over' as in 'The sky is gone now.' Which is patently ridiculous, because you can look up and see it.

And then I find myself wondering if it's a Serbian thing, and it all just goes to hell.

Now I'd like to think I'm not the only person who does this. So please, fellow roaches, don't prove me wrong. I know the rest of you must have had the occasional WTF moment in music. Let us know about it, so we I won't feel so stupid.

Rats. If it weren't about lyrics, I would've mentioned Duran Duran collaborating with of all people, Justin Timberflake.

Not a lyrical wtf moment, but a musical one: The Magician's Birthday by Uriah Heep. It starts out a little strange, but not completely bizarre. But then right in the middle they burst into... This.

Sloth wrote:

Not a lyrical wtf moment, but a musical one: The Magician's Birthday by Uriah Heep. It starts out a little strange, but not completely bizarre. But then right in the middle they burst into... This.

What in the everloving hell did I just listen to!?

On second thought, don't tell me-I don't think I want to know.

And Bad Luck Charm, I think what you mentioned qualifies as a WTF moment just on the basis of sheer improbibility. Kind've like the video David Bowie did with Trent Reznor and Busta Rhymes.

I'm not sure how well known this is, but Charles Manson was a frustrated song writer. He was even friends with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys for a bit before the murders. They recorded one of his songs. I have a copy somewhere. It's actually not that bad a song. But then you realize who wrote it and it starts to get really creepy.

I liked Knockin on Heaven's Door a lot better after I found out what it was about. It's from the movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Bob Dylan has a small role in it and did the music. The song is from a scene where an old sherrif, played by Slim Pickens, is killed in full view of his wife. I don't know who played the wife, but she was so good. The scene goes back and forth between him dying and her watching him, crying and this look of absolute anguish on her face. Peckinpah was a genius.

karmyn31 wrote:

I'm not sure how well known this is, but Charles Manson was a frustrated song writer. He was even friends with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys for a bit before the murders. They recorded one of his songs. I have a copy somewhere. It's actually not that bad a song. But then you realize who wrote it and it starts to get really creepy.

Yeah, he even released an album, entitled Lie. It's not the best stuff ever, nor is it unlistenable - it's just benign, throwaway folksy pop-rock.

I remember the first time I paid attention to Dio's Holy Diver and this leaped out at me:

Quote :

Ride the tiger
You can see his stripes but you know he's clean
Oh don't you see what I mean?

To which the only answer is no. No, I have no fucking clue what you mean. This one part annoys me so much now that I can't listen to the song without feeling frustrated.

rae wrote:

I remember the first time I paid attention to Dio's Holy Diver and this leaped out at me:

Quote :

Ride the tiger
You can see his stripes but you know he's clean
Oh don't you see what I mean?

To which the only answer is no. No, I have no fucking clue what you mean. This one part annoys me so much now that I can't listen to the song without feeling frustrated.

Yeah, I have trouble with that one as well. For starters, what the hell is a 'Holy Diver?' And assuming he's been down so long in the deep blue sea, where did the tiger come from? Last time I checked, tigers are not, by nature, aquatic mammals.

I always thought maybe the 'you can see his stripes but you know he's clean' was some sort of reference to redemption (common Christian terminology to refer to as a sinner's sins as 'stripes' and then, after they've been saved, to say they're 'clean'), but I suspect that's putting more thought into it than Ronnie did.

Now that I think about it, a lot of Dio's stuff is WTF inducing. I get the impression it's supposed to come across as deep and mystical, but he just can't quit pull it off.

I think probably his lyrics happened because he mistook being REALLY FREAKING HIGH as a religious experience.

rae wrote:

I think probably his lyrics happened because he mistook being REALLY FREAKING HIGH as a religious experience.

See, this is why (as I mentioned above) I have trouble with lyrics. I've never done drugs, so I'm listening to these songs stone cold sober, and then my over-active imagination starts to kick in and it's straight downhill from there.

Yes! I want Metaphore Free Radio! :roflmao:

rae wrote:

I remember the first time I paid attention to Dio's Holy Diver and this leaped out at me:

Quote :

Ride the tiger
You can see his stripes but you know he's clean
Oh don't you see what I mean?

To which the only answer is no. No, I have no fucking clue what you mean. This one part annoys me so much now that I can't listen to the song without feeling frustrated.

The bad thing about "Holy Diver" is that it's not even the worst tiger-riding song ever made; that honor goes to Jefferson Starship's aptly-named "Ride The Tiger". In all of their incarnations, the guys have never exactly been lyrical heavyweights, but the horrible faux-mysticism (and the unfortunate implications that result) damn this one completely.

Take the chorus, in which Starship tries to teach us about cultural differences:

Quote :

It's like a tear in the hands of a western man
He'll tell you about salt, carbon and water
But a tear to a Chinese man
He'll tell you about sadness and sorrow or the love of a man and a woman.

Then again, anyone who goes around telling people that tears have carbon in them is probably better suited for metaphysics anyway. Later on, there's a reference to a "rising sun" (even though the song's purportedly about China), and this baffling treatise on race relations:

Quote :

Black wants out of the streets
Yellow wants the country
Red wants the country back
And white wants out of this world

tl;dr: It seems that songs about tiger-riding, much like songs about soy lattes, are terrible by default.

Rabid Badger wrote:

And Bad Luck Charm, I think what you mentioned qualifies as a WTF moment just on the basis of sheer improbibility. Kind've like the video David Bowie did with Trent Reznor and Busta Rhymes.

Well, improbable as it may sound, it really happened. The result was the album, "Red Carpet Massacre".

At least, Justin did not get a solo part. Granted, when I first heard about the collaboration, I pitched a fit. :panic: < Much like this little guy here. Because Justin getting a solo part in any of the songs was one of the things I was afraid would happen,

Zeiss Manifold wrote:

The bad thing about "Holy Diver" is that it's not even the worst tiger-riding song ever made; that honor goes to Jefferson Starship's aptly-named "Ride The Tiger".

You do realize the mere fact that two totally unrelated groups have written songs about riding tigers probably defies the laws of statistical probabilities. Pray that someone doesn't write a third one, or the universe will explode.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Zeiss Manifold wrote:

The bad thing about "Holy Diver" is that it's not even the worst tiger-riding song ever made; that honor goes to Jefferson Starship's aptly-named "Ride The Tiger".

You do realize the mere fact that two totally unrelated groups have written songs about riding tigers probably defies the laws of statistical probabilities. Pray that someone doesn't write a third one, or the universe will explode.

Killswitch Engage did a cover of "Holy Diver". Does that count?

Inciter wrote:

Rabid Badger wrote:

Zeiss Manifold wrote:

The bad thing about "Holy Diver" is that it's not even the worst tiger-riding song ever made; that honor goes to Jefferson Starship's aptly-named "Ride The Tiger".

You do realize the mere fact that two totally unrelated groups have written songs about riding tigers probably defies the laws of statistical probabilities. Pray that someone doesn't write a third one, or the universe will explode.

Killswitch Engage did a cover of "Holy Diver". Does that count?

Thankfully, cover songs don't count, since they already exist. We just have to take steps to make sure that no up and coming bands write songs about tigers

I listen to a lot of Japanese pop music. Some of those singers like English. A lot. Or rather Engrish.

There's random bits of English thrown in with the Japanese texts, and it's often hilarious.

"There's a wall to block"

"Do you wanna be freedom"

"So glooming night" and "Lie and bright" are both from the same song,

and then there's my personal favourite "Don't stop the Monkey Town."

And you think what the fanbrats do in their fanfiction, using barely understood Japanese words with English grammar is bad? Bestselling songs with Engrish words and Japanese grammar are worse.

"Piece no Sign" (or even "Peace no Sign") cracks me up every time, I can tell you.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Last time I checked, tigers are not, by nature, aquatic mammals.

LIES, YOU FORGET THE TIGER SHARK

SirDixonDongs wrote:

Rabid Badger wrote:

Last time I checked, tigers are not, by nature, aquatic mammals.

LIES, YOU FORGET THE TIGER SHARK

Yes, but the singer's not talking about a tiger shark. He's talking about an actual TIGER (complete with stripes that apparently aren't actually there).

And Shisaiga, I wasn't sure whether J-Pop and J-Rock were fair game, given that most of the songs tend to be sung in Engrish, which unfortunately is, by and of itself, WTF inducing.

Engrish shouldn't count, it's too easy.

CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD
YE NOT A GUILTY
WE HAVE CAME TO TEAM
BIG O!

Cocorosie's Japan is a cute little song with such a funky, happy beat that it took me a good ten listens to realize what the hell they're saying in the second verse:

Quote :

Everyone wants to go to Jamaica
Queens in drag will surely fake ya
Take you home and then they'll rape you
But you like it, so say thank you!

Major "Wait...WHAT?" moment. I love it even more now, though.

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I've been listening to Nightwish for years, but to be honest, I let the words just sort of stream past me. I like their weird arrangements, and the wailing-of-the-damned style helps stimulate my imagination; the lyrics could go hang. It wasn't until recently that I started trying to pick out what they were saying, and once I did, I had a severe WTF moment.

Here's the opening of "The Riddler," from Oceanborn:

Riddler Riddler ask me why
The birds fly free on a mackerel sky
Ask me whither goes the wind
Whence the endless tick-tick stream begins

. . . oh-kay. To be fair, the song IS supposedly involving riddles. Let's try another one. From "Pharaoh Sails to Orion":

A constellation of divine architecture built on Earth
A holy harbour - Orion
Nautical ascension to the firmament

Ship-shaped barrows open my heart to the wisdom of this land
Sailing with the Serpent Chimera of a fiendish sandman

The Unicorn arrives with the westwind to dream His funeral
"Thou art born for Horus dwells in Thee"

Now, I know my Egyptian mythology. I'm familiar with the journey of the dead. But given that the song opens with a quote from Exodus, and the chimera and unicorn reference, I'm not sure which religious tradition we're using here. Maybe all of them?

Here's "Stargazers":

Floating upon the quiet hydrogen lakes
In this ambrosial merry-go-round they will gaze
Ethereal life touched by a billion-year show
Separating the poet from the woe

. . . what are they on? And where can I get some?

Edited to fix formatting issue.

This. It's a low-key, atmospheric and intense, vaguely ballady song with unextraordinary lyrics about desire and longing. And then about a third of the way through...

Quote :

Crush down my beaver

Well crush my beaver and call me grandma, isn't that just the oddest thing? I have no idea what he thought he was writing.

Tungsten Monk wrote:

But given that the song opens with a
quote from Exodus, and the chimera and unicorn reference, I'm not sure
which religious tradition we're using here. Maybe all of them?

Sure, why not? Symbolism gumbo worked for Sylvia Plath, after all.