Songs that have surprising deeper/darker subjects.

[M j M]

ABBA's The Piper is essentially a meditation on the rise of Hitler.

[Shadow]

1 hour ago, Johnoco said:

Itchycoo Park is allegedly a reference to people stinging their ass on nettles while, er, getting up to no good in a certain park. 

Macarthur Park is a reference...

no got nothing, something about cakes and rain. I have no clue what it's all about.

[The Phantom Horseman]

"Seasons In The Sun" isn't quite the jaunty, upbeat summer anthem the title might appear to suggest.

[hindle xiii]

Gary Puckett and the Union Gap - Young Girl.

I heard this for a second earlier and became an ear worm. It then reminded me of this thread.

[Wiltshire Rhino]

Hanson - MMMBop

“You have so many relationships in this life, Only one or two will last”

[graveyard johnny]

devil woman by marty robbins- may not have such a dark side but you cant help thinking how he takes no blame or responsibility whatsoever for the affair that almost ruined his relationship with the woman (mary) on who he was no doubt cheating on - not a single bit of blame on his part- all the fault of the "devil woman" 

[Josef K]

On 25/03/2021 at 20:25, Old Frightful said:

Moonlight Shadow is apparently about the assassination of John Lennon.

Mark Chapman has got his life back together and is a reformed character. If he was asked about the shooting of Lennon at HT at a RL game on the BBC he wouldn’t want to talk about it. He has moved on. 

[Josef K]

The Essex Arms by Darren Hayman is an LP about dogging in erm Essex would you believe. 

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

Most madrigals of the Tudor and early Stuart era can be described as being either sad, quite intense, expressions of unrequited love, or being very lively with pastoral imagery often used for erotic, descriptive purposes.

A notable exception is The Silver Swan by Orlando Gibbons, which is based on the old belief that swans make no noise until they know their death is imminent, when they sing once beautifully and then die (hence the phrase 'swan song')  This is, of course, ornithological nonsense.  Our permanently resident mute swan species often makes a sort of grunting sound.  The two regularly recurring, migratory swans which arrive here in winter - Bewick and whooper - have a honking call, not dissimilar to some geese.

It is not known who wrote the text of the Gibbons' madrigal.  It concludes "More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise" and this has prompted speculation that it might have been the imprisoned Walter Raleigh, who had fallen out of favour at court when James VI and I succeeded Elizabeth.  The implication is that loose tongues stitched him up; he was executed in 1618, six years after the madrigal appeared in a printed collection.