Oftentimes, we’re so busy jamming out to songs that we fail to recognize what the lyrics are really saying. It’s true, we can’t read the minds of the songwriters that wrote our favorite songs, but that’s part of what makes songwriting so beautful. It’s up to interpretation. Even still, here are some songs that you might have missed the true meaning of.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster The People
“Pumped Up Kicks” took the summer of 2011 by storm with its catchy melodic riff and danceable beat. However, if you listen to the song a little closer, the message is actually pretty disturbing. “Pumped Up Kicks” is actually a song about gun violence, hence the lyrics “You better run, better run faster than my bullet”. It also explains the part about Robert finding a “six-shooter gun” in his dad’s closet pretty well, too, if you didn’t catch that.
While most people assume that the song is about a school shooting specifically, Mark Foster actually explains that that’s not necessarily the case. “I think people filled in the blanks that it was about a school shooting, but I never say anything about a school in the song,” he told Billboard. “It’s really more about this person’s [Robert’s] psyche.”
“Imagine” by John Lennon
“Imagine” is obviously a song about promoting world peace, but there are some people who think the song’s meaning puts emphasis on the idea of the need for one religion, one unified front. However, Lennon has noted that this thought defeats the purpose of the song entirely.
In David Sheff’s All We Are Saying, Lennon even clarified this himself. “If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion – not without religion but without this my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing – then it can be true.”
“Hey Ya!” by Outkast
Much like “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People, “Hey Ya!” is another fantastic example of a song whose funky beat overshadows its true meaning. But in the long run, that makes its message all the more effective. In an interview with VH1, Andre 3000 even admitted that the song is actually about defying relationship expectations.
“All I’m saying is I think it’s more important to be happy than to meet up to somebody else’s expectations or the world’s expectations of what a relationship should be. So this is a celebration of how men and women relate to each other in the 2000s,” he explained. “You really have to sit down and listen to it.”
Photo by: Ken Regan /American Broadcasting Companies via Getty Images
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