5 Popular Songs With Hidden Meanings You May Have Never Noticed

There are a lot of popular songs out there with hidden dark, political, or simply interesting meanings beyond the surface. Songs that deal with drug abuse, unsolicited advice, or make a subtle political statement. Here are five of those popular songs that hide their meanings behind a commercially viable pop sound.

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5 Popular Songs With Hidden Meanings Explained

“Feel It Still” — Portugal. The Man

“Feel It Still” was a big commercial hit for Portugal. The Man in 2017, but it was more than just a chart topper. It was actually a terse political statement on borders. This is alluded to in the lyrics “It’s time to give a little to the kids in the middle / But, oh until it falls / Won’t bother me.” As lead vocalist John Gourley explained, “It’s another one of those lyrics that just kind of seeps in,” adding, “With all the talk right now, of building a wall at our borders and the Berlin Wall, it was so much just like the image that you had in your head growing up that these people are separated by a wall, and why do we need that?”

“The A Team” — Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran’s popular song “The A Team” revealed its hidden meaning mostly in the music video, but initially no one really knew that it was about a drug addicted sex worker. The title is a reference to a Class A felony drug charge, and Ed Sheeran wrote the song after hearing stories from people at a homeless shelter. Sheeran once explained, “I wanted to write it so it sounded kind of upbeat, so you wouldn’t really know what it’s about, because it’s quite a dark subject.”

“King of Anything” — Sara Bareilles

Sara Bareilles was having issues with her record label while she was making her third album, as allegedly the label execs weren’t thrilled with anything she was producing. They urged her to write more love songs (which is where the track “Love Song” comes from as well), and she was frustrated by the endless stream of negativity about her work. “‘King of Anything’ is sort of a ‘f–k you’ song,” Bareilles said in a press release in 2010. “I’ve had more unsolicited advice on my life than I care to mention, and this was how I dealt with it. It felt empowering to turn that frustration into music, especially a song that doesn’t even sound angry.”

“Semi-Charmed Life” — Third Eye Blind

“Semi-Charmed Life” is perhaps one of the most universally misunderstood popular songs. It’s been used in movie montages to denote a certain “good life” aesthetic, but the real meaning behind the lyrics is darker than the melody makes it seem. In reality, this is a song about a drug bender. Lead vocalist Stephan Jenkins has explained, “When I wrote ‘Semi-Charmed Life,’ the guitar riff was intended to have this shiny thing because that was a feeling of speed,” adding,  “You know, it’s sort of a bright, shiny drug. And we all were sort of into hip-hop, and so it has a hip-hop flow over it.”

“Imagine” — John Lennon

Apparently, John Lennon’s popular song “Imagine” isn’t the blatant bid for peace and harmony that people like to use it for, turning it into a Band-Aid for whatever bad thing is happening in the world. It’s not about imagining a utopia, but about imagining a world that works better. Essentially, it’s about Communism. “‘Imagine’, which says: ‘Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,’ is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I’m not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement,” said Lennon in a 1980 Playboy interview.

There was also a religious element that came from a Christian prayer book that was given to Lennon by Dick Gregory. “The concept of positive prayer,” he said in the interview, “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.”

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