History Fridge / Music

* "Rose" by Geoff Smith. I was listening to it with a FanVid to ''DoctorWho'', and it was surrounding the Doctor and Rose's relationship. I thought it was a love song, and there was just a nod to her leaving at the end...then I realized, no. It's an upbeat song, yes, but it's and upbeat song about a good breakup. It might have been IJustWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, it might have been them realizing they were BetterAsFriends, regardless, it was a (bad) breakup that he's good with now. But they're not together anymore, and you know what? That's okay. It's a love song about how it's okay to break up with someone and then move on without leaving the person you broke up with in the dust. It's...it's a happy breakup song for ''both'' parties. This was the first song I'd ever seen with that as the message. And it was ''perfect'' for the Doctor and Rose. ''Addendum: I just found out he wrote it about Rose Tyler. Win.'' --@/RedWren

* This is probably an obvious one, but... I enjoyed the song "High School Never Ends" by BowlingForSoup, but I thought it was a bit repetitive. Then I realized the song was all about how when you leave high school you think things will be different, but they're not. The entire world is filled with people who are "just as obsessed with who's the best dressed and who's having sex". So, it makes perfect sense for a song about how nothing changes anywhere to be repetitive! - HackeySack

* The ManicStreetPreachers have a song called "4st 7lb", about an anorexic teenager. It starts out fairly fast and with lots of guitars, then for the last few verses switches to a much slower tempo with more minimalist accompaniment and a slightly altered melody. This never made me dislike it, but it did seem odd - until one day it occurred to me that the slower tempo and starker sound could be seen as a metaphor for the girl's metabolism and physical functions slowing down as she starves to death and her body shuts down. (Yeah, it's cheerful stuff.) - {{Calla}}
** I chuckled when I realized the title was an abbreviation for "Four Stone, Seven Pounds" -- or 87 pounds, which would be a very anorexic weight indeed. - {{MrBadAxe}}

* "Absolutely ([[RefrainFromAssuming Story of a Girl]]), or, as you may know it, TropeNamer for WhenSheSmiles: At first I thought that, "And though she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her {{when she smiles}}," being shortened to, "And though she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her," was just a cut off, the sort of thing you end with a dash. Then I realized, no, that's a complete sentence. [[HeartwarmingMoments And the, "aw..." factor went way up.]] --@/RedWren

* "Love (Can Make You Happy)", a big hit ballad for the OneHitWonder band Mercy in 1969, is one of the sappiest songs of all time. The whole thing seems like a banal celebration of how wonderful it is to be in love. Until you look at the lyrics a little more closely. Most of the lyrics are written in a conditional tense: "love ''CAN'' make you happy/''IF'' you find someone who cares.." or "''IF'' you ''THINK'' you've found someone you'll love forevermore." The narrator isn't saying "love has made me happy", so odds are they aren't currently in love, but they're trying to distract themselves from thinking about their current lonely state by imagining a perfect romance. Or, they've just suffered a horrible breakup and are pondering how elusive true love can be. Love can make you happy if you find someone who cares, but when you don't it's a living hell. Or the narrator is going through unrequited love: "Your mind is filled with the thoughts of a certain someone that you love/your life is filled with joy when she is there." It doesn't say anything about her reciprocating those feelings. Also, the song is sung as a male-female duet, so maybe it's about ''mutually'' unrequited love.

* Why do so many Japanese songs have upbeat melodies but depressing lyrics? It's because it's an "in the moment" song. The times between the people mentioned in this song are good, but there are also bad times, and even with those still going on, it makes the good times even sweeter. Even if there's a melancholy to the lyrics, the song stays upbeat because the "memories" that come with them are worth it. (originally by Tropers/{{anelaidlives}})

* Dual Core's song ''Forever'' seems like a standard song about [[HumanAliens aliens hiding on earth]], but after many repeats on the song, it's about a person who just [[IntelligenceEqualsIsolation can't understand how other people can do what they do]] and mundane things in their task. He's so disconnected from the general populace that he doesn't even consider himself a human!

**** WordOfGod says that "Hey Jude" is about John Lennon's divorce and its effect on his son Julian, so the woman is probably Julian/Jude's mother, not a lover.
**** It is about a mother. Definitely. I always thought it was about his ''new'' mother (after remarriage), though.

---> ''John, to Yoko:'' I want you. I want you so bad. I want you, I want you so bad, it's driving me mad, it's driving me mad.
---> ''Paul:'' Jeez, mate, what's so good about this girl?
---> ''John:'' She's so... heavy. ''(i.e. I don't know. I just love her. Shut up.)''

* Why do so many Japanese songs have upbeat melodies but depressing lyrics? It's because it's an "in the moment" song. The times between the people mentioned in this song are good, but there are also bad times, and even with those still going on, it makes the good times even sweeter. Even if there's a melancholy to the lyrics, the song stays upbeat because the "memories" that come with them are worth it.

* [[WeirdAlYankovic Weird Al]]'s "Wanna B Ur Lovr" from the ''Poodle Hat'' album is an IntercourseWithYou song consisting entirely of cheesy, off-the-wall pickup lines that would never work on anyone in real life... EXCEPT other fans who had heard the song. Anyone who understood the context would love it, thus subverting its original intent as a parody of such songs, making it the perfect IntercourseWithYou song for Weird Al fans.

* When first listening to the Therapy? song ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNdTs9Ar3h4 Polar Bear]]'', the song seemed very simple and the lyrics monotonous. However, think about what the lyrics say about being a polar bear in a zoo. Out of all of the zoo animals, the polar bear is not only one of the the most potentially vicious (there have been several past cases of suicide by polar bear) but also one of the most out of place and out of its natural environment. Add that to the fact that the music gets slowly more out of control, going from tight basslines to the messy pick scrapes and strings being caught on the guitar to the final bludgeoning outro. It's lyrically and musically a journal of being alienated and completely out of place and becoming more and more agitated to the point of losing control - Slave

** I just recently spotted a moment of sheer brilliance in [[LordOfTheRings the soundtrack to the Return of the King]]. Six triumphant, joyous notes ring out as the good guys win. They are the opening bars of Mordor's theme, rewritten. This is exactly what happens to [[spoiler:the music of Sauron's boss Morgoth in ''The Silmarillion.'']] In fact, the major themes of the soundtrack for all three movies are as described by the late J.R.R. Tolkien in that book! Somewhere in Heaven there is a pub, and in that pub there is very good beer, and Professor Tolkien is sipping it and humming (probably badly) all of the best bits.

* Dual Core's song ''Forever'' seems like a standard song about [[RidiculouslyHumanAliens aliens hiding on earth]], but after many repeats on the song, it's about a person who just [[IntelligenceEqualsIsolation can't understand how other people can do what they do]] and mundane things in their task. He's so disconnected from the general populace that he doesn't even consider himself a human!

* Not necessarily Fridge-y for everyone, but: I was listening to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for the singer's emotional delivery and tune, because the lyrics just seemed sort of...eh. I still picked up "Total Eclipse of the Heart," because [[TitleDrop you have to.]] I figured it was talking about how she was without his love, her heart was in total darkness ([[MeaninglessMeaningfulWords whatever that means...]]), and then another line made its way in: ''Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time.'' She is in complete darkness because he loves her that much. And suddenly it fit much better with, "Turn around, bright eyes." She knows he loves her, and ''that's'' what the song is about, not how "every now and then [she] fall[s] apart." When she asks him to hold her, ''he's there''. And then it went from weepy to dramatic expression of love. --@/RedWren

** Have you not read the poem of the same title? I don't recall offhand who wrote it, but it's rather nice iambic pentameter. . .(Hakeber)

* The Simon & Garfunkel song 'Richard Cory' tells the story of a wealthy and successful businessman named Richard Cory. The chorus goes 'But I work in his factory / and I curse the life I'm living / and I curse my poverty / and I wish that I could be / Richard Cory. Pretty simple so far, but then the last verse describes Richard Cory committing suicide, ''and the chorus repeats after that''. This annoyed me for quite a while, but then.. I understood.

* The 2010 Eurovision winner, "Satellite" sounds like yet another pathetic love song at first listen, but then, when you start thinking about the lyrics, you realise that the song really is about a half-psychotic stalker probably halfway to a complete postal spree already. - Belrondis

* For years, I thought the SteelyDan song "Deacon Blues" was about an ultra-hip jazz musician who's had some hard knocks, but he's still the shiznit and he knows it. "They're singing about the coolest person in the world," I thought. Then I read where it's actually about a wannabe who fantasizes about being this hip jazz cat but doesn't have the guts to go out and make it happen. The more I think about the lyrics, it makes sense: "I'll make it this time/I'm ready to cross that fine line," turns to "A world of my own/I'll make it my home sweet home." --RAFritz

* When I first listened to [[PinkFloyd The Wall's]] opening track (In The Flesh?), I didn't understand why it started with a man saying "We came in." (a seeming non-sequitur). Then, listening to the final track (Outside the Wall) end with 'Isn't this where-?', it occurred to me; it was to connect the beginning of the album to the end (Isn't this where...we came in?), turning the album into one big cycle to recommend that what happened to [[spoiler: Pink in the course of [[TheWall two vinyl discs]] could very well happen to someone else (or to put it differently, one wall comes up as another one goes down)]]. My god! [[{{Understatement}} Roger Waters was creative!]] -Antoine

* "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik_ghfvFJzs In Noctem]]", from the HalfBloodPrince soundtrack, just sounds like your typical (if hauntingly beautiful) OminousLatinChanting... Until you take a good, hard look at [[http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/In_Noctem the lyrics]] (which are the same in English as they are in Latin). It's the "Love Conquers All" message of the entire series in two minutes, ''and'' it underscores the parallels between Harry and [[spoiler: Snape]]. TenderLumpling

* "[[http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/In_Noctem In Noctem]]", from the HalfBloodPrince soundtrack, just sounds like your typical (if hauntingly beautiful) OminousLatinChanting... Until you take a good, hard look at [[http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/In_Noctem the lyrics]] (which are the same in English as they are in Latin). It's the "Love Conquers All" message of the entire series in two minutes, ''and'' it underscores the parallels between Harry and [[spoiler: Snape]]. TenderLumpling