History Fridge / Music

* ''Music/{{Coldplay}}'':

*** It's taken more as a general sarcastic comparison of the band's sudden rise in popularity to Beatlemania, but come to think of it that ''also'' fits into the meaning of the song a little bit.
** In "Sliver", the line "fell asleep and watched TV" always strikes as a LyricalShoehorn, and not even a particularly necessary one, because the more logical "watched TV and fell asleep" would have fit just as well. However, you sort of ''could'' sleep while watching TV - if you fall asleep with the TV on, for a little while you could still be just alert enough to sort of follow what's going on by hearing dialogue.

* Music/FrankZappa's "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee" is obviously a parody of over-dramatic rock opera songs, and based on some crude humor, but consider this: What can be more heartbreaking than contracting an [=STD=] from someone you love and trust implicitly?

%%* Music/TracyChapman's song ''Fast Car'' can "drive" the listener bonkers. The verse was just so monotonous and repetitive, and the only part that seemed free and light and airy was the chorus.-ZeroContextExample

%%* Funny how "Summer of 69" by Music/BryanAdams isn't REALLY about the Summer of 1969, eh?-ZeroContextExample

Also, this page is of a generally positive nature, and a Fridge Brilliance does not have to be Word Of God. In fact, it usually isn't, and the viewer might be putting more thought into it than the creator ever did. This is not a place for personal commentary on another's remark or arguing without adding a Fridge Brilliance comment of your own.

* The song "Hella Good" by Music/NoDoubt is actually about sex not dancing. What she really wants him to do is keep on screwing not dancing. This explains why the waves keep on crashing on her and why his love keeps on coming like a thunderbolt. It also explains why she keeps gasping as she sings the song.

* 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.
* A fridge brilliance for {{Techno}} (this stripped-down, dark and robotic subgenre of electronic music): why was there no melodies, cool fat synths like in Electro-House? 'Cause it's made for live performance. Live, cool synths often get completely squashed: only remains the drums and the bassline, which are THE elements that will make a human dance.
* Patron is an expensive brand of tequila that has made its way into a lot of rap/r&b lyrics. The thought that, because a bottle costs so much, Patron was popular with music artists because of this association with the excess of success. Then realizing that Patron just rhymes with a lot of words. You can make a similar case for Henny and Goose, or Grey Poupon.

* You bought a CD from a band you are discovering, you sit down to listen to it and you hate it; you kindly toss it to a corner of your room. Some day later, you found out you are humming one of the songs, so you listen to the CD again and boom! It rocks! What a good record! This may or may not happen to you if you listen to ''Green'' by {{Music/REM}} and / or ''The Soft Parade'' by Music/TheDoors.

* ''Cry Little Sister'', tends to be confusion by the lyrics - they seemed to run in random directions and never made a lot of sense. Until one realizes that the narrator was telling the song from his prison cell, and the "Blue Masquerade" refers to the police.
** Then another realization that the "blue masquerade" refers to the act he's putting on for everyone else and that he's never actually acted on his feelings for his sister, and it made even MORE sense.

* While singing a few songs like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" can keep you in the proper chest compression rhythm for CPR, Music/TheBeeGees classic song, "Stayin' Alive" can do it too while its lyrics make it the obvious song to think of in such a life and death situation.
** Same goes for "Another One Bites The Dust" by Music/{{Queen}}. Less appropriate, probably, but still has the correct number of BPM.

* One could enjoy the 1966 movie '' WesternAnimation/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'', and didn't question the "you really are a heel" line in "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch", until joining Wiki/TVTropes and the line made perfect sense. The narrorater is a) {{foreshadowing}} the HeelFaceTurn and b) giving a GeniusBonus to wrestling fans!
** "Heel" was used in common language to mean an unpleasant person well before it was adopted into use in professional wrestling.

* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik_ghfvFJzs In Noctem]]", from the ''[[Film/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince Half-Blood Prince]]'' 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

* "In A Lonely Place", the main character's theme from ''Film/{{Oldboy 2003}}'', is atmospheric and appropriate and awesome. But there's more. In the movie, the main character Oh Dae-Su is imprisoned for fifteen years in a room where the only wall decoration is a rather horrifying picture of Jesus Man of Sorrows, complemented by the first line from Ella Wheeler Wilcox' poem ''Solitude'': "Laugh and the world laughs with you / Weep and you weep alone." On the soundtrack, the song is preceded by Oh Dae-Su reading the line from the poem out loud in Korean. Now listen to the song with the poem next to it. Count the first line as read. Count the number of times the piano theme recurs. Not only does it fit the number of lines in the poem, it also breaks when the poem does, and rises and falls like the lines in the poem do. Yes. Oh Dae-Su's theme is ''Solitude'' set to music. Brilliant.

* On the topic of movie soundtracks... "Across the Stars", Anakin and Padmé's sweeping love theme from ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', is in fact a [[ShoutOut reference]] to the phrase "StarCrossedLovers", whic is sheer genius. ...[[{{Foreshadowing}} This works]] [[{{Tragedy}} from any]] [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet number]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin of different]] [[LongDistanceRelationship angles]], that it's even mentioned on that trope's page.

* One ''just'' realizes that "Gollum's Song" from [[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheTwoTowers the soundtrack to the Two Towers]], isn't sung ''about'' Gollum, it's sung ''by'' Gollum.
** A moment of sheer brilliance in [[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing 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.

* One might be initially forced into a negative impression of the song ''Colors Of The Wind'', thinking that it was all a bunch of new age treehugger hoo-ha, but listening to the song again and one will realize it was ''brilliant.'' Remember the lyrics ''How high does the sycamore grow?/If you cut it down, then you'll never know''? She wasn't singing about deforestation! That sycamore is the native Americans, whose people and cultures were "cut down" by European settlers. Now we can never know what they might have become if we hadn't oppressed them.
** The same thought on "How can there be so much you don't know/You don't know" was repetition...then the thought hits.

* “I was lost without you” on the ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' soundtrack, it’s the romance theme and you have to find and save your squad members in the game, they are the ones who are lost without you.

* The first time hearing "You Could Drive A Person Crazy" from the musical ''Company'', it was ripped out of context and found it weird and annoying (why were they singing so fast? and what was with the "do-do-do"s?). After one hears some of the Andrews Sisters songs [[Music/StephenSondheim Sondheim]] was pastiching, and understanding the lyrics and the place the song has in the show, there's a realization on what a brilliant piece of work it would be: using a bright, cheerful style of music, previously associated with inane, dippy lyrics, to deliver a scathing and rather bitter smackdown to an unresponsive boyfriend.

* ''Theatre/LesMiserables'': You'll realize how "What Have I Done" (Jean Valjean's epiphany from Act One) and "Javert's Suicide" (Javert's epiphany from Act Two) basically mirror each other musically - except for the ending. Valjean, having been shown true Christian kindness by the Bishop, sees an opportunity to become a new man and make up for the time he has lost. Javert, on the other hand, is shown Christian kindness by Valjean and is forced to see what ''he'' has done to himself by doggedly pursuing Valjean, and sees no other way out except to kill himself.
** On a related note, Javert is the only character in ''Les Miserables'' who actually dies ''miserable.'' Think about it: Fantine dies knowing Cosette is safe, Eponine dies saving the love of her life, Enjolras and the other students die fighting for their causes, and Valjean dies surrounded by the family he has created. Javert is the only one who dies alone and conflicted.

* For a while, it's been wondering why Music/{{Angelspit}} named a song "Homo-Machinery", as there's assumed thinking of the name as the insult. If one reads their Biology lessons, their point is that by following constant routines, we are becoming humanoid machines, or Homo machinery- Homo as in the genus.
* "Grenade" by Bruno Mars would make so much more sense when viewed as being from a bodyguard's point of view. The bodyguard gets into a brief affair with his client, who decides to toy with his feelings. And although it hurts him, he's got no choice but to keep protecting her because it's his job.
** Oddly enough, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxj7gUtq6Ck this parody]] made me start thinking the original would also make more sense if it was from the point of view of ''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]'', or really any protagonist of a video game series known for constantly reusing the SaveThePrincess plot - Tropers/MikeK
** There's another case of FridgeBrilliance with this song. The reason why the singer's "this is what I'd do for you" bits are describing things that would cause immense pain or death? It's the "I don't want to live after this girl dumped me" kind of song fused with the "I would do anything for you" kind of song. The whole thing is a collision of the "I love you" and "I hate you" kind of songs that are filled with hyperbole. This revelation made this song a whole lot deeper to me. Oh, and for WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows' confusion about the "Should've known you were trouble from the first kiss, had your eyes wide open" lyric? Maybe the first kiss happened when other people were around and the singer's knowledge of here eyes being open came from the other people who were there.
** Well, maybe that line is a bit metaphorical, first kiss may mean the start of their romantic relationship, and 'had your eyes wide open' might mean that, despite being in a relationship with him, was looking at other men.

* In {{Music/Nirvana}}'s "Sliver" the line "fell asleep and watched TV" always strikes as a LyricalShoehorn, and not even a particularly necessary one, because the more logical "watched TV and fell asleep" would have fit just as well. However, you sort of ''could'' sleep while watching TV - if you fall asleep with the TV on, for a little while you could still be just alert enough to sort of follow what's going on by hearing dialogue.
* In the "Complete History of the Soviet Union, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris", there is a bit which goes "what's the point of it all, when you're building a wall, and in front of your eyes it disappears". It first seemed like this was about the Berlin wall coming down very suddenly - but also when you complete one or more continuous layers in Tetris, the lines you have just made disappear.

* In the children's song "Found A Peanut," one would wonder why the singer needed an operation to cure a case of food poisoning. Then one realizes something, that's why the singer dies! Not from eating the rotten peanut, but because the doctor was incompetent enough to perform unnecessary surgery, since a rotten peanut isn't something you'd need to surgically remove from someone's body.

* In classic FridgeBrilliance style, "In Bloom" by Music/{{Nirvana}}, the Beatles references may not make sense at first, and didn't seem to have anything to do with the song at all. Then later it ''blooms'' with brilliance that the Beatles occasionally shouted Nazi slogans into crowds because they knew that nobody was actually listening to them, or could even hear them over the roar - which basically sums up the song ''In Bloom''.
** It's taken more as a general sarcastic comparison of the band's sudden rise in popularity to Beatlemania, but come to think of it that ''also'' fits into the meaning of the song a little bit.

* The song "Ironic" contains absolutely no irony in the lyrics. ''That's what is ironic about it.''
** Irony ''is'' getting the opposite of what is expected. You'd expect a song called "Ironic" to be, well, ironic. It's ironic because it ''isn't'' ironic.
*** LampshadeHanging by Alanis Morisette on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2UQqzFJee4 the Late Late Show]].
* "NTF" by illScarlet: Initially, It was just assumed it was a generic break up song. But then it was actually about get repeatedly rejected by a girl, and trying to move past his feelings for her. Not an amazing epiphany, but it hit right where it hurts, especially to those who have been there before.
* When hearing 'Dog Days Are Over' by Music/FlorenceAndTheMachine a firsthand thouht was it was about how everything was "looking up". Then reading the lyrics and watching the video (the 2008 version) and a one could realize that perhaps she is trying avoid being that happy.
** Another way to interpret it as being about a sort of manic happiness/hysteria. Florence herself said the song is about being "destructively happy."
* When listening to Music/OKGo's 'A Million Ways.' one may assume it as hearing them chanting. Starting it again and one will realize they weren't chanting, they were saying one million as a numerical value.
* The Music/{{Minutemen}} included a live version of their cover of "Don't Look Now" by Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival on ''Double Nickels On The Dime'', which is otherwise entirely a studio album. One would wonder why this was, especially since it's not a very clear recording of the song, and you can hear the audience talking over most of it. It could figure maybe they really wanted the song to be on the album, but couldn't seem to do a good studio performance of it, so they just grabbed the best live recording they happened to have of it. Then reading the book from the 33 1/3 series on the album, and it was noted that a friend of the band had made the recording from the audience, and convinced them to use it because he thought the audience chatter actually added something to the song. It suddenly started to make sense: "Don't Look Now" is sort of about taking conveniences for granted (and more specifically the hard work that goes into those conveniences), so using a live recording where the audience seems to be too busy talking among themselves to hear the message of the song adds a level of irony.
* On Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the first song includes the line "then the sky filled with herons", and on the last song, there's a Gil Scott Heron sample. Wow.
** Also, from the same album, the end to the song Blame Game. There's an extended spoken word section, were two people talk dirty to each other. It has been known to make some people uncomfortable... as it would Kanye, who is overhearing his girlfriend cheating on him with another man.
* The chicken sounds in the breakdown from Buckethead's "Jordan" are used by an effect pedal and a guitar technique called "chicken picking".
* George Michaels song "Father Figure" can be squickworthy, thinking it is a paedophile singing to his next victim. It's the perspective of an older man - younger partner stemming from the narrator being a vampire. When he says he'll love his baby to the end of time, he ''really'' means it.
* "Dirty Water" by The Standells has a couple of seemingly throwaway lyrics at the end that actually change the meaning of the whole song: "Have you heard about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Strangler the strangler?]]\ I'm the man, I'm the man!". Unless those two lines are actually meant to be unconnected, that means it's actually a VillainSong from the point of view of an infamous serial killer. Definitely puts a creepier spin on lines like "But I'm wishin' and a-hopin' that just once those doors weren't locked".
* There's a line in The Wrens' "Everyone Choose Sides" that makes much more sense when you know a bit of the backstory to ''The Meadowlands''. The Wrens put out their first two albums on an independent label called Grass Records. After this, the label was bought out and the new owner wanted the band to sign a bigger contract and record more radio-friendly songs. When they refused, they were dropped and their albums were pulled out of print. Grass Records subsequently became Wind-Up Records (whose most successful act was Music/{{Creed}}, by the way), and The Wrens were left quietly working on new material while simultaneously looking for a new label, which they eventually found 6 years later. Thus the somewhat punny TakeThat "Greener grasses fade from where you wind up".
* "Hey Ya!" by Music/{{Outkast}} was/is very popular and very catchy, yet has the culturally unpopular message that love fades. Funny that no-one ever talks about the lyrics, then realizing that the line 'Y'all don't want me here you just wanna dance' after a verse shows that the band predicted this phenomenon. After this, there's a notice where many Outkast songs have lines that seem to bash mainstream music and ways of thinking, while remaining pop songs themselves. - {{Littleloup}}

* The song "Homecoming" off the Music/KanyeWest album ''Graduation'' (also released as "Home" on a previous mixtape) at first seems like a love song about a girl named Wendy. It isn't until hearing the last line "If you ain't know by now, I'm talkin' 'bout Chi-town" that you realize the girl he was talking about was actually West's hometown of Chicago. Also, Chicago is known as the Windy City, and a lot of people pronounce "Wendy" with an "I".
** The opening line of the song is "I met this girl when I was 3 years old/and what I loved most, she had so much soul" is a near exact copy of the opening line to rapper Common's song "Used To Love H.E.R" which instead personifies rap music as a woman (H.E.R standing for Hearing Every Rhyme).

* The song "Horse on the Moor" by the Deadfly Ensemble isn't the story of a husband murdering a wife that loves him still and burying her with one of the maids... after which she proceeds to climb back up, telling the husband she loves him still. The wife didn't come back as a zombie, she was buried ''alive''.
* In the song "The Fear" by Music/LilyAllen, there's the line "I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror". The song is about trying to become famous, so there's the thought that it was "look at the sun" (symbolizing hope) and "look in the mirror" (vanity). Then you'll get that there are two meanings to that line: She'll also look at The Sun and The Mirror (the British tabloids) to see what she needs to do to be famous.
* Music/{{Queen}}:
** While reading about Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' model of the Five Stages of Grief, it suddenly hits you, after assuming it to be drug-inspired randomness, that THAT is what "[[Music/{{Queen}} Bohemian Rhapsody]]" is all about (through the eyes of a man on death row).
** Music/{{Queen}}'s ''39' isn't about someone who returns from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. It's about an astronaut in 2039, who returns from colonising other planets to find that time dilation has made him only one year older while his love has grown old.
*** Additional trivia: if one were to list all of Queen's studio album tracks in order, "39" would be the 39th song.
*** "The Show Must Go On", which is about a dying performer, increases in tone by a half step in the second verse, giving the song a happier and more hopeful sound, [[HopeSpot only to return back to the original key before the chorus.]] Indeed, this was the last song the band recorded with Music/{{Freddie Mercury}} before his death.
* The Okkervil River song 'Plus Ones' mentiones the 'hundredth luftballon' and 'lighting candle seventeen.' The relevance didn't hit me until long after first listening.
* Sara Bareilles's 'Gravity' is obviously about a lover she keeps falling for, however the lyrics can also literally be about gravity.
* From an idiot troper's realization on the actual humor in "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause;" rather than it being a laugh for the singer's father to see the title going on, ''Santa IS her father in disguise.''
** And why would it be so hard to reach this conclusion? Because many Christmas songs work on the conceit that Santa is real, which is what little kids (like the viewpoint character of the song) believe.
* Listening to 'Lady Of The Flowers' by Placebo on repeat and one would literally stand in their room after the second listen and say, "Oh. It's about vaginas."
* Mae's "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" is about a soon-to-be mother and father expecting their first child. The last verse is about the birth, and it was previously always interpreted it to be about joyous new life. But then there's a thought about what the words said: "What can now be said, oh, little one / On the other side? / Dance until the band stops playing, / Sing with all your might". And then the realization that "the other side" might also mean the baby had died, and the dancing and singing was meant to help cope with the grief of a miscarriage. The chorus also has the line "Don't think about chances we're taking / Don't think about rules we were breaking" which could also tie in with either the anxiety a couple can have in starting a new family, or the knowledge that the pregnancy may have complications.

* The song ''Your Woman'' by White Town. The lyrics may have double meanings, but reading a quote from the song writer made it clear that he meant wanted it that way. From Wiki/TheOtherWiki: "The lyrics could mean 'Being a member of an orthodox Trotskyist / Marxist movement. Being a straight guy in love with a lesbian. Being a gay guy in love with a straight man. Being a straight girl in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-ass Marxist. The hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals.' Many listeners also likened the song to a breakup letter, where the man reading the breakup letter imitates the woman's voice."
* On first listen Tim Minchin's ''You Grew On Me'' is a funny song that just can't be taken as a serious love song. But then A realization that all of it is one deep, intelligent love simile/metaphor. It's really quite beautiful.
* Upon listening Music/TheBlackEyedPeas song "Imma Be" through a WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows review, there would be an agreement with him that the title sounds entirely too much like "I'm a bee", and the single's cover itself admits it. Upon reflection, that may have been the entire point of the title. The video is apparently about the evils of assimilation and the whole idea of producing music mechanically, with visuals involving robots and being literally stuck in a rut. In essence, creating a hive mind. In fact, the repetition of the line throughout the first part can only be described as [[StealthPun droning]]. Then you add in the actual verses about standing out from the crowd, and the term "Imma be" is now a positive message about having aspirations and personal interests. While sounding exactly the same as the previous term with the opposite meaning.

** It took a few listens to get this bit of "Drumming Song". It's about a girl who tries to hide her love for another person and drowns herself in the ending. Perhaps a reference to Ophelia from
''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' - the narrator of the song tries to hide her heartbeat by hiding in a church (vaguely mirroring the 'Get thee to a nunnery!' scene in "Hamlet"), then drowns herself to stop the beating (Ophelia drowns herself in the play).

* For a while the lyrics to "The Sharpest Lives" left me rather confused, until realizing that they aren't suposed to make sense, the narrator is drunk and the lyrics are his drunken ramblings.
* There have had a few moments of musical Fridge Brilliance, but perhaps the most satisfying was that which accompanied figuring out ''exactly'' what Music/{{Wire}}'s (utterly baffling) B-side "Former Airline" was about. Unraveling the lyrics to the same band's "Silk Skin Paws" comes ***ably close. In short, they are from the perspective of a ManipulativeBastard banker watching the stock market implode, realizing what he has done/become, and finally snapping under the pressure and committing suicide. It's so subtly written, so insidious and sardonic that you don't quite get the full picture until the last lines:
-->''I have nothing like it''
-->''I've seen nothing like it''
** Later, revised versions alter the lines, but keep the impact:
-->''I have nothing for it''
-->''I know nothing of it''

* Upon hearing Music/TheVaselines' "I Hate The 80's", there's the thought that the verse riff being too much of a Psychedelic Furs rip-off. Then an occurance where they were likely going for deliberate irony by de-romanticizing TheEighties while borrowing from a song best known as the theme song to [[Film/PrettyInPink a John Hughes movie]]
* Sometime around the several viewings of Music/FlorenceAndTheMachine's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boo2Zm69fhY&feature=related "Drumming Song"]], one could stop [[HeadTurningBeauty staring at her fantastic legs]] long enough to realize that the backup dancers didn't really exist. Florence is just imagining them. She might be [[AllJustADream imagining the whole video]], which explains why said dancers go from angels, to devils, to representations of her mental state. Sometimes more than one at once.
** It took a few listens to get this bit of "Drumming Song". It's about a girl who tries to hide her love for another person and drowns herself in the ending. Perhaps a reference to Ophelia from
''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' - the narrator of the song tries to hide her heartbeat by hiding in a church (vaguely mirroring the 'Get thee to a nunnery!' scene in "Hamlet"), then drowns herself to stop the beating (Ophelia drowns herself in the play).
* Listening to "Happy Birthday" by Music/TheBirthdayMassacre, and it hits you: in the chorus, when she sings "'You're a murder tramp, murder tramp'/I think he said/'You're a murder boy, birthday boy'/I think I said", he's not repeating 'murder tramp', it's what he's ''calling her by'', just like how she's calling him 'birthday boy'.
* A trademark of The Melvins is to put the track-list on the front of their cd's and what would normally be considered the "cover art" on the back (while the vinyl versions of their albums are oriented the normal way). An initial thought was this was just done for the sake of being weird, but there sort of is a practical reason for designing it that way: the back cover of a cd is a little bit wider than the front, so they get to have a slightly larger cover image by putting it on the back insert instead of on the front of the booklet.
* Listening to Music/LadyGaga's "So Happy I Could Die" realized something: there's more than a few references to masturbation in there, along with the repeated line 'So happy I could die'... and 'die' was repeatedly used by Shakespeare to mean orgasm.
** It's not just Shakespeare, "the little death" is the literal translation of the French word for orgasm, hence 'why' Shakespeare used it. He didn't make it up, it's just archaic.

* The ''Music/{{Coldplay}}'' have quite a bit of Music/LyricalDissonance in their songs. But if you think about it they're actually cases of [[UnreliableNarrator Singer]];
** Viva La Vida: The lyrics might seem sad to the perspective character, but he's a self admitted tyrant. Everyone else is probably quite pleased he's been deposed.
*** He sounds like ''he's'' happy to have been deposed. It's almost like he's experiencing true sanity for the first time in his life...but with it, he knows he'll probably be punished for his misdeeds in life.
** Shiver: Conversly, while the perspective character's quite stalkerish, he's probably quite happy.

* One of the criticisms of Music/{{Coldplay}}'s "Speed of Sound" is that it is eeriely similar to their early hit song "Clocks". But perhaps that was the point (and not in a cynical "cash grab" way, mind you). Both songs not only are similar in instrumentation, but they have also vague lyrics about existencialism. And that's where the genius part is! In "Clocks", the narrator's trying to find his place in the world and in "Speed of Sound", he seemed to have found it and acknownledges on how many hardships he had to get through to achieve that. So in a way, "Speed of Sound" could be interpreted as the perfect sequel song to "Clocks", albeit with a more positive tone and message behind it.

* On Music/LadyGaga's "Paparazzi," if one does a lot of reading about true crime, one would learn a lot about stalkers who act all romantic long enough to control a person, isolate them, and possibly kill them if the real person doesn't measure up with the image the stalker has invented to feel good about him/herself, so one would hate listening to people singing "I'll follow you until you love me" as though that was romantic and loving when one should know how many people had died in situations like that, until there's an explanation that, in the music video, people actually did die, so apparently Gaga knew what she was talking about, so now there's a new brilliance to listen to the song to mock the people who listen to the song.

* A Music/MyChemicalRomance example; ''Danger Days'' is incredibly pop-based, which was a turn-off to some fans. However, If one decides to give the album a second listen before writing it off as crap, and one will find it a lot more enjoyable the second time around. That's not the brilliance part. To contemplate how awesome the album was -- the album is being broadcasted from a radio station. What does the radio play more than anything else? Pop. That was the brilliance part.

* 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.
* Not necessarily Fridge-y for everyone, but: Listening to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for the singer's emotional delivery and tune, because the lyrics just seemed sort of...eh. Still recommending "Total Eclipse of the Heart," because one has to. 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.
** Weeellll, yes, the imagery and metaphors are all there and well and good and all... but the song is actually about vampires. No, it's no joke.
* When first listening to the Therapy? song ''[[https://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

* "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.
** There's also the lines: "If you think you've found someone you'll love forevermore / Then it's worth the price you'll have to pay." In other words, even if you get your heart broken every other time, that one time when you ''do'' find true, everlasting love makes all the heartache worth it.
* "Absolutely ([[RefrainFromAssuming Story of a Girl]]), or, as you may know it, TropeNamer for WhenSheSmiles: At first it's thought that, "And though she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her WhenSheSmiles," 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 you realize, no, that's a complete sentence. [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments And the, "aw..." factor went way up.]]
* "High School Never Ends" by Music/BowlingForSoup, was thought that it was a bit repetitive. Then one would realize 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!
* "Fantastic Rose" by Geoff Smith. Listening to it with a FanVid to ''Series/DoctorWho'', and it was surrounding the Doctor and Rose's relationship. One would think it was a love song, and there was just a nod to her leaving at the end...then, 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: He wrote it about Rose Tyler. Win.''
-->Rose, all that I ever could show you was love...\\
And Rose, you taught me how to let go of love..''
* The album False Priest by Of Montreal seemed a bit weird to me- not musicwise, bit the way the songs were structured. The two albums up to this one, Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer and Skeletal Lamping, both had a long epic mood-changing song in the middle of them, which False Priest doesn't have. But the real FridgeLogic moment came about when a realization that False Priest has absolutely no mention of Georgie Fruit, Kevin Barnes' alter-ego, in the lyrics. So that's why it sounded so weird...
* There's a peculiarity about one specific song by Music/ThePolice, "Synchronicity II", but the lyrics always seemed a little odd, in that these two events described in the lyrics have no relation to one another. Listening to "Synchronicity I" from the same album, and it suddenly strikes. In the lyrics of the latter the singer explains the concept of synchronicity, seemingly defined as an intangible, almost imperceptible link. Then listening to the former again and realized it was presented as an example of the previously defined concept. Now it makes so much more sense!

* It took a while listening to the Ludo song ''Lake Pontchartrain'' before realizing the significance of the line "They both had crawfish, strictly chicken for me." Before, the song had a b-movie horror vibe, but that shifted it straight into the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraft]] zone.
* It took many years of loving the Music/PetShopBoys' song "Being Boring" to realise it's meaning, The melancholic music and wistful words were merely evocing a lost youth. Then hearing the line "All the people I was kissing, some are here and some are missing in the 1990's", and it was a eulogy to a friend who'd died of AIDS.
* The titles of albums (that aren't collaborations) by Finnish experimental electronic duo Pan Sonic mostly consist of single Finnish words, so their 1999 album called simply ''A'' may seem merely a weird exception from this rule. Not quite... Pan Sonic first named themselves after a certain well-known electronics corporation, and were forced to drop one letter from their name to prevent having further action taken against them. Guess what ''A'''s album title most probably pays tribute to.
* One of Music/{{Sting}}'s albums, 'Brand New Day' commences with the song "A Thousand Years" which is basically about the constancy of love even through reincarnation ... and ends with the song "Brand New Day" which talks about resetting the clocks to zero and starting all over again. The very end of Brand New Day is the same riff that starts "A Thousand Years". The whole album is a cycle of rebirth.

* At first, it seemed that the Korean song "Wannabe" by Epik High had very little to do with the otherwise amusing music video which was based on the Korean horror movie ''The Host'' and had many references to other movies, such as a [[StarWars lightsaber]]. But after looking closer at the lyrics, the song is singing about imitation, hence why the one singing the song is a ''wannabe''.

* When listening to ''Music/TheWall'''s opening track (In The Flesh?), it didn't make sense on 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; 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 [[Music/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)]]. Roger Waters was creative!
* Also on ''Music/TheWall'', the song Another Brick in the Wall Part III has these really intense strings in the background. They fade out as it goes into Goodbye Cruel World... but if you crank the volume all the way up, you'll hear that they never fade out completely. The agitated string music almost subconsciously cranks it up from "deep depression" to "full-fledged nervous breakdown."
* Music/{{U2}}:
** "Where The Streets Have No Name". At first, it sounds like a basic "searching for a dream world"-song, with the whole "Streets have no names"-thing being mainly a cool line. Then you read up on it, and learn that the title is a reference to [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles the religious conflicts in Northern Ireland]]. Since people almost always follow the tradition they grow up in, there are places where you can tell a persons religion just from the name of the street where he lives. Therefore, the place "Where the streets have no names" becomes a metaphor for the place where you are judged for who you are, not where you grew up.
** In the clip for ''Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me'', Bono's character is seen become into a Batman-style villain after being struck by a car as he is distracted by reading a copy of ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters''. This metamorphosis into an evil character is a sharp contrast to the theme of the book written by C.S. Lewis where the demon Screwtape advises his nephew Wormwood that "the safest path to hell is the gradual one."
** "Peace On Earth" is based on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing Omagh bombing]] with the third verse listing the first names of some of the victims. The Brilliance comes if you compare the names Bono mentions to the actual list of victims. He lists both Catholics and Protestants, possibly as a way of saying the perpetrators are killing their friends as well as their enemies.
* The Music/SteelyDan song "Deacon Blues" was thought about as 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," one would think. 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 one thinks 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."

* The Music/SimonAndGarfunkel 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''.
** Have you not read the poem of the same title? It's written by Edwin Arlington Robinson and it's a rather nice iambic pentameter.

* The Music/PinkFloyd GreatestHitsAlbum ''Echoes'' has a few examples of deliberately placing songs from different eras of the band with similar lyrical themes next to each other. One such case takes a while to fully creep up, namely following "Wish You Were Here" with "Jugband Blues". If one knows enough about the background of both songs to get the most obvious significance of this: The former is often interpreted to be about original lead singer Syd Barrett's mental breakdown, and the latter is the last song Barrett wrote with the band (and can be viewed as a SanitySlippageSong). But why put "Wish You Were Here" first then? Well, because it makes "Jugband Blues" seem like an AnswerSong to "Wish You Were Here" despite being recorded first. Especially because of the first few lines: "It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here / and I'm much obliged to you for making it clear / that I'm not here"

* Listening to Music/SteelyDan's song "Black Friday", and the first line is "When Black Friday comes, I'll stand down by the door, and watch the gray men when they dive from the fourteenth floor." It makes sense where many buildings don't have a thirteenth floor; they go straight from twelve to fourteen, so ''technically'' the fourteenth floor is actually the thirteenth.

* Who would have thought it was ironic that the most well known piece of circus music is called "Entrance of the Gladiators," as gladiators were men who violently fought to the death, and the circus is a silly spectacle. It wasn't until one makes the connection that gladiator fights were the main attraction of Roman circuses. Also, it was originally a military march.
* "Thumb Cinema" by Music/TheWorldInfernoFriendshipSociety. It might sound like it was a rant about consumerism, materialism and excess, but it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the songs on "Addicted to Bad Ideas", which is about Creator/PeterLorre's life and generally narrated from his point of view. Until one listems to the whole album, which was heavily based on a biography which elaborates more on Lorre's friendship with Bertholt Brecht, the song might be from Brecht's point of view instead. After three songs where Lorre rants about his career decline while deciding to just give in, Brecht criticizes the excesses of Hollywood and how they've damaged Lorre, and begs him to return to postwar Germany with him: "You're not happy, well, no one gives a ***/ This is a game and you're part of it/ Maybe it's time for you to quit." It would fit the album's timeline as well with the next song, "Addicted to Bad Ideas", being about Lorre's growing addiction and despair after returning to Hollywood when his German comeback film flops.
* Music/{{Rammstein}}'s song "Benzin" is about someone who ''really'' likes petrol. The line "''Brauch keine Frau, nur Vaselin"'' very roughly translates to, 'I don't need a woman, just Vaseline'. The reference to masturbation was obvious; until you what Vaseline is made from.
** While watching the ''Haifisch'' video, "Haifisch" is German for shark. During the video, Richard and Paul got into an arguement that devolved into the five remaining members fighting. The fight started when one of them got punched in the nose, drawing blood...which attracts sharks.
*** Not to mention that at the end of the music video, Till sends a postcard to the rest of the Rammstein band with a picture of him catching a Tiger Shark.

* In classic FridgeBrilliance style, ''In Bloom'' by Nirvana, the Beatles references may not make sense at first, and didn't seem to have anything to do with the song at all. Then later it ''blooms'' with brilliance that the Beatles occasionally shouted Nazi slogans into crowds because they knew that nobody was actually listening to them, or could even hear them over the roar - which basically sums up the song ''In Bloom''.
** It's taken more as a general sarcastic comparison of the band's sudden rise in popularity to Beatlemania, but come to think of it that ''also'' fits into the meaning of the song a little bit.
* Tropers/{{Sen}}'s experience with the cover of ''Music/LedZeppelin II'', reproduced as closely as possible:
--> '''Sen''': Man, that is a butt-ugly cover. Seriously, ''I'' was cool and all, but this?! Did the dude do it in like 30 minutes? Also why's there a chick on the cover? Seriously, this makes no sense. Where's the rhyme and reason? Better check Wikipedia. (checks wikipedia) Oh, hey, Dave Juniper did do it in like 30 minutes. Big surprise. Oh hey, the original's The Red Baron. Pretty neat I guess, but not as cool as the exploding Hindenburg. Chick on the cover's an actress called Creator/GlynisJohns. Never heard of her. Wait. The first album's engineer was ''Glyn'' Johns. * laugh* Did he seriously go through all that trouble for an IncrediblyLamePun? And I thought Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic was overdoing it... Also, ''Andy'' was the engineer this time, not Glyn. Meh, still, this would make a good TV Tropes entry. Still doesn't make the cover good for me though.
* Listening to the song "Wander", by Music/{{Kamelot}}, and something occured. The lyrics in the first half of the chorus isn't just Ariel reflecting on how much he misses Helena. It's an eerie character-doesn't-realize-it foreshadowing towards the events that occur later on.
** Just realized something else. In both Epica and Black Halo, the center of the universe is also called "Epica", where you find the meaning of life. On the Epica CD, Ariel calls his homeland the center of his universe. He finds the meaning of life, or more specifically HIS life, in his homeland.
* It would take several listens before fully figuring out that Music/FleetwoodMac's "Tusk" is about the ElephantInTheLivingRoom, in the form of a dying relationship (and various infidelities) neither partner wants to discuss.
* In the song "Every Dog Has It's Day" by Music/TobyKeith, there's the line "when the big dog throws him a bone," was just a random line to set up the next rhyme. It isn't until later that "The Big Dog" is Toby Keith's nickname. He's talking about himself.
* Music/BillyJoel:
** There's a thought that Music/BillyJoel's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" was about two old friends in the eponymous restaurant reminiscing about a couple they happened to know years ago in high school, but what if they themselves are Brenda and Eddie?
*** From the same song, there's the double meaning with "There we were waving Brenda and Eddie goodbye." At first, it sounds like they're waving goodbye to Brenda and Eddie as they depart on their honeymoon. But when we find out how disastrous their marriage ended up, it can also be interpreted as the end of Brenda and Eddie as a couple.
** When first hearing "She's Always a Woman", it seemed to paint the subject in a very negative light. A little while later, it finally hits that the narrator isn't bad-mouthing her at all. He's merely acknowledging her flaws, and saying that he loves her anyways. D'awww.
*** Re-listening to Billy Joel's own explanation of this song, notice how all the negative characteristics are nearly all in the second person "She can ruin ''your'' faith", 'She can lead ''you'' to love" but the key phrase is 'She's always a woman to ''me'' '. And the penultimate line is 'Blame it all on ''yourself'' '. Its a man defending his love to an ex-partner and saying that all her supposedly negative characteristics were down to the way he treated her.
** "You're Only human (Second Wind)" is really upbeat and helpful song. It isn't until you realize that Billy himself made a mistake in the recording of it, and kept it in with an ad-libbed laugh, to cement the message of living with your mistakes.
* One could not understood or fully appreciated the song "Hole Hearted" by Extreme until realizing that it was not a love song but a hymn to God. (Apparently there is even some linguistic support for this: someone here told me before someone inexplicably erased the previous version of this entry that the literal meaning of the Hebrew word "sin" is "to fall short".)

* The Music/{{3Oh!3}} song "Richman" has a line in it that goes 'I've got 200 seconds and I'm ready to go'. This seemed really strange and and excuse to rhyme with the previous line, until you look at the length of the song: 3:20, or ''two hundred seconds''.

** "Crownless" is a song about arrogance, but it didn't seem to make a lot of sense, lyric wise, until one thinks about it in the context of ''Literature/{{Macbeth}}.'' The first two stanzas are the people of Scotland talking about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the refrain is always Macbeth himself, the bridge is Lady Macbeth, the first two lines of the last stanza is also Macbeth, and the last three lines of the last stanza is the ghost of Macdonwald.

* The 3Oh!3 song ''Richman'' has a line in it that goes 'I've got 200 seconds and I'm ready to go'. This seemed really strange and and excuse to rhyme with the previous line, until you look at the length of the song: 3:20, or ''two hundred seconds''.

* One could listen to Dave Matthew's Band's 'Typical Situation' from the 'Live at Red Rocks' album maybe 70 times before realizing that it was just Dave in that particular performance. It makes one appreciate how intensity and fullness(?) the man could generate with just his vocals and guitar.
* "Why Don't You Get a Job?" by Music/TheOffspring sounds very similar to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by Music/TheBeatles. While there's a thought that it was another example of an artist stealing from another, it all makes sense when you remember that the song is about mooching off others.
** Another Offspring example: their song "Staring At the Sun" contains a lot of lyrics that seem really random at first. Then to give a crack at interpreting them... and perhaps getting into a small argument on Website/YouTube about what we each thought they meant, the song suddenly seemed a lot more like the pieces of poetry that anyone could read in English class, which are open to multiple interpretations. So it's really a complex poem.
* 'Shasta' by Vienna Teng sounds like a getting over a breakup song. Listening intently to the lyrics reveals it's about a woman who decides to not get an abortion.
* "Crownless" by Nightwish is a song about arrogance, but it didn't seem to make a lot of sense, lyric wise, until one thinks about it in the context of 'Macbeth.' The first two stanzas are the people of Scotland talking about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the refrain is always Macbeth himself, the bridge is Lady Macbeth, the first two lines of the last stanza is also Macbeth, and the last three lines of the last stanza is the ghost of Macdonwald.

* A lot of songs by ''Music/{{Pulp}}'' can be dismissed as just more of the usual "Britpop" of the era at fitst. Revisiting the songs and actually ''listening'' to the lyrics really brought home the incisive and vicious wit behind the songs. The emasculated radio edit version of Common People was an took out all the bile and barbed turns. And talking of lyrics, Me and Mia by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at first appeared to be an incredibly catchy power pop song - then you realise Anna and Mia are shorthand for Anorexia and Bulimia, and it's suddenly the most compassionate song written for a sufferer of eating disorders ever
* 'Collide' by Howie Day. At first, there's the thinking, "Oh, that's interesting, he's changing the ends of the words a bit to make it rhyme, but it sounds natural, cool." Then reading through the lyrics while listening, and, well...
-->Even the wrong words ''seem to'' rhyme.
** Bonus points for actually emphasizing seem for completely reasonable rhyme scheme reasons, in context.
* Music/TheSmashingPumpkins album title ''Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'' just clicked with me. Mellon Collie. Melancholy.
* When listening to Hüsker Dü's album Zen Arcade, it seemed like a messy collage of violent noise with very little going for it. How people fell in love with the album may baffle some, until reading that the album had a story to it. A young boy disappointed with his family life, runs away from home, and then discovers that the world outside is colder and harder than the world he used to know. And then the brilliance hits: this is exactly the type of music that someone in those circumstances would make. It's loud, angry, angsty, full of guitar distortion and screaming, and ballsy. Awesome.

* The first time hearing Music/{{Nightwish}}'s "Passion and the Opera", one would like it well enough, but would feel that Tarja's OneWomanWail at the end [[EndingFatigue went on longer than it probably should have]]. Then if one actually paid attention to [[IntercourseWithYou the lyrics]], and when it finally hits on [[TheImmodestOrgasm what the ending was]]. %% The writer, Mattthelurker, was at church, of all places, when he realized this.

* "Walk upon the Water" by [[Music/The Move]] be taken at first as a warning against drunk swimming. But analyzing the lyrics, it was a warning against immersing your self in psychotropic drugs, and the possible tragic death of those who indulge in said drugs. As an added bonus, listen to "Cherry Blossom Clinic" straight afterwards and you'll find out what happened to one of the psychotropic drugtakers that managed to avoid drowning. Then again, it still is a pretty good warning against drunk swimming too...
* Yet another Move related Fridge moment - the tale of "Curly" looking for his girlfriend all over Liverpool? - well, why is "Curly", well, curly? Because Curly is mixed-race and his girlfriend is white - and his girlfriend's parents are racists who want their little girl to have nothing to do with him. Probably counts as Fridge Sadness.

* "Self Inflicted" (by Kevin O'Donnell's Quality Six) seems to have a title completely at odds with its lyrics, which are specifically about how the singer ''didn't'' bring his suffering on himself, ''isn't'' melodramatically exaggerating or wallowing in it, and would do anything to be rid of it if only he could. Eventually it hit me that the title refers to something never explicitly mentioned in the song: [[spoiler:the fatal wound]].
* The intro the song YYZ by Rush seemed irregular and out of place, until the intro was, in fact, the phrase "YYZ" in morse code, repeated several times, it's fascinating.
** Reading airport regulations require that there be a transmitter broadcasting the airport's IATA code nonstop for the purposes of navigation. YYZ is the IATA code for Toronto, Ontario - The band's hometown. - Tropers/MrBadAxe
* Alphaville's second album, ''Afternoons in Utopia''. This was a German New Wave synthesizer pop band big in the 80s, most famous for the song ''Forever Young'' from their first album, which was full of happy melodies with sometimes dark and sometimes hopeful lyrics. ''Afternoons'' seemed much the same, but some of the lyrics featured the word SMI^2LE. Realization hits later that SMI^2LE referred to Timothy Leary's idea of expanding your mind through psychedelics. Many of the lyrics could be about opening your mind and becoming a "modern" human. Another realization hits after that, underneath that, the songs were all addressed to a girl ("Carol Masters"), who was apparently stuck in a mental institution. The whole album was a series of love songs begging this girl to come out of her dementia. That's pretty deep stuff for a pop album.
* ''Music/{{Vocaloid}}'':
** "Dark Woods Circus", while it pointed out that the song sounded cheerful, but had depressing lyrics. Though most of the song describes just how miserable the freaks are, there's a part towards the beginning that states "All of the cast is jolly". And then the reason behind the LyricalDissonance is that it represents how the circus freaks act happy to please their audience, despite being anything but.
** Miku's name. "Mi" is a homonym for one Japanese pronuncuation of the number 3, and "Ku" is a homonym for one pronunciation of the number 9. Another way of saying 3 and 9 are "san" and "kyuu". [[JustForPun 39 = "sankyuu" = "thank you".]]
** To shippers of Len and Luka, whose PortmanteauCoupleName for them is [=LenKa=]. A realization: If you [[JapaneseRanguage swap the "L" with "R"]], you get ''[[BilingualBonus renka]]'' (lit. "love song").
** A wordplay on Valentine's Day. Or should one say, [=VaLENtine=]'s Day? Even in Japanese, the pun holds: you can't spell バレンタイン (''barentain'') without レン (''ren'').
* The ballad ''Honest Questions'' by Daniel Bedingfield: to one's mind the narrator could be singing to God (with the chorus as God's response). Even for some Christian listeners, it gives the song (otherwise a generic ballad) an interesting twist.
* The Jonathan Coulton's song "I'm Your Moon" may sound like forced love-song metaphor that didn't even make sense at first listening such as, "I'm your moon, you're my moon"? How can it go both ways? But listening to it two or three times, it wasn't a metaphor at all! It was entirely literal: the two "moons" are Pluto and Charon, which are close to the same size. Charon is singing to Pluto, telling it not to feel bad about being demoted to subplanetary status. Brilliant!
** Also, at one point Pluto and Charon were to be given double planetary status, making the name Pluto-Charon. If they're both equal, doesn't matter which is the moon.
* The entirety of Music/TheDecemberists' album [[ConceptAlbum The Hazards of Love]]. At first glance (or listen, as it were), it comes off as a pretty stock-standard StarCrossedLovers story with just a bit of woodland fantasy mixed in, incredibly well written, and a joy to listen to, but cliche all the same. When listening to individual songs, characters, and delving deeper into the story, it started to actually ''unravel'', there are character traits that seem... slightly off, as if the characters were not as fleshed out as the songs make them seem. Then, it hits you, the album isn't telling a cliche story, it's telling a story ''about'' a cliche story. As in: The characters, plot, settings, etc. are all taking place ''as part of a play''. The characters that aren't human but appear as such because ''they're actually actors playing non-human characters''. Actually, it's probably just me applying copious amounts of FanWank, but hey, it killed a couple of hours.
** When the Rake refers to himself as 'your humble narrator' and the random interludes explaining the story, it thinks of- "this is a play/pantomine in album form!"

* One would like Music/JonathanCoulton 's song "Code Monkey", but one would like it even more now that the realization on exactly why he hates his job so much. He's bad at it. His code doesn't necessarily have to be elegant, but it should at least be functional, when he's depressed he pretends to work and he'd rather be jobless and mooching around.

* Music/TheDecemberists' song "Sons and Daughters" already contains quite a bit of GeniusBonus / ViewersAreGeniuses references, requiring knowledge that aluminum and cinnamon were once valuable, hence the mention of "build our walls aluminum" and "fill our lives with cinnamon". Notice, though, that the references are anachronistic, not common to a single time period; pure aluminium only started to be produced and thus become valuable after the cinnamon monopoly declined and consequently had the monetary value of cinnamon decreased. Other references are also anachronistic, what with "aris[ing] from the bunkers" and to travel "by dirigible" (aluminium became more commonplace before the turn of the 19th-20th century, thus predating travel by dirigibles and nuclear paranoia). The FridgeBrilliance comes in when you realise these anachronisms are due to the references to ''multiple'' time periods, capturing the hopes and desires to escape horror across different eras of humanity, a common theme throughout history.
** This is further emphasised by the repetition of the last few lines ("Here all the bombs fade away"): where as one era (and consequently its hopes and dreams) fades it is followed by another era with its own motivations.

** 4 stone, 7 pounds is (apparently) the lowest wieght an adult male can reach before they die. The person who wrote the lyrics, Richey Edwards was anorexic himself. It's about him, really.

* One can initially ''hate'' the Music/PussycatDolls, considering their songs to be vapid, insipid things with over-sexualized videos. Then a realization to the question: "What are the Pussycat Dolls"? A burlesque group. What is burlesque? ''Erotic parody!''" Suddenly, it all made sense that the Pussycat Dolls parodied songs with those kind of problems.
* Dropkick Murphys' ''State of Massachusetts'' is a good song as is, but realization hits that ''it is about [[PolarOppositeTwins the]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bulger Bulger]][[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Bulger Brothers]].''
* The Music/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. It does seem odd at first - until the briliiance occurs 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. [[DeadpanSnarker Yeah, it's cheerful stuff.]]
** Chuckled when realizing the title was an abbreviation for "Four Stone, Seven Pounds" -- or 63 pounds, which would be a very anorexic weight indeed.
** The term "stone" as a measurement is British. The pound is British currency.
*** The term "pound" has the same meaning in Britain as it does in North America. The use of "pound" for currency stems from pre-Norman times when a Pound Sterling was ''literally'' a pound of silver.
*** 4 stone, 7 pounds is (apparently) the lowest wieght an adult male can reach before they die. The person who wrote the lyrics, Richey Edwards was anorexic himself. It's about him, really.
* Lemon Demon's little-known but still vaguely popular song "Without My Tonsils". The melody was slow and boring, and the narrator was whiney and seemingly crazy. The strange slow shift from 7/4 to 4/4 really gets to something. Then looking up the lyrics and realized that the entire song is actually some pretty brilliant meta-parody, pointing out things like the key it's sung in, the boring fade-out, and the annoying record-scratchy segue halfway through the song. As for the whiney narrator, he's actually parodying the whole "whiney song" thing, as bemoaning the loss of fangs and the central nervous system is NOT the usual subject matter.

* Many people have wondered why the Wu-Tang Clan's 'Protect Ya Neck' remains censored in all incarnations, considering that all other songs on the album and the Wu's catalogue are uncensored. Then a realization hits: The skit introducing the song is a man calling into a radio station, requesting them to play the song. The track itself is the song being played on the radio, so it's censored!
* The song "Endlessly" purely for the sound of it. Listening lightly can think it to be some kind of love song. Once the thought hits half-way, the song is actually refering to love itself. How you can love love endlessly, and no matter what, you always will, but at the same time, love will never love you back? Only people can do that.
* Originally, Music/{{Pink}}'s song 'Long Way To Happy' from the "I'm Not Dead" album was about a relationship break-up, as is standard in pop music. Then listening to it again and actually listened to the lyrics and it realised it was actually a rape recovery song - making it instantly quite a creepy thing to find yourself singing along to.
* Looking at the lyrics to all of the songs of "Songs of the Deaf" by Music/QueensOfTheStoneAge combined, the songs that they refer to are about heroin addiction.
** Given the sensitivity of such a topic, this may also explain the title as an attempt to Bowdlerize the inevitable result of such an addition, namely death.

* It takes a while to figure out what the running baseball commentary was doing in the middle of Meat Loaf's "Paradise By The Dashboard Light." A definite "you're not a kid anymore" moment.

* In Music/{{Pink}}'s music video for "Raise Your Glass", it's bothersome that the non-outcasts were being treated like...um... Outcasts. Then came the prom scene: ''everybody's'' having fun; it's not the closer-to-average people who are being treated like that, just bullies.

* The video for the Music/Blink182 song "Stay Together For the Kids", a song about divorce, takes place in a run-down, destroyed house. One realized it takes place in a '''Broken Home'''. Song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BFHYtZlAU here]].
** "Adam's Song" features a brief reference to the Music/{{Nirvana}} song "Come As You Are". ("I took my time, hurried up./The choice was mine, I didn't think enough.") The realization hits later that the reference works with the song's theme of suicide. Music/KurtCobain committed suicide and "Come As You Are" contains possibly the band's biggest FunnyAneurysmMoment about his method of suicide. (Cobain died by shooting himself and the bridge of "Come As You Are" repeatedly says "I don't have a gun.")
** More "Adam's Song" related brilliance - at first, while it was a good pop-punk tune, the significance of the changes in the instrumentation during the chorus didn't catch initially. The first half is similar to the verses, while the second sounds much fuller. Then the fuller instrumentation indicates that ''the narrator doesn't really want to die''. This is supported by [[LyricSwap the more idealistic final chorus]] having the fuller sound throughout.
* If you know Hebrew, the song "Misparim" (Numbers) by HaDag Nachash is a rap about the status of Israel's economy. The last line is "and the last number, the one that represents hope but also tragedy, is one that makes every man stand still...six million." One would assume it was just 6 million Israeli Jews but then realizaion hits that it was the ''six million that died in the Holocaust''.
* When listening to Music/{{Deadmau5}}, the first song to was ''Animal Rights'', which featured Wolfgang Gartner. It takes a couple of listens to realize the significance of the title - deadmau5 is an artist who constantly wears a giant mouse head, and he owns two, well-known cats.
* The Belgian (dutch) song 'Dos Cervezas por favor' has a chorus saying "every Spaniard has a moustache" ("elke spanjaard heeft een snor"), which just seems like rhymes on a dime and national stereotype. But later in the song, he finds out his Spanish girlfriend has a moustache, so indeed, every Spaniard (even the women) has a moustache.
* The song ''Poor Wayfaring Stranger'' has the fact that the singer kept on saying that he was going "home" (heaven). Why was he walking around saying he was going to Heaven soon when he is still alive? Maybe he realized that we're all going to die, and traveled around, not doing anything, waiting for death to come. Put it in a new light.
* Funny how Summer of 69 by Brian Adams isn't REALLY about the Summer of 1969, eh?
* Music/TracyChapman's song ''Fast Car'' can "drive" the listener bonkers. The verse was just so monotonous and repetitive, and the only part that seemed free and light and airy was the chorus.
* The song "Right Where it Belongs" by Nine Inch Nails attests to Trent Reznor's talent as a songwriter. Every detail of the song is meant to mirror the lyrics- the song opens with deep, echoing white noise in the background, sounding almost as if you are inside a cage. This is said as Trent Reznor sings "See the animal in his cage that you built, are you sure what side of the glass you are on?". The chorus, "What if everything around you isn't quite as it seems? What if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection, is that all you want to be? What if you could look right through the cracks, would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?" is, as the rest of the song, sung very softly and quietly. It isn't until the last chorus that suddenly everything becomes crystal clear. It as a way to get attention for the last verse, but that isn't it. It was a filter. Removing it is meant to show what would happen if the world wasn't, in fact, quite as it seems. It seems as if he opened your eyes and ears, and suddenly you hear an entire realm of new detail.
* "What's Up People?!" by Maximum the Hormone strikes at first as the usual spot of death metal; death metal in general and the song in particular certainly isn't without its share of talent in places, but it's not someone's usual cup of tea. The fact that they were using it to intro the second half of a [[Manga/DeathNote smooth, cerebral detective show]] didn't help matters. And then realizing just how fitting it was for the series. The first intro involved [[WellIntentionedExtremist the main character's]] [[UtopiaJustifiestheMeans ideals and choices]], while the second was a comment on his mental state. Taken together, the statement is that while Light earnestly wishes for a better world and [[IDidWhatIHadtoDo does what he does]] [[KnightTemplar with a perfectly clear conscience]]...he's still completely out of his mind.
** On the subject of that song, one can not understand the clips they played with it. Only when after finishing and rewatching Death Note, all the clips all make perfect sense.
*** There are other songs that are accidentally good for Death Note. One is "Peacemaker" by Music/GreenDay.
* Music/IronMaiden end their album "Somewhere in Time" with Alexander The Great. Think about it. The album has a futuristic sound and theme, and then they end it with Ancient History.
* One could wonder why Genghis Khan by Music/IronMaiden was so musically inconsistent- until one could realize that it's musically supposed to resemble the chaos of a battle.
* Music/TheBeachBoys's album [=SMiLE=] (or at least, the bootlegs and the Brian Wilson solo version) has a lot of musical fridge brilliance, notably in the way it re-uses melodies in different songs. A good example is how the melody of the waltz introduction of ''I'm In Great Shape'' is actually the counter-melody of the "Catina" section of ''Heroes And Villains'' on a different tempo. It's pretty subtle, but once you hear it, it's brilliant.
** Also how one of the melodies of ''Song For Children'' can be partially heard in the end of ''Good Vibrations''.

* Listening to Music/SteelyDan's song "Black Friday", and the first line is "When Black Friday comes, I'll stand down by the door, and watch the gray men when they dive from the fourteenth floor." It makes sense where many buildings don't have a thirteenth floor; they go straight from twelve to fourteen, so ''technically'' the fourteenth floor is actually the thirteenth.

* There's a constant misreading on the self-titled song 'Interlude with Lutes' by Music/ThemCrookedVultures, which makes no sense, figuring it was just another WordSaladTitle that Josh Homme appears so fond. Looking over it and one will see it as 'Interlude with LUDES', the reason why it seemed so psychadelic compared to the rest of the album was suddenly so obvious - [[spoiler:the 'Ludes' of the title refer to Quaaludes.]]

** There's another case of FridgeBrilliance with this song. The reason why the singer's "this is what I'd do for you" bits are describing things that would cause immense pain or death? It's the "I don't want to live after this girl dumped me" kind of song fused with the "I would do anything for you" kind of song. The whole thing is a collision of the "I love you" and "I hate you" kind of songs that are filled with hyperbole. This revalation made this song a whole lot deeper to me. Oh, and for WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows' confusion about the "Should've known you were trouble from the first kiss, had your eyes wide open" lyric? Maybe the first kiss happened when other people were around and the singer's knowledge of here eyes being open came from the other people who were there.

* 'Wedding Song' (the first track) from "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadestown Hadestown]]" by Anais Mitchell. For those of you who don't know, the whole album is a "folk opera" based on the Greek myth [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus Orpheus and Eurydice]], which is about a husband who goes down to Hell to bring his wife back to life. Originally, one could only think about how sweet and romantic it was. Then after hearing 'Hey Little Songbird' all the way through a couple of times, there's a realization: 'Wedding Song' ''is'' sweet, but it's what brings Eurydice into this mess. She's freaking out about the wedding and he's all "don't worry about it, my natural talent will bring everything about because I am totally awesome", leaning on his voice to bring them all they'll ever need. And then when she sees Hadestown and meets Hades, he tempts her with riches and things that her husband isn't willing to work for to provide, leading to their eventual downfall.
* To those who have have Act II of Music/TheProtomen, but not Act I, and after hearing act II multiple times, try to go back to Act I. That's where one will remember Proto Man's last lines, which serve as the overarchng theme to the opera: "A Hero's just a man who knows he's free." This is a BrokenAesop in Act I though, because the good guys are higher spec robots than their foes. Then Act II comes. One of the heroes is a guy named Joe, who is a norma member of Wily's society, except he realizes that something is wrong. Later he beats a Sniper Robot, before helping Light in his attempt to take Wily down. It is this act - this proof that humans ''can'' beat Wily's robots - is what turns an Average Joe into Sniper Joe.
* Music/TalkingHeads - the Sand in the Vaseline collection can draw several unseeen connections:
** 'Once in a Life Time': "You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?" answered by "we're on a 'Road to Nowhere'" not just as a Q and A, but one is coping with life being no great meaning, and the latter accepts that, but says to enjoy it anyhow.
** 'And She Was': Even though it is supposedly about a friends Acid Trip, it seems even more clearly a song about death and afterlife.
** '(Nothing but) Flowers': is a inversion of the classic 'Big Yellow Taxi' and its lyric "They paved paradise and put in a parking lot" - when society fails (apocalypse?, end of gasoline reserves?), nature will reclaim the parking lot and other symbols of modernity.
** 'And She Was' could alternately be about an affair. The lines about her moving above the earth could be an allegory to her graceful movements, 'She isn't sure just what she's done, no time to think about what to tell them, no time to think about what she's done' Them being her husband and children.
* What was originally one of the more puzzling lines in "Intergalactic" is now one of my favorite examples of the Music/BeastieBoys' tendency towards intentionally silly BoastfulRap. The line in question is "Got an A from Moe Dee for sticking to themes". As it turns out this refers to Kool Moe Dee, who infamously published "report cards" for other rappers in his album liner notes: He did in fact give the Beastie Boys an A for "sticking to themes"... and straight C's for everything else. That's sort of like a high school kid bragging about the A they got in Phys. Ed when they're otherwise a straight C student, and knowing their humor, that's probably the joke - Tropers/MikeK
* The Music/PinkFloyd GreatestHitsAlbum ''Echoes'' has a few examples of deliberately placing songs from different eras of the band with similar lyrical themes next to each other. One such case took a while to fully creep up on me, namely following "Wish You Were Here" with "Jugband Blues". If one knows enough about the background of both songs to get the most obvious significance of this: The former is often interpreted to be about original lead singer Syd Barrett's mental breakdown, and the latter is the last song Barrett wrote with the band (and can be viewed as a SanitySlippageSong). But why put "Wish You Were Here" first then? Well, because it makes "Jugband Blues" seem like an AnswerSong to "Wish You Were Here" despite being recorded first. Especially because of the first few lines: "It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here / and I'm much obliged to you for making it clear / that I'm not here"

* "Spark", by Tori Amos, is a bout a miscarriage. Wow.
** Most songs on 'From the Choirgirl Hotel' allude to miscarriages, since Tori had had two (she would have one more later on, before giving birth to a daughter). "Playboy Mommy" is the most obvious example.
* Music/ChameleonCircuit's song "Exterminate, Regenerate" features the lyrics: "No matter how hard you try to remove me, I think you will agree that if one of us dies then the other will too, I am locked in war with you." This song was a duet between Davros and the Doctor, but it could also be interpreted as a song about the fight between the Doctor and the Daleks, and indeed many people hear it this way. Now on the 2011 series, nearly every time the Doctor regenerates, some Daleks die, therefore: "if one of us dies then the other will too"! Also, "I am locked in war with you"- subtle reference to the time-lock on the time war? One thinks so. Brilliance.
* Not exactly a moment regarding lyrical content, but of compositional brilliance: When working on arranging [[Music/{{Tool}} Lateralus]] for SATB performance, one will realize while listening to it -- Tool used two major themes the whole time, but broke them down and made little alterations to it so you heard what sounded like totally different movements. There is the 9-8-7/8 of the main riff, and then the softer riff heard in the intro and middle section.
** It goes much [[http://www.peteofthestreet.net/sayz/C1151806467/E1494764863/ MUCH deeper than that.]]
* The song "Homecoming" off the Kanye West album ''Graduation'' (also released as "Home" on a previous mixtape) at first seems like a love song about a girl named Wendy. It isn't until hearing the last line "If you ain't know by now, I'm talkin' 'bout Chi-town" that you realize the girl he was talking about was actually West's hometown of Chicago.
** The opening line of the song is "I met this girl when I was 3 years old/and what I loved most, she had so much soul" is a near exact copy of the opening line to rapper Common's song "Used To Love H.E.R" which instead personifies rap music as a woman (H.E.R standing for Hearing Every Rhyme).
** Also, Chicago is known as the Windy City, and a lot of people pronounce "Wendy" with an "I".
* In Music/{{Pink}}'s music video for "Raise Your Glass", it's bothersome that the non-outcasts were being treated like...um... Outcasts. Then came the prom scene: ''everybody's'' having fun; it's not the closer-to-average people who are being treated like that, just bullies.
* Angus Young of Music/{{ACDC}} pointed out in ''Long Way To The Top: Stories of Australian Rock & Roll'' that the chord sequence in "Long Way to the Top" is A, C, D, C.
* You think that Papoose's song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-eJODRWZI ''Gun of Mines'']] (also known as ''Drop It'') was just another gangsta rap track he put out, but when you take a look at the [[http://www.lyricsmania.com/drop_it_lyrics_papoose.html lyrics]], you'll realize the song title should have been "Gun to Mind", because it's a song that explores the advantages of both. For example, the chorus. It's basically Papoose asking, "Knowledge or Power/Violence: which one is more important to survival, and why?" The rest of the first half of the chorus is him saying knowledge is more important because the mind drives all action refines the ignorant, and gives man a way to protect himself from anything he may encounter, while the rest of the second half is him saying that when the shit hits the fan, power/violence is your umbrella. Further backed up by the fact that the first verse is the argument in defense of knowledge, while the third verse is the same for power. But that leaves the question: What about the second verse? The middle verse by Busta Rhymes basically bridges both ideas by basically saying they're both valid (and necessary) means of survival, which is why he lives by both.
* Music/FrankZappa's "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee" is obviously a parody of over-dramatic rock opera songs, and based on some crude humor, but consider this: What can be more heartbreaking than contracting an [=STD=] from someone you love and trust implicitly?
* The video for Music/{{Iamamiwhoami}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VduvB5xY2L0 "Clump"]] alternates between a static shot of Jonna Lee from the neck up lip-synching while laying on a toilet paper bed and bobbing up and down rather suggestively, and outdoor scenes in a thicket of tall grass and reeds. Sometimes the latter shots only occur for half a second. It took someone's youtube comment to make me realize that they cut to the outdoor shots every time Jonna closes her eyes, and cut back to her on the bed every time she opens them again. Thus, those scenes are apparently what she sees when her eyes are closed, or just what she's imagining.
* The classic '80s song "867-5309/Jenny" by Music/TommyTutone contains the lines "Jenny, Jenny, you're the girl for me/You don't know me but you make me so happy." That rhyme is a bit of a stretch. Can you think of a different word that starts with H and rhymes better with "for me"?
* Marilyn Manson's song "Kaboom Kaboom". The lyrics in one part is "I hope this hook gets caught in your mouth." At initial thought, your mind would go to someone with a fishhook in their mouth. Okay, typical Marilyn Manson imagery. Until you realize it's also a bit of Fridge Brilliance/Logic: The part of the song that line is in IS the hook! He's saying "I hope this song sticks with you, long enough for you to start singing it."
* The line "kick out the jams" among the rebel slogans in Music/DavidBowie's "Cygnet Committee" seems like {{Narm}} born of ignorance with the knowledge that "kick out the jams" wasn't meant to be anything subversive or countercultural, as many theories had it, but just a way of telling the audience "do I look like [[Music/TheGratefulDead Jerry Garcia]] to you?!" However, recall that the song was inspired by the creative bankruptcy Bowie saw in the Arts Lab he had been trying to set up, when people would go for his performances, contributing nothing, a kind of dynamic being not only endorsed but ''enforced'' by [=MC5=] - he knew ''exactly'' what it meant, tying the two "acts" together.

* Music/ExistTrace: An all female VisualKei metal band 4/5 of whom are {{Bifauxnen}}... in a genre where pretty much the same proportion of ''men'' are WholesomeCrossdressers!

* It seems like Music/NeilYoung's "Rockin' In the Free World" has a serious lyrical disconnect between the verses (singing about the ills of the world) and the chorus (happily stating to "Keep on rockin' in the free world"). Then remember the last line of the first verse: "So I try to forget it any way I can." Rockin' in the free world is his way to forget it.