History MisaimedFandom / Music

A lot of people don't seem to listen to song lyrics. And it doesn't only happen with people to whom the language in which the song is sung isn't their first language. Even people who can speak and understand the language perfectly often misinterpret the lyrics. They hear a pleasant melody or a nice refrain and don't bother to listen and think about the other lines. Other times they interpret the message of a song as the complete opposite of what the singer or group intended. Or think that the singer actually is sincere when he's being satirical. Sometimes they've simply misheard the lyrics, but often it's just a matter of being too lazy or ignorant to really read the text. Even perfectly intelligent and perceptive people often simply [[IndecipherableLyrics can't make out the words]], [[SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein or catch very little of the music they listen to]]. They're lucky if they can get the choruses right. So in the music world, MisaimedFandom is not restricted to {{Stealth Parod|y}}ies. It can affect anybody at any time. (If you [[SeriousBusiness cue up a song at a wedding]] [[IsntItIronic without looking up the lyrics]], [[{{Narm}} that's still on you]].) No wonder some songs get a MisaimedFandom.

* The song "Beautiful Day" by English folk-punk band The Levellers is sometimes used in commercials to convey a cheerful tone, the producers apparently having looked no further than the first line of the chorus to realise that the song discusses political revolution, is peppered with references to historical revolutionaries or that the "beautiful day" in question being the one on which "Wealth redistribution/Became the new solution".

* Music/TheHumanLeague's "Don't You Want Me" is sometimes taken as a romantic duet, when singer Phillip Oakley meant it as "a nasty song about sexual power politics". Despite the [[LyricalDissonance peppy, danceable music]], the song is clearly a duet between an emotionally abusive [[TheSvengali Svengali]] and a protegee who has wised up and is trying to get away from him.

* On his album ''Music/{{Alice}}'', Music/TomWaits has a song called "Poor Edward" (a song about a guy with a woman's face on the back of his head that he refers to as his "devil twin"), that is usually taken to be an allegory about a marriage falling apart. In reality, it's a song about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a guy with a woman's face on the back of his head]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic that he refers to as his "devil twin"]].

* Music/BlackSabbath's [[Music/ParanoidAlbum "Iron Man"]] is about man who travels to the future, sees the [[AfterTheEnd world in ruins]], and is transformed into a metal monster. When he tries to go back and warn humans, he can't communicate with people. They treat him as a freak and it drives him insane--he goes on RoaringRampageOfRevenge, [[StableTimeLoop causing the apocalypse he tried to prevent.]] [[NamesTheSame It's not about]] [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]]!

* Music/{{Soundgarden}}'s song "Big Dumb Sex" was a StealthParody of the glam metal scene at the time, but many hair bands and their fans took a liking to the song without realizing what it was about. Music/GunsNRoses even did a cover of it.

** If you look at the [[http://www.afn.org/~afn30091/songs/t/timbuk3-futures.htm lyrics]], there's really nothing in there about a nuclear holocaust. Only some [[FridgeLogic freezer logic]] (One step past fridge) gets there, and it's barely implied. The four verses are 'I'm in school and like my teacher', 'I've got a high paying job' and 'I'm a high-tech pervert with x-ray goggles that actually work', then a repeat of the first. Wiki/TheOtherWiki says they had to add another verse on a different version to make people realize it was supposed to be grim.

A lot of people don't seem to listen to song lyrics. And it doesn't only happen with people to whom the language in which the song is sung isn't their first language. Even people who can speak and understand the language perfectly often misinterpret the lyrics. They hear a pleasant melody or a nice refrain and don't bother to listen and think about the other lines. Other times they interpret the message of a song as the complete opposite of what the singer or group intended. Or think that the singer actually is sincere when he's being satirical. Sometimes they've simply misheard the lyrics, but often it's just a matter of being too lazy or ignorant to really read the text. Even perfectly intelligent and perceptive people often simply [[IndecipherableLyrics can't make out the words]], [[SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein or catch very little of the music they listen to]]. They're lucky if [[RefrainFromAssuming they can get the choruses right]]. So in the music world, MisaimedFandom is not restricted to {{Stealth Parod|y}}ies. It can affect anybody at any time. (If you [[SeriousBusiness cue up a song at a wedding]] [[IsntItIronic without looking up the lyrics]], [[{{Narm}} that's still on you]].) No wonder some songs get a MisaimedFandom.

* Music/{{Eels}}' "Mr. E.'s Beautiful Blues" (RefrainFromAssuming it's called "God damn right, it's a beautiful day") is often used in commercials or TV ads with happy images. Even lead singer E. has been baffled by this: "The first line is about pollution, for crying out loud!"

* Many fans of modern ChristianRock, or even NotChristianRock, bands don't tend to take the songs into a religious sense. Many are surprised to hear the bands are Christian.

* Listeners often exaggerate possible Christian subtext in NotChristianRock, sometimes to the point of EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory. "Bring Me To Life" by Music/{{Evanescence}} and "Mysterious Ways" by Music/{{U2}} are examples of songs that get this treatment.

* "Glokenpop" by Spiderbait is generally regarded as a sweet, cutesy tune[[note]]It was also featured in the PSP VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet game, a series well known for both.[[/note]], or often gets bashed by Spiderbait fans for [[BlackSheepHit a fluffy pop song that sounds remotely nothing like their usual rock music]]. The song itself is actually a mockery of {{Glurge}}-y, [[MoneyDearBoy money-driven]] and repetitive pop songs, with an UncannyValley music video to reaffirm this. The second verse makes this very explicit:

** This misperception literally reached new heights when [=SpaceX=] launched a real car into space; supposedly it was playing Space Oddity on its speakers, although [[SpaceIsNoisy this probably didn't work too well in a vacuum]].

* "Walking on the Sun" by Smash Mouth is often used in commercials for items like cars. Marketers apparently assume that the band really intended to urge people not to delay, and to act now. Hilarious how it's seen as an upbeat anthem to capitalism, no? Unless said marketers simply assume it's WordSaladLyrics with an intelligible sentence or two.

* Music/GreenDay's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" is very commonly known as the song to play or listen to when you're about to hit a milestone in your life that calls for you to leave your old life behind and start anew (namely, graduating from school). It was even used when ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' was going off the air and they had a clip show thanking viewers for watching the show. However, the song was written when Billie Joe Armstrong (the lead singer) was breaking up with his girlfriend. So the song is a break-up song, but is used to denote love. This confusion is likely due to the lyrics (which by themselves do not express the intended meaning very well) and the predictable habit of radio stations of calling the song "Time of Your Life," since the "actual" title does not appear in the lyrics. WordOfGod is that the song was meant to be bittersweet, not sarcastic.

* Similarly, "Smooth Criminal" is usually played as a dance anthem, when the lyrics are clear that the "smooth criminal" is a man who shot an innocent woman, and the implication is that he will get away scot-free.

* "Alive" by Music/PearlJam is often interpreted as a defiant proclamation of vitality; in fact, it's a song about a teenage son molested by his mother because he resembles the dead father he never knew. Eddie Vedder used to introduce this song, in concert, as part of a trilogy... with the third song being "Once" - a song about a serial killer who murders hitch-hikers. Vedder's implication was that the main character's sexual abuse inspired him to kill. Irony, much?

* A good reason for why you should bother to listen to the lyrics: when the Swedish army had their first real casualties in Afghanistan, a radio speaker wanted to honor them by playing ''Hero of War'' by Music/RiseAgainst. Which isn't ''as'' bad as it might sound, considering that the song was more about how WarIsHell and that it turns everybody into a bastard. Still, most assuredly ''not'' the best song choice.

* Many of {{Music/Metallica}}'s earlier songs were about how the rich and powerful use people, including those in the military as pawns. Song like Unforgiven, One, Master of Puppets, Disposable Heroes, to name some. However, most soldiers whom served in the military would tell you that one of the most played rock bands during a tour was Metallica.

* Due to their (debatable) assertion that Obama has an anthem -- and that it was instrumental in his rise -- the Tea Party movement has adopted ''Cult of Personality'' by Music/LivingColour as one of their unofficial-official anthems. Never mind that it doesn't really portray a Cult of Personality as an intrinsically ''bad'' thing (mentioning Gandhi and Kennedy as well as Stalin and Mussolini), and has lines about [[GunmanWithThreeNames leaders dying while they speak]], which can [[UnfortunateImplications send the wrong message]] from a political opposition movement.

* "Sunday Bloody Sunday" from ''Music/WarU2Album'' by Music/{{U2}} is very frequently taken to be a rebel anthem in support of the cause of the IRA. In reality, it's a '[[ShoutOutToShakespeare plague on both your houses]]' song. Perhaps the most famous live performance of it was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9c4lLnY0rA a 1987 American concert]] that took place mere hours after a bomb had gone off in Enniskillen and slain 11 civilians. Bono stopped midway through to deliver a moving speech declaring "fuck the revolution". He would later go on to enthusiastically campaign for the Good Friday agreement, including hosting the only public meeting of the main Catholic and Protestant leaders, at a concert rally.

* Queens "I Want It All" is about ambition (the title deriving from writer Music/BrianMay's wife's favorite sayings), not a gay anthem or anti-Apartheid as some have interpreted it.

* What? You mean to tell me that [[WriterRevolt "Have a Cigar"]] by Music/PinkFloyd from ''Music/WishYouWereHere'' isn't about a band that's happy to get its big break?

* "Gunpoint Affection" by Black Market Baby was condemned in a Washington Post review as "a straightforward rape fantasy" that "negates the rest of [their] work" - while the song is a graphic depiction of a rape at gunpoint from the rapist's perspective, according to lyricist Boyd Farrell we're meant to be unsettled by [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil how sick and depraved the narrator is]], not cheer him on.

* "Gunpoint Affection" by Black Market Baby was condemned in a Washington Post review as "“a straightforward rape fantasy" that "negates the rest of [their] work" - while the song is a graphic depiction of a rape at gunpoint from the rapist's perspective, according to lyricist Boyd Farrell we're meant to be unsettled by [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil how sick and depraved the narrator is]], not cheer him on.

* Music/DrowningPool's "Bodies" was written as a mosh-pit anthem, but its lyrics, from its chorus of "let the bodies hit the floor" to lines like "push me again" and "can't take much more", can easily be read as being about a man hitting his RageBreakingPoint and GoingPostal. The song was infamously used as a form of EnhancedInterrogationTechniques at Guantanamo Bay, and has been associated with various murderers who played it before or while commiting their crimes, most notably a SpreeKiller in Tucson, Arizona who murdered six people and wounded thirteen others, including Congressional representative Gabrielle Giffords, in a shooting at a supermarket where Giffords was holding a rally. Since then, the song has come to be seen as a mass murder anthem.

* Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" is actually a satire.

* The song "Sympathy for the Devil," by Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}}, is mistakenly believed to be an endorsement of Satanism by people who don't pay attention to the song and/or miss the irony in the lyrics. Although it's sung from the POV of Satan, the message is that history's atrocities were committed by humankind and had nothing to do with him.

* Many of the early heavy metal/hard rock bands, along with Music/TheRollingStones, unique in that they ''brought up'' the ''subjects'' of, Satan, Hell, evil and black magic, were incorrectly accused by MoralGuardians (or plain old [[DeadHorseGenre heavy metal haters]]) of ''promoting'' such activities, when for the most part they were simply warning people ''against'' satanic acts, or using the Devil as symbolism, or often simply expressing their love of a good horror movie. RefugeInAudacity and the [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing counter-cultural notoriety]] it inspired (and maybe some rebellion against those MoralGuardians) misinterpreted by many misguided followers lead to many genuinely devil-worshipping fans and metal acts coming through the ranks in later years.

* During the 2005 [[UsefulNotes/PoliticalSystemOfGermany German federal election]], future [[UsefulNotes/TheChancellorsOfGermany chancellor Angela Merkel's]] party attempted (and failed) to obtain the rights to use Music/TheRollingStones song "Angie" as the official song for her campaign. Considering that the song features lines like "But Angie, Angie, ain't it time we said good-bye?", the Stones probably did them a favour by denying them the rights. It doesn't even ''sound'' a bit like a triumphant song, like the kind politicians want to use.

* It's surprising how many people think "Jesus He Knows Me" by Music/{{Genesis}} is a religious song. In reality, it's a song mocking televangelists who survive on donations from their audience.

* Since Music/PeterGabriel is known for writing serious, intellectual songs, a number of his fans refuse to believe that "Sledgehammer" is an IntercourseWithYou song, thinking that it may be about the music industry, or something similar. Never mind the fact that not only has he written steamy songs before[[note]]such as "Counting Out Time", a Music/{{Genesis}} song from when he was still in the band[[/note]], but he himself has said that the song is about sex.