The Way by Fastball is about the tragic and mysterious disappearance of an elderly couple never to be seen alive again.

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Belladonna.dreams

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I was wondering if this song would show up.

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Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce. It's about not having enough time to spend with your loved ones. Not long after he was planning on winding down his career to be a father to his newborn child but died in a plane crash.

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primeline31

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Now his son, A.J. Croce, is a performer.

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Luka by Suzanne Vega it's a song about physical and mental abuse by her step father.

Another is hell is for children by Pat Benatar.

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Little Wonder

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Luka is very obviously about an abused child. If you listen to the lyrics...

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Hey Ya by Outkast is really a sad song about a failing relationship.

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Kat

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People have done beautiful covers of it.

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Janet Jackson's 'Together Again' was written for her friend that died of AIDS, gets me every time.

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ynyrhydref56

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Again, I thought this was fairly obvious ... that it's about a dear departed friend.

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All That I've Got by The Used I was like 13 years old and I came home from school, turned on Fuse TV, and they were playing some music videos, which was their usual content back in 2003. Saw this video of this dude with long hair in this trippy video that ended with some cool animation. Got hooked on the song and the band. Learned later that the song is about how shortly after their first album, the lead singer was dating a fan and they were having a baby together. She overdosed [unaliving] both herself and the baby. The lead singer felt like he had absolutely nothing left because of that moment, but then a month after their deaths, his dog escaped from his yard and was then hit and [unalived] by a car. The song is about him begging for at least his dogs life back because it was all that he had left.

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Blue Flower

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STOP using the hacking hack word unalive.

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Don’t Fear the Reaper. By Blue Oyster Cult. All these decades I didnt realize it was about committing su*icide.

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Penguin Panda Pop

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And cowbells. It's mostly about cowbells.

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“Keep Me In Your Heart” by Warren Zevon. He knew he was dying.

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AtMostAFabulist

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David Letterman had Warren as his only guest for a week of shows. Wonderful music.

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Cat's In The Craddle.
Duel_Option:
I remember my Dad explaining the meaning of the song to me at probably age 13 or so as he was driving.
He was crying and I told him we’d never be like that not realizing that he was already an alcoholic who wasn’t there much already.
30 years later he hasn’t met his grandkids because the beer is still more important than family.
The self torment he puts himself through doesn’t make sense to me to this very day.
Maybe we’ll meet in the afterlife.

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NotAPanda

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Beer is unlikely more important to him. It’s the devil he’s stuck with. He may even think he’s doing them a favor by staying away.

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One More Light became a depressing listen after Chester's s*icide.

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MrLiesegang

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Well even before that. It was written for a dead friend and performed a day after Chris Cornell’s death, who was also a friend of them.

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“Save the Last Dance for Me” was written by a wheelchair-using groom watching his new bride dance with their wedding guests.

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Fabian Bernard

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By the Drifters

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Don’t think this is unknown, but 3 AM by matchbox 20. About Rob Thomas’s mom having cancer when he was younger. Just really rips at me with my dad being sick now. Probably one of my favorite songs ever.

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Sweet Taurus

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Also, when Rob broke away from the band and produced songs on his own most of them are written for his wife whom suffers from Lupus. "Her Diamonds" was the first one I listened to knowing that. It hit home real hard because I had just been diagnosed myself and knew the pain it was causing the people I love.

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Brick by Ben folds five. I thought it was a catchy tune till a friend told me to really listen to the lyrics.
Nikmassnoo:

This is such a devastating song. I thought it was just about loving someone with depression who is dragging you down, I didn’t know the abortion reference.

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Katie Lutesinger

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As weeks went by it showed that she was not fine. They told me "son, it's time to tell the truth" and she broke down, and I broke down, 'cause I was tired of lying.

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How to save a life, The Fray, it's about d**g addiction and how he couldn't save his friend.

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Fat Harry (Oi / You)

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It is not. It's about a friend who worked with troubled teens as a counsellor.

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My favorite are songs that sound happy, but aren't when you look at the lyrics.

Semi-Charmed Life (by Third Eye Blind) sounds like a happy song, but it's actually about how a d**g user feels when he's high but lamenting nothing else can make him feel that way.

Hey Ya (by Outkast) is about falling out of love with someone, but no one around you wanting to hear about it.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (by Deep Blue Something) is about grasping at straws to find any reason not to break up when you know the relationship isn't working.

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Kiss Army

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You're All I Need by Mötley Crüe sounds like a love song but is about killing her... I Saw Red by Warrant sounds like a love song but is about catching her cheating... The Car In Front Of Me by Luke Bryan is a real tear jerker if you listen to the lyrics...

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I just started listened to a podcast called “60 songs that explain the 90s” and Hey Jealousy is way sadder now than it already was.
mr_ckean:
When I learned the story, it was the first time I felt I had any real understanding of the depths of alcoholism and depression like that.

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Maggz Bennett

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The story surrounding the song is sadder than the original meaning. It was written for their first album by ex Gin Blossoms member, Doug Hopkins, about trying to get back with his girlfriend after his heavy drinking and cheating. Doug was later kicked out of the band and cheated out of royalties (by A&M Records) before it was rerecorded and became a massive hit. Hopkins received the gold disc a few weeks before unaliving himself on December 5, 1993. RIP Doug, your music is amazing. Such a sad background to a beautiful, touching song.

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“Me and a Gun” by Tori Amos. It’s about her being r*ped earlier in life. It was one way she chose to cope, by writing a song about it.

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Karina

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"Me and a gun, and a man on my back" are the words. Hard to think its about anything else, especially since there are no instruments at all, just her voice.

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Possession by Sarah McLachlan, based partly on disturbing lyrics that a stalker sent her, who eventually killed himself.

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T'Mar of Vulcan

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And "Angel" is about her0in add!ction.

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Back to Black by Amy Winehouse. I had never really listened to her before, but I came across a video of one of her performances in which she was clearly struggling mentally. This made me dive into her life, and it was heartbreaking to see how she continued performing even while struggling, with no help from anyone. Knowing her past and hearing the song after that really hits me :/.

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Emma S

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She wrote it about her boyfriend (later husband) dumping her to go back to his ex. He and Amy had a very toxic relationship that centred around d***s. Hence, "it's not enough you love blow and I love puff" Blow and puff being slang terms for cocaine and cannabis.

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If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot. It was about him falling out of love with his wife. He promised his daughter he would never sing it in concert.

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Pittsburgh rare

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I love this song. Also the disco version they did for '54

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Everytime by Britney Spears.
Abby1006:
It’s an ode to the baby she would have had with Justin Timberlake. He wasn’t ready to be a father yet, so she had to undergo an abortion at home. They were both very young, and she mentions in her memoir that even though she doesn’t hold it against him, if it were completely up to her, she would’ve wanted to have the baby.

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Jill Rhodry

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Thing is, it was completely up to her.

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U2 - Pride (In the Name of Love). Did you guys know that it's about Dr. Martin Luther King? Listen to it again. *Early morning, April 4th, A shot rings out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life They could not take your pride.*.

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MoMcB

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Thought that was well known?

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Blackbird by The Beatles is often said to be a tribute to the Little Rock Nine.

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Sand Ers

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Confirmed by McCartney in an interview.

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Fiddler's Green by The Tragically Hip. Gord Downie wrote it after his 5 year old nephew died of a heart condition, to help his sister overcome the pain of releasing her little boy into the afterlife.

Montreal, also by The Tragically Hip. Its about the massacre at the École Polytechnique in Montréal on Dec 6, 1989. I am old enough to remember the news coverage of the event and the line "don't you worry.....her mother's gonna make her look good" refers to a mother trying to make her murdered daughter look decent for her funeral. Heartbreaking.

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StrangeOne

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We learned this in Canadian History class. Marc Lepine went into Ecole Polytechnique, killing 14 women and injuring 10 other women, and 4 men. He targeted women because he strongly hated women and didn't want them to be able to get into engineering careers. It was the biggest school shooting in Canada for 30 years.

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You are my Sunshine.
tyboxer87:
For the longest time I thought it was about a miscarriage or a the death of child.
I was a little relieved when I dug a bit and realized its just any old person. Could just be breakup. That's much easier to live with.

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Karina

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😅

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Limousine by Brand New. It’s about the death of 7-year-old Katie Flynn, who was [unalived] by a drunk driver. She was riding in a limousine with her family after a wedding in which she was the flower girl.

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primeline31

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July 2005 -a perfect wedding day & all headed home in a limousine. The limo was struck head-on by a drunk driver, 24-year-old Martin Heidgen. Police say he was driving 70 mph on the wrong side for at least two miles before he crashed into them. The limo driver, 59-year-old Stanley Rabinowitz, was killed instantly when the limo’s motor was driven on top of him. Lt. Michael Tangney, THE BRIDES UNCLE, who had attended the wedding just hours before, arrived. "I was walking to the rear of the limousine when a gentleman was coming away from it, and he said, 'Don't go back there. It's bad,' "Then all of a sudden Mrs. Flynn came out of the car with her daughter’s, 5 yr-old Katie’s head in her hand." Jennifer walked to side of the road and sat for about an hour with her daughter's head on her lap as she watched her family being cut out of the limousine. Lt. Tangney had to tell his niece it was time to leave. "She very lucidly, very calmly said she wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't leaving Kate."

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12/17/12 by the Decemberists. I don't usually look at titles so I didn't know until my husband pointed it out to me. It's about Sandy Hook.

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Diana Burnwood

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Whom?

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Drops of Jupiter. He wrote it for his mother who died of cancer.

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Katy McMouse

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Train just lost one of their band members to a bathroom accident. I understand that he fell in the shower, of a home he was taking care of for traveling friends.

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What a Catch--FallOut Boy. It was years before I learned that Pete Wentz wrote it following his s*icide attempt.

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mysterious(all pronouns)

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Isn't the chorus, "I've got troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match". What would make anyone think it's a happy song?

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Did you ever sing Ring Around a Rosie as a kid? It's about the bubonic plague and everyone dies at the end of the song.

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T'Mar of Vulcan

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That's an after-the-fact rationalization.

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There's a song by Spanish group Mecano called Cruz y Navaja. It tells the story of a young bartender in Madrid who, while trying to make ends meet, is working as much as he can. He arrives to his wife, who keeps wanting to be intimate with him. Because he is so tired, he always turns her down. One day, in the wee hours of the morning, he is walking to his house when he catches a glimpse of a couple being extra affectionate with each other. As he gets closer, he notices it's his wife. In a moment of anger and shock, he approaches the couple. His shock is further intensified when he sees that his wife has been kissing another woman. As he is about to break apart the two women, the wife's lover takes out a knife and stabs him to death. The group confirmed that the story was true. It had been taken from the police reports where the only thing that was changed for the song were the names.

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“Cowgirl in the Sand”, by Neil Young. A song from the perspective of her murderer, who repeatedly visits her decayed body. The guitar solo re-enacts her desperate struggle as he kills her.

I have trouble listening to it since I learned that.

He wrote the song the same fevered weekend as “Down By The River, I Shot My Lady.”

ETA: I did not mean to imply that this interpretation is established fact. There are other competing theories.

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Sheena Leversedge Wood

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so, a bit like Where the Wild Roses Grow

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Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga, it’s about her grandpa dying and saying goodbye to him in the hospital with her grandma.

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Of Monster's and Men have Little talks. Which is actually about a grieving wife talking to her deceased husband and her sanity is slipping.

King and Lionheart is another one. The story behind that one is the singer Nanna was forced to be separated from her brother when her father left for Canada and took her brother with him, leaving their mother and Nanna behind.

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NotAPanda

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Little talks always gets me. It’s beautiful and so sad.

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Blasphemous Rumors by Depeche Mode. His sister had just completed successful cancer treatment when leaving the hospital got hit by a car and died.

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EDWIN FAWCETT

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Absolute rubbish about the story of the song. The verses to "Blasphemous Rumours" describe a 16-year-old girl who attempts suicide but fails. She experiences a religious revival but is then "Hit by a car

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Here's one, 'Year of the Cat' by Al Stewart, it's about the s*icide of a comedian, but you'd never know that from just the lyrics. Al has been pretty upfront about the meaning in interviews.

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La Mer - Nine Inch Nails It was pretty much Reznor’s s*icide note. So glad he made it through.

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