Song Meanings
The stories and meanings behind well-known songs.
Puff the Magic Dragon: The Meaning Behind the Song
A children’s song about a dragon abandoned by the boy who used to play with him has spent sixty years being accused of something it did...
Song MeaningAuld Lang Syne: The Meaning Behind the Song
Millions of people sing it at midnight every year in a language most of them do not speak, to a tune that was attached to the...
Song MeaningYear of the Cat by Al Stewart: The Meaning Behind the Song
A song about a tourist who misses his bus, built on a melody written ten years earlier about a comedian nobody in America had heard of,...
Song MeaningBarracuda by Heart: The Meaning Behind the Song
One of the most recognisable guitar riffs in rock exists because a record label decided the easiest way to sell two sisters was to imply they...
Song MeaningWildflower by Billie Eilish: The Meaning Behind the Song
A song about holding a friend while she cries over a breakup, and then dating the person she was crying about. It asks whether that crossed...
Song MeaningTo Build a Home: The Meaning Behind the Song
Six minutes of piano and strings that has been used to make people cry in films, television, adverts and figure skating routines for nearly twenty years....
Song MeaningBlinded by the Light: The Meaning Behind the Song
Bruce Springsteen wrote it, released it, and watched it go nowhere. Three years later an English band covered it, one syllable came out wrong, and the...
Song MeaningSilent Lucidity by Queensryche: The Meaning Behind the Song
A progressive metal band from Seattle put a string-drenched ballad about dream control on a 1990 album, and it became the only song of theirs most...
Song MeaningNot Like Us by Kendrick Lamar: The Meaning Behind the Song
A diss track that debuted at number one, swept five Grammy Awards, headlined a Super Bowl and produced a federal defamation case. No record has ever...
Song MeaningBillie Jean by Michael Jackson: The Meaning Behind the Song
A woman says the narrator is the father of her child. He says he is not. That is the whole story, told over one of the...
Song MeaningLa Bamba: The Meaning Behind the Song
A wedding dance from the Gulf coast of Mexico, centuries older than rock and roll, turned into a hit by a seventeen-year-old from California who did...
Song MeaningYellow Submarine by The Beatles: The Meaning Behind the Song
The most experimental album The Beatles had made to that point contains a nursery rhyme about living in a submarine, sung by the drummer. It went...
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