Song Meanings
The stories and meanings behind well-known songs.
Skinny Love by Bon Iver: The Meaning Behind the Song
A man went to his father’s hunting cabin in Wisconsin for a winter, alone, after losing a girlfriend, a band and most of a year to...
Song MeaningSolsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel: The Meaning Behind the Song
A man climbs a hill outside Bath, has an experience he cannot explain, and comes down having decided to walk away from one of the biggest...
Song Meaning21 Guns by Green Day: The Meaning Behind the Song
A song named after a military funeral honour, released by a band already known for attacking a war, which its writer says is mostly about the...
Song MeaningGasolina by Daddy Yankee: The Meaning Behind the Song
The song that took reggaeton out of Puerto Rico is built on a phrase Daddy Yankee overheard a man shout at a woman in the street....
Song MeaningOver the Rainbow: The Meaning Behind the Song
The most voted-for song of the twentieth century was nearly cut from the film three separate times. One executive thought it was too sad. Another wanted...
Song MeaningHow to Save a Life by The Fray: The Meaning Behind the Song
A song structured as a set of numbered instructions for helping someone, written by a man whose entire point is that no such instructions exist. It...
Song MeaningAdam’s Song by Blink-182: The Meaning Behind the Song
The band that made an album called Enema of the State, with a video about running naked through Los Angeles, closed the same record’s singles run...
Song MeaningWork Song by Hozier: The Meaning Behind the Song
A love song in which the singer promises that being buried will not stop him. It borrows its shape from American prison and field songs, its...
Song MeaningMrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel: The Meaning Behind the Song
The most famous song from The Graduate barely mentions the film, was written about a different woman entirely, and asks a question about a retired baseball...
Song MeaningTake On Me by a-ha: The Meaning Behind the Song
It failed twice. The same song, released and re-released, sank without trace both times. Then a director spent sixteen weeks drawing over three thousand frames of...
Song MeaningBlurred Lines by Robin Thicke: The Meaning Behind the Song
The best selling single of 2013 spent twelve weeks at number one, got banned from student bars across Britain, and ended with a jury ordering its...
Song MeaningDelta Dawn: The Meaning Behind the Song
A song about a woman the whole town thinks is mad, written by a man who believed his mother had appeared to him in a friend’s...
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