26 Songs That Hit Differently After You Read the Lyrics
The internet has spawned a whole host of strange adages over time: “Pics or it didn’t happen,” “Don’t feed the trolls,” and of course, the favorite of every “deep” middle schooler, “Real eyes realize real lies.”
But of all these now-cliche messages, Tumblr teens — or Frank Ocean, if you believe Goodreads’ attribution — managed to get one right: “When you’re happy, you enjoy the music. But when you’re sad, you understand the lyrics.”
Don’t believe Mr. Ocean? Just take a look at the Bad Bunny-approved banger that was Los Del Río’s “Macarena.” “(It’s the) song they played all the time for stuff when I was in elementary school,” recalled Redditor thesystem21. “It’s about a girl cheating on her boyfriend with multiple people while he’s away.”
But it’s not just the Macerena’s protagonist’s boyfriend — the boy whose name is Vitorino — that we should be worried about. Whether it’s “Greased Lightnin’” or “Hey Ya!”, these songs hit much differently after you read the lyrics — especially that one track by Mike Posner.
Greased Lightning
Two Out of Three
Macarena
We Are Young
Hey Ya
Pour Some Sugar on Me
My Sharona
Hot Child in the City
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Escape (The Pina Colada Song)
99 Luftballons
Born in the USA
The One I Love
I Don’t Like Mondays
Barbie Girl
Cats in the Cradle
Pumped Up Kicks
Wake Me Up
I Took A Pill in Ibiza
Semi-Charmed Life
Iron Man
Beds Are Burning
Take Me to Church
Build Me Up Buttercup
The Way
The Sound of Silence
