5 People Who Don't Know What Their Own Songs Are About
At its best, songwriting is alchemy, transforming pure human emotion into poetry and melody. Sometimes, though, they’re just singing whatever sounds good. That gets weird when it sounds like the former, but it’s actually the latter. For example…
Noel Gallagher
Stop asking Noel Gallagher what a “Champagne Supernova” is — he has no idea. In fact, “that song is so long, and I often find myself drifting off enjoying the song and thinking, ‘What fucking does it mean?’” Oasis’s chief songwriter said. “You know, ‘Walking down the hall faster than a cannonball’ — what the fuck is all that about? And I should know, ‘cause I wrote it, and I haven’t got a clue.” He’s concluded that, when he sees “a sea of teenagers, all young lads, all with their tops off on each other’s shoulders, singing the words of a nonsensical song,” that “that’s what it means,” which is as good an answer as any.
Paul Simon
Exactly what crime the mama saw makes a big difference in whether you’re on his and Julio’s side in Simon’s “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard,” but all the way back in 1972, he admitted that he has “no idea what it is.” He further explained, “Something sexual is what I imagine, but when I say ‘something,’ I never bothered to figure out what it was. Didn’t make any difference to me.” He just thought Julio was a funny name and a “radical priest” was a funny idea. He was a 30-year-old man amusing himself, which is what most 20th-century music was.
The Village People
Victor Willis, the “cop” character in the Village People who wrote the lyrics to “YMCA,” might be the only person who doesn’t know what the song is about. He’s been insisting for years that it’s “not a gay song,” it’s about playing sports with your straight friends straightly, and he’ll sue you if you say otherwise. Meanwhile, every other Village Person, as well as his co-writers, have said otherwise. “I mean, look at us,” said the “construction worker,” David Hodo, and didn’t need to say any more.
Bruce Dickinson
When the Iron Maiden frontman was asked what he considers to be the best song he’s ever written, he chose his solo single “Tears of the Dragon,” specifically because “I don’t know what it means.” He knows it definitely means something, because “that song really affects people,” and he has some vague hypotheses about abandonment, but “I still don’t know why it is ‘the tears of the dragon.’” The first Game of Thrones book didn’t come out for two more years, so we’re out of ideas.
Earth, Wind & Fire
“Do you remember the 21st of September?” asks one of the catchiest songs ever written, describing a night of singing, dancing and “changing the minds of pretenders.” So what exactly happened that day? A civil rights demonstration? Just a really good party? Nope. "I constantly have people coming up to me and they get so excited to know what the significance was,” songwriter Allee Willis said, but “there is no significance beyond it just sang better than any of the other dates.” The whole session was an exercise in gibberish, with Willis asking co-writer Maurice White at one point, “‘What the f--- does ‘ba-dee-ya’ mean?’ And he essentially said, ‘Who the f--- cares?’” Which, as we all already knew, is the true meaning of the song.
