Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for the next post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you’d like to participate in the challenge, you can find the topics for 2024 here. If you want to read other people’s responses to this week’s topic, you can do so here.
Songs that Confused me when I was a Kid
You Learn by Alanis Morissette from the Jagged Little Pill album
When I was a kid, there was no instant access to the lyrics for any song via the internet. It wasn’t as widespread in the 80s as now, so lyrics came in album sleeves. The trouble was, my copy of this album was on a cassette, recorded for me by a friend from her CD.
I love the entire album still to this day, but that one song in particular confused the heck out of me. For ages, I used to sing along, making up the words, imagining the song had something to do with a fire truck – because there’s one mentioned.
In all actuality, I believe the song is about learning to accept that life is sometimes a negative experience and that that’s okay.
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
Hallelujah is another song that used to confuse me. Although I am not religious, I was raised catholic; I’m very familiar with the bible, so naturally, I believed Hallelujah to be a religious song when I was young. This surprised me because I’m not a fan of religious music, yet I loved this one.
Cut to THIS YEAR (2024) when I find out that it’s not a song about religion or god but rather a metaphor about love and sex!
Nevertheless, regardless of its true meaning, the song is beautiful; it always gives me goosebumps when I hear it.
Well, this was post 17! I’m excited to read all about the songs that have confused you!
As ever, thanks for stopping by and spending time with me today!
Until next time,
George
© 2024 GLT
Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge
GEORGE L THOMAS 
This is a fun post and I enjoyed reading about the songs that confused you as a kid!. One song that I can think of from when I was a kid is Macarena. We would always dance to it especially at roller rinks, but it wasn’t until more recently that I found out the song is about a woman who cheats on her boyfriend.
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Really! Wow. That is a good one. You learn something every day! 🙂
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I made the same assumptions about Hallelujah. 🙂
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That seems to be a surprisingly common misconception about Hallelujah. (The other one that kind of blows my mind is people treating it as a Christmas song — ???) And yeah, I’m pretty sure You Learn is a song about learning from your mistakes even when they’re painful, but I could no more recite the lyrics to that one than I could fly.
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Oh, wow, a Christmas song!? It’s not at all festive!
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Country was one of the few genres of music I listened to as a kid (rock/alternative/etc weren’t allowed), and a LOT of its lyrics went over my head. Why were people fogging up windows in vans by the river? What did it mean that he was willing but she wasn’t ready?
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“Hallelujah” is a religious word, even if the writer was using it in an irreligious, even blasphemous way. People hear and sing it as a religious song because its title/refrain is “praise to God.”
Songs that intentionally misrepresented meaning would be another good topic…”Rock-a-bye Baby” having originally been a political satire, e.g.
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That’s a good point, Priscilla! I think ‘hallelujah’ is why I automatically thought of it that way.
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I loved Alanis Morissette, but I definitely was confused by some of her lyrics, even when I had the lyric sheet in front of me.
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Ah, your post takes me back to the days of bootleg cassettes – and no internet to look lyrics up on. And your discussion of Hallelujah made me remember that when I first hear The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” (didn’t hear the title of it at the time), I thought it was Christian Rock (very good Christian Rock).
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