The Undertones rocketed to number one in the early eighties with punk anthem Teenage Kicks.  A song which will go down in history for two reasons.  The first is that it is Radio One music guru John Peel’s (RIP) all time favourite song. 

The second is that the true meaning behind the lyrics are now infamous but at the time no one twigged.  For those unaware, if you substitute ‘it’ for ‘you’ in the line ‘I wanna hold you wanna hold you tight, get teenage kicks right through the night’ all should become clear.  Yep, Fergal hijacked the coveted number one spot with a song about him having a ham shank.

For anyone who loves music, there is always great satisfaction to be gleaned when on listening to the song for 153rd time you suddenly realise what it’s about.  Somewhat less satisfying, but enlightening all the same, is when you acquire this knowledge either from reading or from someone else.  You in turn pass this knowledge on, neglecting to reveal your source with the aim of showing what a knowledgeable person you are.  So, I swear hands down that I worked out the true meanings of the lyrics in these songs all on my own.

American Pie by Don McLean is about the tragic death of Buddy Holly a la ‘The day the music died’.  Ok, I admit I read this one somewhere but it’s a shit song anyway so who cares.

How many were aware that the ‘Eton Rifles’ in the Jam song were a bunch of  rugger playing public schoolboys who gave Paul Weller and his mates an absolute kicking for no other reason other than the way they were dressed.

Or Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ is a drug dealer and ‘play a song for me’ is a euphemism for ‘can I have some more drugs please’.  Hence the line ‘take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin ship’.  Apparently.  Aye, he’s a clever lad that Bob Dylan.

Still on the subject of drugs but slightly more contemporary, when bible-bashing chief of police James Anderton decided that posession charges against fellow Mancunian Shaun Ryder be dropped, by way of gratitude the inimitable Mr Ryder penned the song ‘Gods Cop’. The lyrics had Shaun boasting that ‘God made it easy on me’ and ‘me and the chief of police get slowly stoned’!  Wonder what Mr. Anderton made of it.

 
Staying with another Manchester band, the Stone Roses ‘Song For My Sugar Spun Sister’ is a breathtaking song about teenage love where a boy is  pestering his girlfriend to have sex with him. She refuses 'until the sky turns green and the grass is several shades of blue', until, unexpectedly, she relents.  The very next track on the album is the dark ‘Made Of Stone’ which tells of Ian Brown’s brooding fantasy of watching someone die horrifically - 'Your knuckles tighten on the wheel, the last thing that your hands will feel, at least you've left your life in style'.  Staunch Roses fans will know all this already, for those that don’t it may go some way to show why the Roses at their best would wipe the floor with anything Oasis have ever done.

Some songs can be more heart wrenching than is evident when they first gets radio play.  One that springs to mind is Athlete and their quite beautiful song ‘Wires’.  When you learn that the wires 'going in' and 'coming out of your skin' are attached to his newborn baby son lying in an incubator, it gives a whole new depth to the line 'running down corridors through automatic doors’ before the finale where he realizes his son is going to be alright.  Listen to the song again, armed with this knowledge, and if you don’t feel yourself filling up then you really are made of stone!  

Another such song is The Verve’s ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’.  The initial school of thought to this song was the more obvious and simplistic sentiment that after the high, all drugs do is leave you with a comedown to deal with – i.e. - ‘they just make you worse’.  It transpired though that this song has a gravitas and tenderness that wasn’t apparent when it was first released. 


You see it is not recreational drugs that were the inspiration behind ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. Richard Ashcroft watched his father die as a young boy and it had a profound effect on him.  He has also been plagued by ill health during his own life.  This is not just a ‘drugs are bad’ song, it is much more than that.  This song is about medicinal and also recreational drugs – and the inability of either to help when life turns bad on you.  A truly wonderful song.

And finally,  - The Kaiser Chiefs ‘Ruby’…has all the depth and meaning as a puddle of pish.  

Posted In Features, Jan 20 2009. Words - Thomas