Theme Songs #93 - The Return

Jon

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Dec 16, 2008
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Hello and Welcome to the 93rd and Return Edition of Theme Songs. The Game where every song has one thing in common and you have to guess what that is.

I give you 4 clues, you give the answer.

For the return I will be changing up the categories just a tad.

Categories are:
Song/Album - Having to do with either
Artist/Band - Same
People - Songs about people NOT INCLUDING the artist/band
Pop Culture/History - Songs about any number of topics in pop culture or history

And a new set of categories: Influences/Inspired

I give you 4 songs, and you guess either who was influenced by those bands or artists (Inspired), or who was the influence for those artists (Influenced).

This week the category is Song/Album:

Starting with the first clue. The Goo Goo Dolls

 
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Jon

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Songs that people think are positive, but are really about darker subjects.
:bigbananadance:

Congrats, HecticArt!

This week’s topic is ‘Darker Songs mistaken for lighter songs’

When it was first released, ‘Slide’ by the Goo Goo Dolls was treated like your average every day love song, when it really was about a couple who got pregnant out of wedlock, and was determining whether or not to have an abortion. A point driven home by these lyrics:

Don't you love the life you killed?
The priest is on the phone
Your father hit the wall
Your ma disowned you

Timbuk 3’s ‘The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades) was released during the 80’s, during a time when everybody thought nuclear war was imminent and we were gonna get blown to smithereens by the Russians. Which is primarily the point the song was trying to get across. When for a while, the song was taken as a song of celebration, a graduation anthem, which Is about as far away from the origin of the song as it gets.


Sting once said that the song ‘Every Breath You Take’ goes to a very dark place. The song really is about the obsessions of a stalker ex-boyfriend who still hasn’t gotten over the fact that the relationship is LONG over. Some people took it as more of a happy-ish love song, and was quite popular on the all-request dedication shows on the radio back in the day. Even so much as some people using it as their ‘first-dance’ song at their wedding. Sting brought up that point on VH1’s Behind The Music featuring the Police (remember that??), to which he replied.......Good luck! :D

And the last clue!



Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen. Which is a song that was hailed a patriotic anthem by a certain president running for re-election (Reagan), when what it’s really about is the mistreatment by the government of Vietnam Veterans since their return from the war. This was the song, and incident, that turned Springsteen into more of a political artist in the later years.

New game next week!
 

scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
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Vacationland
The best one, though, is Born to Run, a song about getting the hell out of New Jersey, which Chris Christie tried to make the state song of NJ.
 

Jon

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Dec 16, 2008
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The best one, though, is Born to Run, a song about getting the hell out of New Jersey, which Chris Christie tried to make the state song of NJ.
I've always found it weird that the state song would have included the lyrics 'We've gotta get out while we're young!"
 

scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
23,407
18,657
168
Vacationland
I've always found it weird that the state song would have included the lyrics 'We've gotta get out while we're young!"
preceded by "baby, this town rips the bones from your back; it's a death trap; it's a suicide rap." So come to New Jersey!