Ask Lemmy

99 luftballoons is similar.

The 80s was oddly dark.

It's not. It's about a guy who can't beat jealousy and believes he's being cheated on "except it's all in [his] head"

No, it's a song about a nice guy not getting his crush.

Do you maybe mean "Every Breath You Take" by The Police? That's a common answer to this kind of question. A lot of people think of it as cute and romantic at first, but the song really talk about the Big Brother (from George Orwell's 1984): a state of constant surveillance watching "every breath you take, every move you make".

Sadly, Chester grew up being horribly abused and then using a lot of drugs. He was super close with Chris Cornell, who had also killed himself some months prior to Chester. Chester had been sober for a time but ended up staying the night alone after traveling and drank a little and hung himself on Chris's birthday.

Mike Shinoda has stated in interviews that when he and Chester would write lyrics, they would focus on the emotion and not necessarily just the exact experience. So the lyrics would slowly evolve until they both could sing them truthfully while relating them to their own separate lived experiences, which is part of why they can be so universally related to - because none of their songs are truly only about one specific thing, but rather about the feelings people experience.

Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry

WTF? Don't be sorry about that!

I know it's just sort of a reflexive idiomatic politeness, but still, it is really important to make it absolutely crystal clear how irredeemably contemptible the "lost cause" shit take is, at every opportunity. Never, ever be polite about it!

An old soul in a new world… Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry

I think that's an uncharitable reading. Which is understandable, but still.

I think that there are a lot of people--myself included--that would like to be able to make a living doing something that seems to matter, or where you make something. Like, factory work sucks in most ways, but it still feels like you're doing something. Spreadsheets and order projections? Staring at a screen all day, sending polite emails to people you'll never meet about ways to spend a lot of money electronically?

This "new world" of work and socializing ain't great. I think it snuck up on a lot of people, and now a lot of people are feeling like they don't know how to navigate the new reality of depersonalization.

Similarly, watching the music video for Africa by Toto changes the entire vibe of the song. It’s about wanting to bang a black woman. Bless those rains, I guess.

Dang. Just looked it up. It's a song about a girl he met once and was dating someone else, but he still wrote a damn ballad and sent her a copy. Then she had to live her life surrounded by a song about a stranger's feelings for her.

And looking at the lyrics, they're sweet if said about a long-distance partner, but really weird to sing to a vague acquaintence.

I think pumped up kicks is actually a really poignant statement on how normalized gun violence is in the states, to the point where this song was all over radios and I'm sure all over high school dances and nobody thought twice about it. Like obviously the band did it intentionally but the fact that the point was missed so hard by everyone who sang along. It is like Hey Ya vibes to me, or smells like teen spirit for the older crowds. The point is to take these very serious ideas and use them to highlight people's willful ignorance.