Someone pointed out that the narrative of this song is... 2. Some believe that it refers to Viking attacks back in the 11th century. ... Why: The song itself has a hugely creepy… One of the signs of the disease was supposedly a red rash — or "rosie" — an people would keep herbs — or "posies" — in their pockets to try to ward off sickness. Song: Under My Thumb by the Rolling Stones, 1966, Choice lyric: “Under my thumb, the squirmin' dog who's just had her day / Under my thumb, a girl who has just changed her ways.". Then it will hit you as you listen closer. In the interest of promoting musical understanding and harmony, we’ve compiled a list of 12 songs that despite their irresistible catchiness, unforgettable hooks, and earworm refrains, actually contain some disturbing and even frightening lyrics. Ring Around The Rosie. Why it wouldn't fly today: We get it. Forums: Music, Creepy, Songs Email this Topic • Print this Page . It's basically about someone getting severe head trauma and possibly dying — and wouldn't you know it, there doesn't seem to be a hidden, deeper meaning to this one. If you look into the origin of the songs we were encouraged to sing as children, it turns out a lot of them are way more disturbing than you ever realized. Why it wouldn't fly today: Another disgusting entry in the Stones’ songbook, the song about a woman who’s been molded to “talk when she's spoken to” is an embarrassment for even existing. Posted by. In fact, King George II was nicknamed the "Old Woman" with it believed that his wife, Queen Caroline, was really the one in charge of the throne. Popular date rape songs are interwoven into the musical landscape, and they exist in every genre that’s played on the radio. 10 songs that will actually scare the hell out of you, ranked. But actually, the original song began "Rub-a-dub-dub/Three maids in a tub" [Emphasis added]. Carl Court/Getty Images News/Getty Images, not the only surprisingly creepy children's song or nursery rhyme. 1. Kurt Cobain was a deeply tortured soul. Why it wouldn't fly today: Perhaps the song was just trying to celebrate the ancient art of kung fu. Which is so messed up I can't even handle it. Blood! Choice lyric: "It's no fun being an illegal alien". u/plaid-knight. 'Delilah', Sir Tom Jones (1968) 1 year ago. Popular • New Topics • New Posts . the story goes that Lucy Locket, on the other hand, was supposedly a barmaid and the two fought over a man — possibly even King Charles II. What popular song is actually really creepy or disturbing? Why it wouldn't fly today: McCartney and Wonder meant well with their hyper-literal interpretation of race relations. Why it wouldn't fly today: Its message and story are seemingly well-intentioned, detailing a Mexican immigrant's struggle to cross the border in search of a better life. Back in the 1960s, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas performed a song called “Little Children”. Pamela from Oceanside Almost perfect remember singing a lot of those songs when I was young; J from Yeet Town Usa Holy these are creepy. If these classic songs were released today, it would almost certainly ignite a scandal. Different times? Also, in putting this list together, I decided not to include some songs from artists who might be more popular at this time of year. Why it wouldn't fly today: Guy walks into a bar and realizes the stripper he's been ogling is actually a man. Holmes has claimed Timothy was a mule, but the song which is about several boys … Here’s just a few candidates that I know of. 20. However, over the years people have come up with lots of possible explanations for different nursery songs. Why it wouldn't fly today: In a song filled with racy anecdotes, this reference to Holly Woodlawn, a transgender actress who was bullied as a teenager and ran away from home, is alarmingly tone-deaf. 3. Not the sort of thing you want your kids singing about. This one you may have already heard of: "Ring Around the Rosie" may well have started as song about the Black Death (though there are other theories, too). But one of the alleged stalkers sued McLachlan for $250,000, citing "breach of confidence and breach of moral rights." True, but here's the thing though: Nugent didn't invent this creepy song out of whole cloth — he might actually be singing about himself. Actually want to freak some people out? Why it wouldn't fly today: The borderline fetishization in John’s chart-topping ode to a New York City prostitute who’s “black as coal but she burn like a fire” is cringeworthy. Much like "Rock-a-bye Baby," this song is actually really dark when you think about it. Why it wouldn't fly today: Even Mick Jagger knows these lyrics aged incredibly poorly; in recent years, he’s changed the words when he performs the song live. 54. He probably, in retrospect, could’ve expressed this one better. Marie Rossiter 2018-08-24 Since Halloween is just around the corner, it seems only right to pay tribute to those creepy cover songs, from The Residents rewriting a Stones classic to some particularly odd interpretations of standards. But its lyrics about “funky Chinamen from funky Chinatown” with stereotypically Asian-sounding last names isn’t exactly a nuanced appreciation of the culture. My Chemical Romance – “Teenagers”. Oct 21, 2015 - You know when you’re singing one of your favorite songs, damn near dancing in your seat, and then realize with a jolt, “Wow, this song is actually, like, ten levels of effed up.” Be real: How often is that because you realize that the lyrics are sexist AF? (“They talk so many (expletive) ways / it’s all Greek to me.”), Song: Kissin' Cousins by Elvis Presley, 1964, Choice lyric: "Well I've got a gal, she's as cute as she can be / She's a distant cousin but she's not too distant with me". 1 hit weren’t cringe-inducing enough, try not feeling icky watching its video. Although the rock classic was co-written by openly gay songwriter Desmond Child, its questionable use in the media — by Fox News when reporting on Chelsea Manning, for instance — makes us think that it's not the homage to the LGBTQ community that he intended. Although the meanings of these 4 songs may be clear, some are also more esoteric and open to interpretation. What about songs that are thematically or sonically creepy? But it's hard not to feel at least mildly uncomfortable listening to this song in retrospect: At the time she recorded it, a then-14-year-old Aaliyah was dating — and would soon illegally marry — her mentor/producer R. Kelly, who was 27. Clay Aiken – “Invisible”. Not only do they imply that the singer is trying to sleep with their beloved — already kind of weird for unsuspecting kids to be singing — but it's also clear they are trying to pressure this person into sex. This song might seem like an innocent song about gardening, but there's a good chance it originated as a political metaphor for Mary I of England, the oldest daughter of Henry VIII who ascended to the throne after his death. It's basically the song “Something About England” played backwards, overlaid with sound effects. It's no wonder this homophobic slur was omitted from the band's greatest-hits album, Sultans of Swing. The American version of this song seems like some humorous nonsense about monkeys and weasels, but the older, British versions of the song are a little different. Blood!” Kooky, spooky, and fun, it’s a perfect song to kick off any Halloween dance party. Why it wouldn't fly today: A slight at effeminate rock stars, once again using "gay" as an insult. Which makes you think very differently about the "rub-a-dub-dub" line. There’s quite a few creepy popular songs if you think about it. Everyone has had that moment when you realize the lyrics of a song you’ve heard a million times are actually quite dirty. Which make more sense when you know that "Pop goes the weasel" used to be a slang term for pawning your coat. Guyism.com takes a look at 8 popular songs with melodies that might be catchy, but with lyrics that are actually rather dark and disturbing. Best of the Internet ... We asked the BuzzFeed Community which "fun" and "catchy" songs they realized actually have some pretty dark lyrics. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Why it wouldn't fly today: McGraw is certainly not “an Indian outlaw, half Cherokee and Choctaw” as he claims in the song. Close. While the song’s theme is actually sort of charming—it’s talking about a relationship that struggling to exist during the Holocaust—you wouldn’t think it after hearing the first few lines. All rights reserved. Perhaps not so much creepy as desperately sad, this was a worldwide hit in 1974 despite being one of the most depressing songs ever committed to tape – … Song: Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright) by Rod Stewart, 1976, Choice lyric: “Don’t say a word, my virgin child, just let your inhibitions run wild", Why it wouldn't fly today: In case the lyrics to this No. Beyond the song’s opening stanzas, the racism, misogyny and outright references to raping slaves make this a low point in the Stones’ discography. However, a lot of the songs you so fondly belt at karaoke actually have a much darker meaning. Here are 9 nursery rhymes and children's songs that are way more disturbing than you ever realized. 16 … Still, it wouldn't be acceptable today to hear a group of white guys assuming the identity of Asian people. 8 popular songs that people don’t realize are totally creepy Certainly not the heaviest song on the list, but creepy enough to kick it off. 164 comments. Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly, lavender's green, When I am king, dilly, dilly, You shall be queen. Kitty Fisher was actually the name of one of the most famous courtesans in 18th century London. Why it wouldn't fly today: Gerry Goffin and Carole King were inspired to write the doo-wop ballad by the tragic true-life story of singer Little Eva, who told them that her boyfriend's beatings were motivated by love. Believe it or not, this one is actually one of the tamest when it comes to creepy nursery rhymes. Why it wouldn't fly today: Nothing like a little casual incest to get the crowd up and dancing. Song: Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, 1982, Choice lyric: “Ebony and ivory / Live together in perfect harmony / Side by side on my piano keyboard / Oh lord, why don't we?”. It kind of makes you wonder how we wound up letting kids sing all of this stuff. Album: No Rest for the Wicked. From Brenda Lee to Rufus Wainwright, a collection of Christmas songs that redeem a genre. What popular song is actually really creepy? Just message me for tips.' There's actually two different dances to the song: Blanco's original and the other version created by Harvey Bass (@harveybass), which inspired the #gitupchallenge on social media. She was hospitalized and suffered from PTSD. These songs might sound like sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, but their lyrics could not be more devastating. The Beatles – “Run for Your Life”. “Afternoon Delight” is a prime example; it sounds like a cheesy soft rock ballad – until you pay attention to the lyrics and realize it’s a pretty graphic description of daytime sex. And it was probably meant to imply that either "the butcher, the baker," and the "candlestick maker" were all spying on women bathing or were going to a peep show in town. Below, find a list of songs that, if released today, would almost certainly ignite a scandal. Songs that are actually pretty creepy. In it, Stewart woos a faceless young woman and leads her up to his bedroom before she says in French, “I’m a little scared. Not quite as silly and lighthearted as it seems, I guess. The song has been memorialized under its nickname, “The Hungarian Suicide Song,” both because of its lyrics detailing the protagonist’s wish to take his own life after losing his love, as well as the urban legend that it spawned in which many people have supposedly committed suicide while listening to the song. Papa Roach – “Last Resort”. Almost all of these can be found on youtube, and if not, then there are plenty of music sites who hosts them. And sometimes the new version turns out to be better than the original. Indeed, some covers are just plain scary, unsettling or creepy. Why it wouldn't fly today: No disrespect to the late Princess of R&B, whose hypnotic vocals and idiosyncratic style remain timeless. Close. The song is about a man attempting to romance his girl but is constantly interrupted by her very young siblings and their friends. The prison had a mulberry bush in the courtyard, and historian RS Duncan thus suggested that the verses are about the routine the women go through each morning. Many of the songs we sing along to innocently use symbolism and personification to make us assume they’re about one thing, when really, they’re telling a totally different story that would be incredibly controversial out in the open. But using derogatory language for gay and black men certainly doesn’t help his case, nor do his wildly xenophobic lyrics about immigrants. This famous ballad is based on the murder of Billy Lyons in 1895. 25 Songs That Are Truly Terrifying Carolina Buddies, "The Murder of the Lawson Family" (ca. AltPress - October 12, 2016. 1. Here are the results. Of course, figuring out where exactly they came from, on the other hand, is sometimes less clear. Most nursery rhymes have been around for a long time — in fact, in some cases their origins go back hundreds and hundreds of years. Images: Wikipedia Commons (3); Fotolia; Wikipedia Commons (3); reza shayestehpour/Unsplash; Wikipedia Commons. Morrissette wrote the song when she was just 19 years old and alluded to terrible experiences in L.A which included being robbed at gunpoint during the time she was working on the album. Also, in putting this list together, I decided not to include some songs from artists who might be more popular at this time of year. But, consider this the next time you sing this lullaby to a sleeping infant: a proposed origin of the song says that it’s about King James II and Mary of Modena passing off a random child as their own in order to ensure a Roman Catholic heir to the throne. There comes a moment in every kids life where they realize that "Rock-a-bye Baby," which you've probably had sung to you on numerous occasions, is actually a song about a baby plummeting to their death. And even if he were, that wouldn’t excuse the hilariously lazy Native American tropes he employs. Bruce Springsteen – “I’m On Fire”. Why it wouldn't fly today: If Perry’s I Kissed A Girl was borderline gross for its exploitative take on same-sex experimentation, Ur So Gay crosses the line with its deeply immature rattling-off of gay stereotypes, driven home by the use of the word as a slur. While it’s catchy and easy to dance and sing to, it … Comments: 68. Why it wouldn't fly today: No, Turning Japanese isn't literally about turning Japanese. It probably began as part of American minstrel shows. Here, … The City of Lost Children is easily in my Top 5 Movies of All Time and the soundtrack is a gorgeous sublime collection of music. Death Cab for Cutie – “I Will Possess Your Heart”. Here are the 11 creepy true-life events that actually happened on Halloween. Lines like "You must love me, diddle, diddle/cause I love you," and "I heard one say, diddle, diddle/since I came hither/That you and I, diddle, diddle/must lie together" are not great. But their message of “people are the same, there’s good and bad in everyone, so let’s just get along” would be interpreted as hilariously naïve by the more woke factions of today's cultural discourse. But even more alarming than getting your … Song: Dude (Looks Like a Lady) by Aerosmith, 1987, Choice lyric: "She had the body of a Venus /  Lord, imagine my surprise / Dude looks like a lady". **Author’s note: These songs do not necessarily mention or have anything to do with Halloween. Let’s take a musical journey through this time of crooners, hippies, and a very angry John Lennon. According to an interview with Rolling Stone, McLachlan had been receiving multiple letters from creepy guys who felt they should be with her.She, as an artist, wrote a song based on those letters. This song has often been thought of … Unaware that its deeper than what it actually is. Mary famously was unable to have a child, so the "How does your garden grow" line is probably a dig at that, and the "quite contrary" name is probably a reference to the way she tried to roll back her father's efforts to make the country Protestant. What It Actually Means: It's a song about starving children to death. 20 Popular Songs With Creepy Hidden Messages. Songs that are actually pretty creepy. In the British versions, there are lines like "A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle" and "Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle." In these cases, listeners continue to debate what the songwriter meant. 7 Popular Songs That Are Too Rapey. Song: Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas, 1974, Choice lyric: “There was funky Billy Chin and little Sammy Chung / He said ‘Here comes the big boss, let’s get it on.' The "silver bells and cockle shells" on the other hand are possibly a reference to different torture devices used on people who refused to convert back to Catholicism. “Gloomy Sunday,” as a piece of historical pop culture, is already pretty creepy. Why it wouldn't fly today: Possibly the most culturally insensitive Christmas song of all time, the Band Aid supergroup may have raised money to alleviate an Ethiopian famine with the proceeds from Do They Know It’s Christmas. If you want to get scared, then light some candles,turn off ALL THE LIGHTS, close the curtains, put on the biggest headphones you can find, and listen to these in order. Fantomas, 'Rosemary's Baby' This seemingly innocent but actually creepy doo-wop tune is taken from the King's 1964 movie musical, in which he plays an Air Force pilot whose two beautiful cousins compete for … But without context, lyrics such as "he hit me and I was glad" are an off-putting endorsement of domestic abuse. Then there are those songs which are not only sexual in nature, but of a creepy and depraved variety. Song: Picture to Burn by Taylor Swift, 2008, Choice lyric: “So go and tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy / That's fine, I'll tell mine that you're gay.”, Why it wouldn't fly today: Perry’s frenemy Taylor Swift wasn’t immune to the same kind of sophomoric homophobia, with Picture To Burn subscribing to the same backward view that the worst thing you could call a teenage boy is “gay.”, Song: Do They Know It’s Christmas? Pop on this playlist of 10 songs that weren't written for the holiday but are truly haunting in their own unique ways. The song ends, you know, with this idea of the shades going down—so that the neighbors can’t see what happens next.” Listen to the song, the first dozen times you will feel like the neighbors. / Yeah buddy, that's his own hair / That little f****t got his own jet airplane / That little f****t, he's a millionaire". ... 12 Christmas songs that aren’t overplayed, are actually good… But it doesn’t really matter whether Cee-lo Green is talking about an actual dead woman or someone that is just coked to the gills and passed out — the song’s creepy. Choice lyric: “Rape me / Rape me, my friend”. And with that music, we got some of the best, some of the worst, and some of the absolute creepiest love songs ever written. Over a throbbing barrage of synths, bleak imagery, and distinctly Gaga-at-her-peak intrigue, the song floats by with the darkl… Song: Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, 1985, Choice lyric: "See the little f****t with the earring and the makeup? As this murder ballad became a folk standard, recorded... Louvin Brothers, "Knoxville Girl" … We usually think of popular songs as being upbeat/happy, danceable, melancholy, or emotionally evocative. ”. There comes a moment in every kids life where they realize that "Rock-a-bye Baby," which you've probably had sung to you on numerous occasions, is actually a song about a … There are a few stories about where this song might have come from, including the idea that comes from the Medieval wool trade, but one of them is that it has to do with the Atlantic slave trade. 13 Love Songs That Are Actually So Creepy The Police – “Every Breath You Take”. by the Band Aid choir, 1984, Choice lyric: “And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time / The greatest gift they'll get this year is life / Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow / Do they know it's Christmas time at all?”. Song: Turning Japanese by The Vapors, 1980, Choice lyric: "I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese". They're creepy and they're kooky, Mysterious and spooky. Archived. 2020 Bustle Digital Group. Popular song lyrics you never noticed were creepy as hell 1. Being Papa Roach’s most popular song, you would think it’d be easy to hear the underlying... 2. And if those sound familiar, it's probably for their horrific, racist portrayals of black people — they are also the origins of blackface, and the reason the practice is forever and unavoidably racist. Choice lyric: “I can't believe I fell in love with someone that wears more makeup and / You're so gay and you don't even like boys”. Creep is actually a song about being less of a manly man when it comes to love and being more of the sensitive type. Enjoy these spooky, classic Halloween songs. What popular song is actually really creepy? Sometimes song lyrics are fairly straightforward, but there are a few cases where popular songs actually carry secret meanings that you would never have imagined! Popular Songs You Had No Idea Were Cover Tunes Stars like Whitney, Aretha and The Beatles all found success with cover songs. Top 10 Songs That Are Actually Really Creepy // Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/c/MsMojo?sub_confirmation=1These songs have super disturbing and creepy … This was a somewhat minor 1971 hit and gave Rupert Holmes his first “big break,” as he was a member of the band and later went on to superstardom with Escape (The Pina Colada Song). Yep, that’s right. Video: Shawn Colvin VEVO/YouTube But that's not the only surprisingly creepy children's song or nursery rhyme. However, this can often be seen as weird or creepy by some women, especially those who grew up with the 90s ideal of being assertive when you love someone. The Buoys, Timothy. Here’s just a few candidates that I know of. Listen with the lights on. Everyone has had that moment when you realize the lyrics of a song you’ve heard a million times are actually quite dirty. It really is just about head trauma. Previous; 1; 2; 3; Read Discussion; Reply to All; 15 . I am thankful for tips. Forums: Music, Creepy, Songs Email this Topic • Print this Page . He's openly admitted to preferring the younger (as in, illegally younger) ladies, and has even been accused of raping a twelve-year old girl — that's even younger than the girl in the song.