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I'm Clifford Stumme, and I use literary analysis and research to explain the deeper meanings of pop songs. Feel free to leave a comment or to email me at clifford@popsongprofessor.com with questions or ideas!
I'm Clifford Stumme, and I use literary analysis and research to explain the deeper meanings of pop songs. Feel free to leave a comment or to email me at clifford@popsongprofessor.com with questions or ideas!
All tagged song explanation
Wesley Schultz (the lead singer) opens up with, "When you left this town, with your windows down / And the wilderness inside." He hasn't completed a full thought, but we can already see that Angela is leaving behind something difficult, and that all is not well with her. It's as if though she's leaving the windows down to embrace new found freedom and to be closer to the nature around her. She's trying to let go and let all of her anger flow out of the open windows. But the true wilderness isn't the forest flying past her. It's inside of her. Her own thoughts and feelings are mysteries to her.
SONG MEANING: “I Miss You” by Adele is about intimacy—sexual, emotional, and otherwise—in a relationship. Adele has doubts about the relationship, and the man may too, but the intimacy they feel when things are going well convinces Adele to keep trying even if she’s still afraid for the relationship when she’s not with him.
SONG MEANING: "Adventure of a Lifetime" by Coldplay is a fun, groovy dance song about feeling "alive again" because of a woman. The song is disco inspired and meant to not only be about good feelings but also to give them. Coldplay is coming out with a new album on December 4th, and it will be called A Head Full of Dreams. The fifth track on the album (and the lead single) is "Adventure of a Lifetime." After Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin was left by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, the band's next album Ghost Stories was quiet, suppressed, and even depressing. "Adventure of a Lifetime" is a reassuring return to a message of hope and fun, even if the song wasn't directly written by Martin.
SONG MEANING: "Sorry" by Justin Bieber is about personal regret for something wrong. It's not just about apologizing to a woman either--the woman may be a metaphor for the world. Want to find out how I know this? Keep reading!
Justin Bieber is coming out with a new album, and it's called Purpose. "Sorry" is the new single off the album--the second one released so far. It's co-written by Bieber, Julia Michaels, and Justin Tranter, and it's produced by Skrillex and BLOOD.
Fun facts: Conrad Sewell's full name is Conrad Ignatius Mario Maximilian Sewell. He's 28 and was born in Brisbane Australia. His music career began when at age 8 he began creating demo tapes. Though he failed to pass auditions for Australian Idol, he continued trying to break into the music business big-time which he did successfully in 2014 when he wrote and sang for Kygo's "Firestone," which was hugely successful around the world. "Hold Me Up" is his debut single that preceded announcements about traveling with both Ed Sheeran and Maroon 5.
"Organ" is the eighth track on Beneath the Skin by Of Monsters and Men, and the song is a departure from the much of the rest of the album. Not only is the music more like a ballad style than any other song, but the lyrics rely much less on abstract references to nature than other songs do. Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir leads the vocals single-throatedly on this song with a soft and airy style that reminds one of Ingrid Michaelson more than of the Norwegian singer's usual style.
"Slow Life" is the seventh track from Beneath the Skin, and it's infuriatingly difficult to puzzle out. The lyrics are vague and HEAVILY symbolic of something. Even if one understands the basic storyline, the event or thing being symbolized may still be beyond reach until Of Monsters and Men spills their secrets on their own. In the meantime, listeners will have to do the best they can to understand what's going on here. While the title is "Slow Life," the music of the song only halfway manages to accomplish the adjectival half of it. The song isn't especially slow; it's fairly quick and is engaging for that quickness. Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir is Of Monsters and Men's only singer on this track (apart from some punctuational background vocals), and her voice, as usual, is wonderfully eerie and haunting. Anything she sings takes on a whole new meaning and idea, giving a powerful mythos to "Slow Life" in particular.
The title "I of the Storm" forecasts an intriguing song about a person caught alone in a large and terrible battle of the mind. It's the eleventh track from Of Monsters and Men's new album Beneath the Skin which drops in the U.S. tomorrow! The album will have 13 tracks, 4 of which have already been released and explained ("Hunger," "Empire," "Crystals," and the one you're reading about).
The establishing process may take him a while, but he's dedicated: "As the hills turn into holes / I fill them with gold." A user on Genius suggests this means that when his efforts are flattened, he finds ways to turn failure into success. Whether true or no, putting gold in the holes instead of mining it out of them may seem odd. Perhaps he is trying to save his money and his success from complete failure by hiding it away. Or perhaps doing this is his way of becoming like the "[h]eavy stones" that "[f]ear no weather"; he's got reserves of gold and accomplishment backing up his next risks.
Ready for a summer of beaches and sunshine? Any pool-side party's going to need a soundtrack, and the music industry's going crazy trying to figure out exactly what it's going to be. Many (including Billboard.com) are putting their money down on OMI's single "Cheerleader" as the future sound of summer 2015. Considering its driving reggae beat and recent EDM remix, there's not much to stand in its way.
After the small victory celebrated in "Not Today," it would seem that Twenty One Pilots frontman Tyler Joseph's Blurryface has come back. This last song on the band's new album Blurryface is a prayer to God. Tyler needs ultimately powerful help to rid himself of darkness and depression, and he's seeking it from a supernatural source.
"Message Man" has a hint of a reggae beat to it, but most of the song is full of intense bass drum and organ focused on Tyler's chanting and rapping verses and choruses that warn audiences that "[t]hese lyrics aren't for everyone" and that "these are just triplets"; "[y]ou don't know my brain / The way you know my name." Whatever Tyler truly hopes the audience to get out of "Message Man," he wants them to recognize the differences between song, artist, and meaning as well as the difference between understanding lyrics and just hearing them.
Since even Tyler Joseph doesn't know exactly what "The Judge" is about, explaining it may be more difficult than usual. He sings, "I don't know if this song / Is a surrender or a revel / I don't know if this one / Is about me or the devil." While that seems like something he should have sorted out by now, with a little help from the rest of the song, listeners will be able to forge their own way through what is actually a very beautiful seventh song on Twenty One Pilots' new album Blurryface.
"Hot Gates" is, by far, the most pointed and purposeful song on Mumford & Sons's Wilder Mind album. It's a sharp and clear cry that begs a friend considering suicide to choose to keep fighting on. The music is mostly soft and quiet, though it contains the powerful swells that have been a signature of the style on Wilder Mind. The song, itself, lyrics and music together, is a powerful, complicated plea for life.
In "Only Love," Mumford returns to the spiritual questions about faith that he began asking in "Believe." Musically, gentle piano and mere hints of electric guitar make up most of this song until 2:51 when the drums and guitar kick in. The song is a mix of gentleness and power and, as always for Mumford & Sons, vulnerability.
Any song on Wilder Mind that's upbeat is a surprise. In the case of "Ditmas," it's certainly a pleasant one. The song nearly lilts as it rushes through the story of yet another love that isn't working out, this time through the fault of a woman who accuses Mumford of having changed even while she leaves him behind for a "[a] life lived much too fast." The song is sad, but it's not mournful; Mumford argues deftly and powerfully-he won't let the blame for the end of this relationship fall on him.
"Cold Arms"is a song of pain and sorrow, which isn't anything new to Wilder Mind but this song asks a tough question and shows what may be the difficult-to-live-with wrong answer.Marcus Mumford and the band play this song slowly and mournfully, a strummed electric guitar ringing out just enough melody to highlight the sadness of what is being said. "Cold Arms" goes beyond the other songs on the album in its attempt to be truly honest and vulnerable with its audience.An interesting aspect of "Cold Arms" is the ease with which one can sing along with it, and doing so, oddly enough, feels confessional and cleansing. The lyrics are about a man who told a woman he loved her without meaning it. His words have brought them together, but the words were empty, so the two end the song together in a bad situation, not really loving each other and simply keeping up a ruse they both know is false.
I try to keep my own personality out of my song explanation posts as much as possible, and I tried to stay objective and unbiased for this song, but I love "Broad-Shouldered Beasts" so much that I've got to say something about it. It's the seventh song on Wilder Mind, and other than "Believe," it's the only song on the album that's filled my eyes with tears. It's beautiful and sweet and calming and reassuring. The love demonstrated in this song is the purest I've seen so far in this album, and it's wonderful. You've got to listen to it for yourself.
The sixth track on Wilder Mind is "Monster," and it's a slow melancholy reverie on a relationship that actually does have hope for survival, though not without a letting go of ambition. Ringing electric guitar, gentle harmonies, and an easy-going melody give the song a thoughtful, near-bluesy relaxing feel. It's the kind of song you could listen to quietly as you drift off to sleep, and it's available on Amazon!
