Let’s play a game! I’ve got a list of Billboard’s All-Time Top 100 Songs, and a d100. After rolling ten times, I scoured these random songs for odd lyrics. Can you name the song by its most obscure lines?
“I feel the magic in your caress.
I feel magic when I touch your dress.
Silk and satin, leather and lace–
Black panties with an angel’s face.”
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“Abracadabra” – Steve Miller Band
Abracadabra is an excellent example of an 80s “What the Hell am I looking at?” music video. It’s a series of basic magic tricks and cheap video effects contrasted against geometric shapes. But you want to draw more than what’s presented. That’s probably why Abracadabra clung to the top 100 for so long. People kept re-listening to the song for a hidden meaning, long after it was clear that there wasn’t any.
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“So gimmie the rhythm and it’ll be off with their clothes, then bend over to the front and touch your toes.
I left the Jag and I took the Rolls, if they ain’t cutting then I put em on foot patrol.
How you like me now, when my pinky’s valued over three hundred thousand?”
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“Yeah!” – Usher featuring Lil Jon & Ludacris
I came very close to using the lyrics “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” as your clue. Mostly, I enjoyed imagining the expression on someone’s face when they gave up, hit the ‘spoiler’ button, and found out that the song was named ‘Yeah’. Should’ve guessed, dude.
These lyrics are from the bridge, and are spat at us by Ludacris. Such a lady’s man, that one. But I guess you don’t care when your pinky ring alone is worth 300 Gs. For comparison’s sake, Kate Middleton’s engagement ring, which originally belonged to Princess Di, is worth 300,000£ (which is technically a little over 500,000 American, but you get the idea.) Jeez, Ludacris, you’re not supposed to be bragging about that kind of bling while you flash it around the club. It’s like he’s asking for people to steal it.
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“Pass that by me one more time;
Once just isn’t enough for my heart to hear.
Tell it to me one more time;
I can never hear enough while I got you near.”
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“Do That to Me One More Time” – Captain & Tennille
I’m not 100% certain what Tenille wants the Captain to do, though, I assume it involves a lot of nudging and winking. If I ever woke up one day, found I was a DJ at a radio station and was forced to play this song, I’d rebel a little and follow it up with Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. Suck it, Tenille!
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“And all I want from you is what you are.
And even if you’re right next to me,
You’re still too far away if I’m not inside your arms.
I get dramatic baby, yes I know.
But, I need you.”
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“Rush, Rush” – Paula Abdul
Wait, is that… Keanu Reeves in this music video? Back when he was a teenage hearthrob? This video makes me feel old…
Rush, Rush’s music video plot is patterned off of the 1955 James Dean movie, Rebel Without a Cause. There’s even a scene at the Griffith Observatory, where evil punks put a switchblade to Keanu’s 1949 Mercury Coupe, leading to a game of chicken between teenage drivers and a cliff. The full music video includes ninety seconds worth of backstory, which you can find here.
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“I took you to an intimate restaurant,
Then to a suggestive movie.
There’s nothing left to talk about,
Unless it’s horizontally.”
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“Physical” – Olivia Newton-John
Hatchie, matchie, those are straightforward lyrics. Olivia Newton-John shoots straight from the hip, then doubles down with a large helping of reverse sexism in her music videos, where men come in two varieties: Muscled oil machines with no faces, and flabby comic relief. Hey, Olivia, play nice! It’s tough enough for the obese to get up the courage to go to the gym. You don’t need to get off on slapping them around, too.
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“For so many years I thought I’d never find you.
You have come into my life and made me whole.
Forever let me wake to see you each and every morning.
Let me hear you whisper softly in my ear.”
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“Lady” – Kenny Rodgers
I’ve been to far too many weddings where someone danced to this song. Most often, it’s Dad dancing with his daughter, the bride. Which, you know, is creepy if you pay attention to the lyrics. “Let me wake to see you each and every morning?” Where? Chained up in my root cellar?
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“Steve walks warily down the street,
With the brim pulled way down low.
Ain’t no sound but the sound of his feet–
Machine guns ready to go.”
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“Another One Bites the Dust” – Queen
Did you know that ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ was about Depression Era Gangland? We’ve sing this song at sporting events so often, it’s hard to remember that Freddie Mercury is literally singing about bodies piling up in a city, one after the other, falling to the muzzle of a machine gun. “Out of the doorway, the bullets rip to the sound of the beat.” If Freddie added a little more detail, the resulting song wouldn’t be a call to celebration. It’d be a mortifying horror show.
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“You just don’t understand how much I love you, do you?
I’m here for you.
I’m not about to go out and cheat on you all night,
Just like you did baby, but that’s all right.”
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“End of the Road” – Boyz II Men
What a strange song, neh? The message glides out as super-romantic, but that’s because it’s sung by four smooth singing superstars. Why did you cheat on one of these guys in the first place? What are you crazy? Were they still boyz, and not yet II Men? I get that.
Change the context, however, to a normal hard up guy whose girlfriend cheated on him, and the message changes dramatically. The entire song is a barrage of passive aggressive reminders that this scrub’s girlfriend left him for some other dude. It’s pathetic: Even if she does come back to him, it’s not going to work out, because he’s obviously too wound up by her cheating ass.
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Color me your color, baby.
Color me your car.
Color me your color, darling.
I know who you are.
Come up off your color chart.
I know where you’re comin’ from.
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“Call Me” – Blondie
That’s the entire first verse of Call Me, and a cute piece of slant rhyming, too, switching from ‘color’ to ‘call me’ in the chorus. Alternatively, I could have used these two lines from the bridge of the song:
Ooh, amore, chiama mi, chiama mi.
Ooh, appelle-moi, mon cheri, appelle-moi.
But you wouldn’t be able to answer this question unless you either knew the song inside and out, or could read Italian or French. Translated, it simply reads “Love, call me, call me (Italian). Call me, my dear, call me (French).
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“I tried to understand this.
I thought that they were out of their minds.
How could I be so foolish?
To not see I was the one behind?
So, still I kept on fighting.
Well… losing every step of the way
I said, ‘I must go back there,
And check to see if things still the same.’
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“Play That Funky Music” – by Wild Cherry
Eight lines, and all of them filler about deciding to go back to some place. “Play That Funky Music” didn’t become popular on the back of its stunning narrative, that’s for certain. In fact, Rob Parissi is well known for taking other people’s work and rearranging it enough to not be sued. Play That Funky Music is roughly a restructuring of Fire, by the Ohio Players. The name of the song was shouted out to him by a disco patron that didn’t appreciate rock playing in his club. Even the name of the band, Wild Cherry, was appropriated from a tin of cough drops.
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