When you listen to a song, to which part do you pay the most attention: the music or the lyrics? I’ve always found myself to be in the latter category—the consequence of writer’s brain, I fear—and the number of people around me who are in the former never ceases to amaze me. No hate to the other side by any means. But if you’re a music-over-lyrics kind of listener, you might have missed what these five songs were actually talking about.
Because frankly, for as much as some of these tracks get a “hidden meaning” reputation, I would argue those “hidden meanings” are actually “hiding in plain sight.” Like, a quick skim of the lyrics would be enough to realize what the songwriter is actually trying to say.
Videos by American Songwriter
Of course, who could blame someone for being swept up by the music in songs as timeless and enduring as these?
“Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 track, “Born in the U.S.A.”, enjoys regular rotation on lists of songs with hidden meanings, but was the Boss really being that covert? Despite this song appearing on virtually every patriotic playlist that’s ever been compiled, Springsteen is painting a desolate picture from the first lines. “Born down in a dead man’s town / the first kick I took was when I hit the ground / End up like a dog that’s been beat too much / ‘Til you spend half your life just coverin’ up, now.” It’s only the chorus that makes the song sound so patriotic when it really isn’t.
“Little Green” by Joni Mitchell
“Little Green”, from Joni Mitchell’s emotionally cathartic 1971 album, Blue, lays out the singer-songwriter’s breakup and subsequent birth and surrendering of her only daughter in painstakingly beautiful detail. Flowery language aside, Mitchell is practically giving a play-by-play of what happened, from naming her daughter Kerry (after Kerry Green) to sending a letter to her ex to tell him, “Her eyes are blue.” Mitchell’s line about signing the adoption papers brings me to tears just reading it: “You sign all the papers in the family name / You’re sad and you’re sorry but you’re not ashamed / Little green, have a happy ending.”
“Blackbird” by The Beatles
While I’ll admit this song is a bit more opaque than some of the other entries on this “hidden meanings” songs list, the message behind The Beatles’ “Blackbird” seems glaringly obvious when you really think about it. Paul McCartney wrote the song to a hypothetical Black woman—calling back to the very British practice of calling women birds—and, from there, the lyrics are incredibly straightforward. McCartney was speaking directly to women approaching the end of the Civil Rights movement. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night / take these sunken eyes and learn to see / all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free.”
“Every Breath You Take” by The Police
After the general public started interpreting The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” as a love song, the track became one of the more ubiquitous examples of a song with a “hidden meaning.” But dear reader, I’m here to push back on this narrative by saying it was creepy the entire time. Sting’s voice was just too entrancing. If I were dating someone who told me, “Every breath you take and every move you make / every bond you break, every step you take I’ll be watching you,” I would immediately dump that person and maybe move to a new city.
“Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple
I’ll close this “hidden meanings that aren’t actually hiding at all” song list with Deep Purple’s iconic track, “Smoke on the Water”. Far overshadowed by its signature opening riff that everyone has to play on the guitar at least once in their life, the entire song is actually a historical recounting of a very real venue fire that halted a Frank Zappa show on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Just like “Born in the U.S.A.”, lyrical interpretations often stop with the catchy chorus. But read through the verses, and Deep Purple is practically reading a news report from that night.