73 STORIES · TAGGED
TOMMY TUTONE · 1981
A power-pop song built around a fictional girl's phone number scrawled on a bathroom wall became so catchy that it caused real-world chaos f…
NENA · 1983
WEST BERLIN, GERMANY
A bouncy, candy-coloured pop hit that is secretly a chilling Cold War parable — ninety-nine harmless balloons drift over a militarised borde…
NIRVANA · 1989
A pop song hiding inside a noise record, "About a Girl" was Kurt Cobain's quiet confession that he loved The Beatles as much as Black Flag. …
BILLY JOEL · 1982
ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA, USA
"Allentown" is really about Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — Billy Joel borrowed the neighboring town's name because it sang better — and beneath i…
WILLIE NELSON · 1982
It sounds like the most tender apology in country music, but "Always on My Mind" is really a confession of failure — a man admitting he thou…
AC/DC · 1980
A funeral disguised as a celebration, "Back in Black" is the sound of a band refusing to bury itself alongside its dead singer. Released jus…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1987
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY, USA
"Bad" sounds like a swaggering boast, but it was reportedly inspired by the true story of a teenager from a rough neighbourhood who went off…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1982
LOS ANGELES, USA
Beneath the screaming guitar and the switchblade swagger, "Beat It" is an anti-violence anthem in disguise — a song that tells young men the…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1982
"Billie Jean" is the story of a man being accused of fathering a child he insists isn't his — a paranoid, defensive groove built on Michael …
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN · 1984
UNITED STATES, USA
: Bruce Springsteen's 1984 anthem is one of the most misread songs in American popular music — a bleak portrait of a Vietnam veteran abandon…
TALKING HEADS · 1983
NEW YORK CITY, USA
The title was not David Byrne's idea and has nothing to do with arson — drummer Chris Frantz brought it back from a Parliament-Funkadelic gi…
THE JACKSONS · 1980
It sounds like a wall-shaking dancefloor anthem, but "Can You Feel It" is really a near-spiritual plea for universal brotherhood — a Jackson…
DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS · 1982
BIRMINGHAM, UK
Beneath the most joyful sing-along of the early '80s sits something far more frank: it's a song about two working-class teenagers, half-suff…
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN · 1984
A reluctantly written pop song that became the biggest hit of Bruce Springsteen's career, "Dancing in the Dark" is a study in how exhaustion…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1988
"Dirty Diana" is Michael Jackson's snarling, guitar-soaked confession about the predatory groupie culture that surrounded him at the height …
MEN AT WORK · 1981
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
The song the whole world treats as Australia's unofficial national anthem is actually a sly protest about Australia losing its soul — a warn…
THE POLICE · 1981
A glittering, almost embarrassingly earnest love song wedged into one of the most cerebral rock catalogs of the early eighties, "Every Littl…
TEARS FOR FEARS · 1985
BATH, UK
It sounds like a sun-bleached pop anthem you'd put your hands in the air to, but it's actually a cold-eyed warning about power, control, and…
METALLICA · 1984
A landmark ballad nested inside a thrash metal record, "Fade to Black" was Metallica's first slow song and arguably the moment the genre lea…
THE POGUES FEAT. KIRSTY MACCOLL · 1987
NEW YORK CITY, USA
The most beloved Christmas song in Britain and Ireland is not really a Christmas song at all — it's a brutal, tender argument between two br…
JOURNEY · 1983
A power ballad written on a tour bus at three in the morning, "Faithfully" is one of the strangest love songs in arena-rock history: a medit…
TRACY CHAPMAN · 1988
CLEVELAND, OHIO, USA
"Fast Car" sounds like a love song about young escape, but it is really a portrait of how poverty repeats itself across generations — and ho…
THE JAM · 1980
"Going Underground" is a furious refusal — a 25-year-old Paul Weller telling Cold War Britain that he'd rather vanish from public life than …
STEVE WINWOOD · 1986
"Higher Love" sounds like the most confident record of 1986, but it was written by a man who had spent years alone in a Gloucestershire farm…
DEAD KENNEDYS · 1980
"Holiday in Cambodia" isn't really about Cambodia at all — it's a savage takedown of privileged, self-congratulating young Americans, sarcas…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1983
LOS ANGELES, USA
"Human Nature" is Michael Jackson's tender confession that wanting things — the city, the night, the touch of another person — is not a sin …
MODERN ENGLISH · 1982
The breeziest love song of the MTV era is actually about two people making love as a nuclear bomb falls — a Cold War apocalypse anthem disgu…
PHIL COLLINS · 1981
Despite the most famous urban legend in pop history, this is not a song about a man who watched someone drown. It is the raw, half-improvise…
PETER GABRIEL · 1986
The world's favourite boombox-under-the-window love song was reportedly written to be deliberately ambiguous about who is being adored — a l…
GENESIS · 1986
CHIDDINGFOLD, SURREY, UK
Genesis' only American number one began as an accident — a throwaway phrase Phil Collins sang over a riff Mike Rutherford was idly playing —…
RICK SPRINGFIELD · 1981
"Jessie's Girl" isn't a love song — it's a confession of jealousy about a real woman Rick Springfield met in a Pasadena stained-glass class,…
VAN HALEN · 1984
: "Jump" was the sound of a hard rock band trading their guitars for synthesizers and accidentally inventing the template for mainstream eig…
PRINCE · 1986
"Kiss" was written off as a scrappy throwaway, handed to a side project, and rebuilt by someone else — until Prince heard the result, took i…
THE BEACH BOYS · 1988
ISLAMORADA, FLORIDA KEYS, USA
"Kokomo" is a love song to a tropical paradise that doesn't exist — written without Brian Wilson, by a band twenty years past its prime, for…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1989
On the surface "Leave Me Alone" sounds like a kiss-off to a clingy lover, but it is really Michael Jackson firing back at the tabloid press …
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1987
The most famous protest song Michael Jackson ever sang wasn't actually written by him — and its radical message is that changing the world s…
STYX · 1983
It sounds like a goofy robot novelty hit, but "Mr. Roboto" is actually a track from a full-blown sci-fi rock opera about a rock star who esc…
RICK ASTLEY · 1987
The internet's favorite punchline started life as a deadly serious promise of loyalty — written by Britain's most ruthless hit factory and s…
MURRAY HEAD · 1984
BANGKOK, THAILAND
The decade's most famous song about Bangkok is actually a song about chess — sung in character by an arrogant grandmaster who finds the city…
JOURNEY · 1981
"Open Arms" is the power ballad that arguably invented the modern power ballad — a slow-burning, piano-led plea written by Steve Perry and J…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1983
LOS ANGELES, USA
It sounds like Michael Jackson at his most carefree, but "P.Y.T." was actually a high-precision pop machine engineered by Quincy Jones and a…
VAN HALEN · 1984
: "Panama" is the most misunderstood track on Van Halen's blockbuster 1984 — a song that sounds like a tropical postcard but is actually abo…
MADONNA · 1986
NEW YORK CITY, USA
It sounds like a bouncy pop anthem, but "Papa Don't Preach" is a teenage girl telling her father she's pregnant and that, against everyone's…
GUNS N' ROSES · 1987
A six-and-a-half-minute fever dream that opens with a wistful acoustic shimmer and ends in a tempo-doubled stampede, Paradise City is Guns N…
JANET JACKSON · 1989
MINNEAPOLIS, USA
Behind its military precision and unstoppable groove, "Rhythm Nation" is a protest song in disguise — Janet Jackson dreaming up a colour-bli…
THE CLASH · 1982
The Clash's biggest American hit is a satirical fable about a king who bans rock music and a population that refuses to stop dancing — writt…
DEF LEPPARD · 1987
"Rocket" isn't a song about spaceflight at all — it's a love letter to the glam rock of the band's Sheffield childhood, bolted onto a thunde…
THE CLASH · 1982
Released in 1982 on Combat Rock, The Clash's most playful single is also their most haunted — a punk-rockabilly hybrid written by a band alr…
PETER GABRIEL · 1986
BATH, UK
Behind the goofy claymation chickens and the brass-band groove, "Sledgehammer" is one of pop's most cheerfully unsubtle sex songs — a former…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1987
Behind the slick funk and the gravity-defying lean, "Smooth Criminal" is a frantic crime-scene report about a woman named Annie who has been…
BRYAN ADAMS · 1985
Despite its title, "Summer of '69" isn't really about 1969 at all — Bryan Adams was only nine years old that summer. It's a song about the i…
U2 · 1983
DERRY, UK
A martial snare, a chiming guitar figure, and a refusal: this is not a rebel song. With "Sunday Bloody Sunday," U2 took the most loaded poli…
BERLIN · 1986
The Oscar-winning love theme from Top Gun wasn't really a Berlin song at all — it was an Italian-disco architect's studio creation that the …
DON HENLEY · 1984
It sounds like a sun-bleached anthem about young love at the beach, but "The Boys of Summer" is really a middle-aged man's lament for a lost…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1982
On paper it's a love-triangle duet between Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, two superstars squabbling over one woman — but the real story…
R.E.M. · 1987
The song millions have dedicated to sweethearts on the radio is, by Michael Stipe's own admission, "incredibly violent" — a cold-blooded por…
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN · 1980
A quiet, devastating ballad about a teenage marriage forced by pregnancy, an economy that takes more than it gives, and the way memory turns…
MEN WITHOUT HATS · 1982
"The Safety Dance" isn't about safety at all — it's a protest anthem written after frontman Ivan Doroschuk was thrown out of a Montreal club…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1987
Beneath its swaggering, finger-snapping cool, this is Michael Jackson playing a part he almost never let himself play on record — a confiden…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1982
"Thriller" is a tongue-in-cheek love song disguised as a horror movie — Michael Jackson plays a sweetheart turning monstrous to thrill his d…
SUZANNE VEGA · 1987
NEW YORK CITY, USA
A young woman sits alone in a New York diner, watching the rain and the strangers around her, narrating ordinary nothing-moments in a flat s…
BONNIE TYLER · 1983
This towering power ballad about devastating, all-consuming love was originally written by Jim Steinman as a gothic vampire love song called…
THE VAPORS · 1980
Despite decades of playground rumors, "Turning Japanese" is not a euphemism for anything rude — it's a frantic, claustrophobic song about ro…
QUEEN & DAVID BOWIE · 1981
: A near-accidental collaboration between two of rock's most theatrical forces, "Under Pressure" became one of the great improvised masterpi…
ULTRAVOX · 1980
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
"Vienna" isn't really a love letter to the Austrian capital at all — it's a song about a fleeting affair and a haunted memory, written by a …
RUN-DMC FEAT. AEROSMITH · 1986
NEW YORK CITY, USA
The song that "united rap and rock" was a collision nobody in the room actually wanted — Run-DMC reportedly hated the idea, Aerosmith were b…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1983
Beneath its irresistible groove, this is a furious song about gossip, paranoia, and being talked about behind your back — a young superstar …
BON JOVI · 1987
A power ballad disguised as a cowboy song, "Wanted Dead or Alive" is Bon Jovi's most enduring meditation on the loneliness of celebrity, ref…
GUNS N' ROSES · 1987
LOS ANGELES, USA
A snarling postcard from late-Reagan-era Los Angeles, "Welcome to the Jungle" turned a runaway teenager's first night on the Greyhound into …
PET SHOP BOYS · 1985
LONDON, UK
It sounds like a glossy ode to glamorous London nightlife, but "West End Girls" is really a tense, paranoid meditation on class, sex, violen…
U2 · 1987
A six-minute act of architectural longing, the opening track of The Joshua Tree begins not with a song but with a sustained sigh of synthesi…
U2 · 1987
A slow-burning anthem built on a single, hypnotic bass figure and a guitar that seems to bleed light, "With or Without You" arrived in 1987 …
BON JOVI · 1986
A power-pop missile disguised as a hard rock anthem, "You Give Love a Bad Name" was the song that detonated arena rock's commercial supernov…