(Via Bustle)
by Gabrielle Moss
Being confused about what pop songs are really about is as much of an adolescent rite of passage as your first awkward school dance or your first patch of unmanageable bodily hair. The world of love, rage, and other adult emotions is so new and confusing at that age, that it’s often tough to suss out what the lyrics of songs meant in the ’90s — particularly when your own universe of emotional and romantic experience only extends to a never-acted-upon crush on your Earth Science Lab partner (Brent, are you reading this? I filled in our geode worksheets for you!).
But sometimes, the real meanings of these songs continue to evade us well into adulthood — either because we’ve stayed immature, or because the song’s true lyrical content is so complicated and obscure, you’d have to be some kind of loser willing to devote hours of her life to sifting through video interviews with members of Goo Goo Dolls, just to figure it out.
Well, luckily for you, I am exactly that kind of loser! And via my loserdom, I bring you 11 songs from your younger years whose true meanings you almost definitely missed (probably because you were busy doing that “circle sway” dance to them).
So read on, and find out how your parents were wrong about the sexual depravity of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who was actually getting kicked out during “Closing Time,” and what unit of measurement an “mmmbop” qualifies as.
