Music is the universal language that tickles everyone’s ears, regardless of genre preference. Music always has a story, whether one weaved through it or one behind it. Here are a few facts that’ll leave your mouth hanging open and contemplating whether your entire life has been a lie.
- Who Let The Dogs Out Is A Feminist Anthem?
This chant-like tune from Baha Men, released in the late 1990s and early 2000s and gained popularity soon enough, may have been misunderstood by many. The song has often been considered one of the catchiest songs of its time, a tune Rolling Stone once dubbed as the third most annoying song ever (behind only “Macarena” by Los Del Rio and “My Humps” by Black Eyed Peas.)
Who let the dogs out? Here’s what Anslem Douglas, the original writer of this song, has to say:
“It’s a man-bashing song. When I said the word ‘party’, I was being metaphorical. It means things were going great. ‘Until the men start the name-callin’ / And then the girls respond to the call.'”
“So the men started calling the women ‘skank’ and ‘skettel,’ every dirty word you can think of. The men started the name-calling, and then the girls responded to the call. And then a woman shouts out, ‘Who let the dogs out?’”
- A Deodorant Was Behind The Success Of Smells Like Teen Spirit
Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of the feminist punk band Bikini Kill and a close friend of Kurt Cobain, shared a rather wild anecdote from the early ’90s. In those days, she and Kurt decided to engage in some pranks, mainly targeting what she called a “fake abortion clinic.” They got creative with some spray paint and inscribed slogans on the walls, including the memorable “GOD IS GAY,” which Cobain apparently wrote in large letters (they were smarter than we are now).
Their mischievous activities coincided with a day filled with drinking, and it didn’t end well for Hanna. She recounted the story during a live show for Our Hit Parade in 2010, admitting that she had insulted almost everyone in her town, even throwing up on someone’s legs. It was one of those nights that you cringe about later and prefer not to dwell on.
Hanna’s wild night didn’t end there, she found herself at Cobain’s apartment, where things turned chaotic. She began to smash up some things and, armed with a Sharpie marker, proceeded to write all sorts of things on his bedroom wall. After this artistic rampage, she passed out with the marker in her hand and woke up with one of those legendary hangovers where you dread what you might discover in the next room.
To Hanna’s surprise, six months later, Kurt Cobain called her up and mentioned that fateful night. He wanted to use something she had scrawled on his wall as a lyric in one of his songs. Still reeling from the memories of that night, Hanna agreed, thinking, “As long as I can get out of this conversation, I’m totally cool. You can use whatever you want.” Little did she know that this “Kurt smells like teen spirit” graffiti would become a legendary lyric. Ironically, Cobain had no idea it was inspired by a deodorant brand worn by his then-girlfriend, Tobi Vail (who also happened to play drums in Bikini Kill), whom he smelled like.
Ahhh, smells like teen spirit 😉
- Pearl Jam’s Jeremy is a revealing historical masterpiece about WHAT?
Pearl Jam’s haunting and beautifully written song, Jeremy, is a track deeply immersed in sorrow and tragedy. This song, featured on the band’s iconic 1991 album “Ten,” remains one of their most cherished works. Back in 1992, it was nearly impossible to flip through MTV channels without coming across the music video for Jeremy, a video that left a profound impact on the hearts and minds of an entire nation.
Despite its popularity and acclaim, Jeremy is rooted in a tragic real-life event. The song is inspired by the heart-wrenching story of Jeremy Wade Delle, a 15-year-old sophomore who, in 1991, took a high-caliber gun to his school. However, rather than targeting his schoolmates, as we unfortunately see all too often in modern times, he turned the gun on himself, taking his own life in front of his English class at Richardson High School.
Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, learned of this tragic incident one day while casually reading the Dallas Morning News. The newspaper report described how Jeremy, who had missed class, was instructed by his second-period English teacher to obtain an admittance slip from the school office. Tragically, instead of following these instructions, Jeremy returned with the gun and, without warning, walked to the front of the classroom, stating, “Miss, I got what I really went for,” before ending his own life with a self-inflicted gunshot.
In the original music video for the song, an actor was depicted putting a gun in his mouth, aiming to convey the profound tragedy of Jeremy Delle’s suicide. However, when the video was broadcast in 1992, this scene was edited out, leaving a lingering misinterpretation of Jeremy as a song about a school shooting, not a suicide.
This tragic misperception has forever coloured the understanding of the song and contributed to its reputation as one of the most misunderstood tracks in rock history. Many casual listeners believe it to be about a school shooting rather than a devastating act of self-harm.
- Your fav Yesterday by the Beatles had a little (just a little) different lyrics
“I woke up one morning with a tune in my head,” Paul said, “and I thought, ‘Hey, I don’t know this tune — or do I?’ It was like a jazz melody. My dad used to know a lot of old jazz tunes; I thought maybe I’d just remembered it from the past. I went to the piano and found the chords to it, made sure I remembered it and then hawked it round to all my friends, asking what it was: ‘Do you know this? It’s a good little tune, but I couldn’t have written it because I dreamt it.’”
The set of placeholder words that he used for a reasonable amount of time for the tune was: “Scrambled eggs… oh, my baby, how I love your legs…”
Paul McCartney singing “Scrambled Eggs” with Jimmy Fallon
Over the course of several months, the song remained a work in progress. Every time McCartney and John Lennon sat down to write songs for a recording session, this one would resurface. They were close to completing it, with McCartney contributing most of the lyrics, but the elusive title remained a challenge. It became a running joke between them, and they jokingly referred to it as “Scrambled Eggs.” They were determined to find a one-word title that would fit better but struggled to find the right word.
Eventually, it was John Lennon who, according to McCartney, suggested “Yesterday” as a replacement for “Scrambled Eggs.” The late Beatles producer George Martin had to convince McCartney that Yesterday was a fitting title, even though McCartney initially thought it might be too cliché. Fortunately, Martin’s persuasion prevailed (for their sake and ours).
5.Girls Just Want to Have Fun was written by.… a boy.
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” stands as a global anthem for women, but it might come as a surprise that Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 chart-topping hit, which reached No. 2, was not penned by a woman.
This iconic song, with multiple Grammy nominations, an MTV Video Award, and a permanent spot on the airwaves, was actually written by a man named Robert Hazard, who put together a demo in 1979. While the lyrics in Hazard’s version were quite similar to the hit version by Lauper, they were narrated from the perspective of a young man navigating life. The underlying message was a commentary on changing times: “The phone rings in the middle of the night / My father says, My boy, what do you want from your life? / Father, dear, you are the fortunate one / Girls just wanna have fun.”
Hazard frequently included “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” in his live performances. Lauper’s producer, Rick Chertoff, accompanied her to one of Hazard’s shows. However, Lauper wasn’t particularly enthralled by what she witnessed, primarily due to her concerns about the song’s lyrics, which seemed to suggest that women’s happiness was solely tied to their sex lives.
“Every time we want to have fun, we’re whores,” Lauper said in Let the Canary Sing, a 2023 documentary about her life. If she was going to record this song, she wanted to a transformation about the message it relegated.
“So I began to cut this out, cut that out, this needs a melody here, make this change, bring this together. Say, ‘Oh, mama, dear, we’re not the fortunate ones / ‘Cause girls want to have fun’ — and we can’t,” Lauper recalled to PBS’ Finding Your Roots. “All of a sudden, it had this new life.”
In the video for the song, Lauper strived to maintain the same spirit. In her own words to People in 2023, she expressed her heartfelt intent: “I was determined to create an anthem that could empower women and welcome all women through its doors, not just a specific group but every young girl out there, allowing them to envision a joyful life”, and that she did.
It’s always fun to learn more about your favourite songs and singers. We at Drocer Record certainly love researching these facts! Keep an eye out for part 2 of this! Let us know if you have any musical facts that interest you.
