Some
song meanings are fairly obvious. For example, everyone pretty much
figured that Gordon Lightfoot was singing about a vessel that sank in
Lake Superior in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but some
references aren’t as clear unless you know the backstory. Here are some
hit songs and the notable stories behind them.
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| When actor Richard Harris recorded a 7-minute version of MacArthur Park
in 1968, it went to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart in the U.S. Just
10 years later, Donna Summer’s disco version went all the way to No. 1.
It turns out that composer Jimmy Webb used to spend a lot of time at San
Francisco’s MacArthur Park, often meeting his girlfriend, Susan Horton,
there for lunch. After they broke up, Webb would go to the park and
watch all the happy people picnicking, while he wallowed in his misery.
One afternoon, he observed a birthday party in the park. A sudden
cloudburst soaked an elaborately decorated cake that had been set out,
and inspiration struck. |
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| The story behind the Aerosmith song Dude Looks Like a Lady
starts in a bar. It seems that Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler was in a bar
late one night and was about to comment on an attractive woman, when he
realized it was actually Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe. Steven joked to his
pals, “that dude looks like a lady” and that quickly became the
catchphrase around their table for the rest of the evening and the
inspiration for the hit song. |
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The lyrics of Neil Diamond’s Cracklin’ Rosie
seem to indicate that she was a “lady of the evening,” but it turns out
that the Rosie in question is actually liquor. When Diamond was touring
through Canada in the late 1960s, he happened to hear about some First
Nations tribes where the men outnumbered the women by a large
percentage. The men who were alone on Saturday nights soothed their
loneliness with a special fortified homemade wine similar to rosé.
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| Sharona
Alperin (on the cover and inset today) was just 16 years old when Doug
Fieger walked into the clothing store where she worked part-time. He was
with a girlfriend, but introduced himself to the high school girl
anyway and invited her to come see his band, The Knack, at a local
showcase they were playing. Fieger ditched his girlfriend shortly after
and began pursuing Sharona, even though he was 9 years older and she had
a steady boyfriend. Nevertheless, she dropped in on her lunch hour to
hear the band rehearsing and they began playing an unfinished tune that
featured her name in the chorus: “my-my-my Sharona.” A year later,
Sharona invited Doug home to meet her parents, and once they determined
that he was a “nice boy,” they gave their permission to let their
17-year-old tour the world with The Knack. Fieger and Alperin dated for 4
years, and even though they eventually married other people, they
remained friends. She was at his bedside as he was dying from lung
cancer in 2010. |
