That moment when you realize a song has a not-so-hiddenmeaning you've been missing the whole time...

[Kooky]

I've been listening to Eddy Grant's Gimme Hope Jo'anna quite a few times in the past, but only now realized that it's a song decrying the South African Apartheid regime (and the titular "hope" is about its end):

Well Jo'anna she runs a country
She runs in Durban and the Transvaal
She makes a few of her people happy, oh
She don't care about the rest at all

She's got a system they call apartheid
It keeps a brother in a subjection
But maybe pressure will make Jo'anna see
How everybody could a live as one


I hear she makes all the golden money
To buy new weapons, any shape of guns
While every mother in black Soweto fears
The killing of another son

Sneakin' across all the neighbors' borders
Now and again having little fun
She doesn't care if the fun and games she play
Is dang'rous to ev'ryone


She's got supporters in high up places
Who turn their heads to the city sun
Jo'anna give them the fancy money
Oh, to tempt anyone who'd come

She even knows how to swing opinion
In every magazine and the journals
For every bad move that this Jo'anna make
They got a good explanation


Even the preacher who works for Jesus
The Archbishop who's a peaceful man
Together say that the freedom fighters
Will overcome the very strong

I wanna know if you're blind Jo'anna
If you wanna hear the sound of drum
Can't you see that the tide is turning
Oh don't make me wait till the morning come

Has this ever happened to you? Have you suddenly realized that a song you've been listening to for quite a few times had a meaning you never realized before?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Aloha Oe is about the forced removal during the American coup of the Hawaiian princess Liliʻuokalani, whom was extremely popular. It's a somber song and listening to it be sung for a bunch of tourists must feel very strange for those who remember its meaning.

 

[SomeRandom]

I think that happened with me as a kid traversing the (then fast becoming) mainstream raise of hip hop and gangster rap lol
As I got into my teen years most of the music I listened to had very clear politically charged lyrics though

 

[SigurdReginson]

None off the top of my head aside from the standard "Ring Around the Rosie" being about the black plague and "London Bridge is Falling Down" being about child sacrifice.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I think I know what Wynonnas Big Brown Beaver is about.

 

[Psalm23]

I've been listening to Eddy Grant's Gimme Hope Jo'anna quite a few times in the past, but only now realized that it's a song decrying the South African Apartheid regime (and the titular "hope" is about its end):

Has this ever happened to you? Have you suddenly realized that a song you've been listening to for quite a few times had a meaning you never realized before?

There is a song Walk like an Angel. I thought it was a sweet song until I heard the part about that called the person a devil.

 

[McBell]

 

[McBell]