58 Comments
author

hey since a lot of you sickos scroll past the intro to get right to the bangers, allow me to reintroduce THE VERY GOOD DEAL that between now and tomorrow you can get 23% off any subscription 4 lyfe: https://botharetrue.substack.com/save_the_marriage

Expand full comment
May 16, 2023Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Thank you for the reminder. Paid subscriber now.

Expand full comment
author

THANK YOU!

Expand full comment
May 17, 2023Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

I can't pass up a bargain like this, I've been freeloading for too long - subscribed!

Expand full comment
author

thank you!

Expand full comment

Your mind is not thoroughly blown yet: Rupert Holmes was in a band called The Buoys (hey, they could’ve started out as The Sadbois) and they did a song called “Timothy” that is reeeeeeallly sick! About cannibalism!

Expand full comment
author

hahahaha wtf RUPERT ARE YOU OK

Expand full comment

The jury’s still out... 😑

Expand full comment

Listen to "answering machine" and "him" and you might see how demented his love life really was...

Expand full comment

Bahahah. I never knew any of the words except the chorus. What a revelation! But I may be optimistic like Lauren. Even though it wasn't said, maybe they were just roleplaying. This song makes me think of Kate Bush's Babooshka, also about infidelity, also about husband finding out he has been adulterous with his wife all along! Also, you know The Police's Every Breath You Take is about stalking, right, right?! It's not romantic!

Expand full comment
author

WHAT I did not know that about every breath you take haha but like ibviously its right there in the title!!

excited to listen to babooshka

Expand full comment

Well now you know. It's a creepy song. Hahah.

Expand full comment
May 16, 2023Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

The one song that I didn't realize was very much about doing hard drugs until I was much older was "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind

Expand full comment
author

whoaaaaa what the fuck. maybe I can do a post on all the songs that are actually about doing drugs. my fav is 'perfect day' by lou reed which is his love song to smack

Expand full comment

That was truly hilarious.

Expand full comment
author

🧡

Expand full comment

1. Yes. I knew, but I did not care.

2. Sure they are. They're fictional characters!

3. I'm sorry - that's classified.

4. Uh... "Stairway To Heaven," and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (look it up - it's a vampire song).

Expand full comment
author

wait what's stairway to heaven about ????

Expand full comment

I don’t know. I just know it’s not about anything I ever thought it was about.

Expand full comment
May 16, 2023·edited May 16, 2023Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Omg this song is a retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story “The Offshore Pirate”

Expand full comment
author

i'm almost certain Fitzgerald based his story on this song

Expand full comment

Maybe…both are true?

Expand full comment
author

this coincidence is actually what inspired the name for this substack! I was reading about how Rupert Holmes and F. Scott Fitzgerald inspired each other's work and I said, 'both are true'

Expand full comment

I had a very similar discussion with book club just a couple weeks ago, when someone forced us to sit still and listen closely to the lyrics. I had NO IDEAAAAAAA

Expand full comment
author

hahaahah

Expand full comment
May 16, 2023Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

HA! I have known this, about this song, for a while...but will admit that I sang it for many years and the words did not sink in. I now refer to it as "The Philanderer Song". Thank you for the laugh out loud synopsis. This is the essay I didn't know was missing from my life! :)

Expand full comment
author

hahaha 🧡🧡🧡

Expand full comment

As Nietzsche once said: “God is dead. We killed him when we all sang that piña colada song.” LMAO! In HS, rumor had it that My Sharona was about The Knack's dick. (Not collectively of course; the lead singer, Sadboi's cousin?)

Expand full comment
author

hahah whaaaaat ! it looks like the truth is actually even worse https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124397021

Expand full comment

Wo! Love that this was an NPR story. hehehe.

Expand full comment

This cracked me up. Dozens of times. I've read between the lines on this song for years and it's truly twisted. "Dull routine? Then spice things up. Go see a play. Make jambalaya. Do you even know what her love language is? Brother, get yourself together."

Expand full comment
author

thank you!!!

Expand full comment

“What if I love to do sex on the beach but in the morning? Not interested.” Lololol. Also: “Yea I wrote this song lol” 😂😂 My high school friends had this convo in the (early) nineties (!) but your recap is hilarious 👑👌

Expand full comment

I once stood in the rain for 45 minutes outside the Dew Drop Inn, a bar in the west village, feeding coins into the payphone, hoping he’d pick up and explain why he was so late for our date. A lady walked by and muttered, “Honey he’s not worth it.”

Expand full comment

I drove my ass across the great state of NY every other weekend FOR A YEAR for some guy who I didn't remember meeting because I was wasted and who told me he was never going to get married. I'm talking about 500 miles round trip. Including during the WINTER.

And then I moved in with him and then married him.

Incidentally we met 20 years ago this month. Which I don't remember.

Expand full comment

if thats not a song its a jim carey movie for sure!!!

Expand full comment

Except for the fact that it didn't come out until a couple of years later, you would have aced my 1977 Grade 11 / Junior High School English class. Our teacher, Mr. O'Donnell, wasn't into the poetry curriculum. He'd played in a band in college, so instead of us interpreting the school district's chosen poems, he brought his guitar and played songs by Don Maclean. I've been a fan of Vincent van Gogh ever since. If you were in the class, and if the song had come out in 1976, and if you wrote this as your interpretation, Mr. O'Donnell would have nominated you for student of the year.

My only criticism of your work is that the song is now stuck in my head. I'll probably be mixing piña coladas soon... Happy weekend!

Expand full comment

I don't know if this counts since the lyrics hd to be changed prior to its release but Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" was originally about anal sex. Pretty provocative for 1955. Also, "Lucille" was about a drag queen (as Little Richard also had a short career as a drag queen prior to fame.) https://songsthatsavedyourlife.substack.com/p/no1-tutti-frutti-little-richard

Expand full comment