Music Monday – Chorus Not The Title

STP 2008
Stone Temple Pilots live in September 2008

Have you ever sang along to a song and the chorus stands out with that repetitive catchy lyric? Then you go to try and find the song on Spotify or request it from the DJ on the local rock station based on what you assume is the song title.

For this edition of Music Monday, I discuss 4 songs that I’ve heard over the years where the song title doesn’t match the chorus.

Stone Temple Pilots “Big Empty”

The topic of the song is about a drunken girl and an opportunity missed, and the ethical process of driving the girl home. But no where in the song’s lyrics is the song’s title mentioned. I used to think that I heard the “Big Empty is” but that ended up being “Her dizzy head is conscience laden” I looked up several times what lead the title to be called “Big Empty” and some of the stories make sense, but this is one of those songs where the title if left to various interpretations.

Nazareth “Hair Of The Dog”

This Nazareth song, with it’s famous hook lyric [as the Wikipedia page for the band mentions] of “Now you’re messing with a Son of a bitch” uses a song title to explain drinking in the morning after a hard night of drinking the night before. Perhaps the person who was trying to show off his hair of the dog experience was really being just a son of a bitch.

The Who “Baba O’Riley”

The song title is named after Meher Baba, an Indian spiritual master and Terry Riley, an American musician. Originally planned for the Lifehouse project, the song ended up being the lead track on the 1971 album “Who’s Next”. The easily recognizable opening synthesizer is very familiar to anyone that has heard this song a million times [or pretty damn close to a million]. But it’s the chorus of “Teenage Wasteland” that confuses listeners on the real title of the song.

Led Zeppelin “Trampled Under Foot”

Most of the songs’ lyrics are about sex or sexual positions, which makes sense the chorus would be the oft repeated “Talking bout love” But there’s really no definition for why the title is called Trampled Under Foot. I mean, I get the sexual references. But under foot… and trampled for that matter, isn’t a metaphor for anything as far as I can determine. This song, released in 1975 on the Physical Graffiti album, gets played a lot on rock radio stations. So the next time you hear it, see if you can interpret your own meaning.

Other Songs

With the exception of pretty much every New Order song before their last studio release, what other songs come to mind where the chorus is mistaken for the song title?

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