Musicians get away with a lot of shit by invoking artistic license. While misconceptions in music can elicit lively, interesting conversations and imaginative interpretations, all that wonderful conjecture is not entirely helpful when you still don’t know what the fuck Kelis is referring to when she talks about a “milkshake.” P&P decided to do a bit of investigating, looking into some mysteries in music that have plagued our pigeon brains. Here are 8 musical misconceptions and unknowns explained.
Got any musical mysteries you’d like us to investigate? Hit the comment section and let us know.
Hit “next” or click the pictures to read on…
Who is the country band that covered Snoop Dogg’s “Gin & Juice”?
Snoop Dogg’s 1994 classic “Gin & Juice” has inspired a number of covers, but if you’ve been jamming to that Phish version, you’ve been misled. It doesn’t exist. This “Phish cover” of Snoop’s “Gin & Juice” is actually by a Texas bluegrass band named The Gourd. As to why it’s been so consistently incorrectly named, the mystery still stands, but at least now you won’t sound stupid for crediting Phish. Blame Limewire.
What do the lyrics for Eiffel 65’s “Blue” mean?
Eiffel 65’s “Blue” is tacky 90s Eurodance at its best. We’ve sung along for years, but there’s still dispute over what the lyrics in the hook really are. “I’m blue/and I’m in need of a guy” and “I’m blue/if I were green I would die” are popular guesses, but Jeffrey Jey of the group confirmed in an interview that the lyrics are actually… well, meaningless. They’re just a string of noises – da ba dee da ba di, used because the group agreed that it was important for a hit song to be “something that everybody can actually sing” along to, removing any language barriers. As for the color choice, Jey reflected on the human condition and decided that humankind can be described in one word: blue.
What the hell is Kelis’ milkshake?
Kelis’ hypersexualized “Milkshake” is catchy as fuck. Hell, I still find myself jamming to it from time to time. But what is a “milkshake”? According to a 2004 interview, Kelis described a milkshake as “the thing that makes women special” and as what “gives [women their] confidence and what makes [them] exciting.” Further investigation with noted vault of knowledge urbandictionary.com turned up corroborating statements:
1. A whipped iced dairy drink, usually chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry.
2. A girl’s body and the way she carries it.
Given Kelis’ explanation, it’s unlikely that a bunch of women are actually luring guys to their yards with chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry whipped iced dairy drinks. Unlikely, but possible. So the question still (sorta) stands: what is this something special, Kelis? Is it a woman’s looks alone? Maybe it’s what she owns? Can it be an actual milkshake?
What does the F in “Weezy F” stands for?
Lil Wayne has often been accused of being incoherent in his lyrics, so fans and detractors alike have come to expect puzzling lines like “Weezy F Baby and the F is for phenomenal.” While we’re still not sure where the “F” in “phenomenal” is, Lil Wayne does clarify in Nicki Minaj’s “Go Hard” that the letter “F” in “Weezy F” actually stands for “a bunch of shit.” For those interested in what this “bunch of shit” may entail, XXL decided to unearth all possible meanings. Some F words include: FEMA (“Feel Me”), Forget it (“Hands Up”), FER-O-CIOUS (“We Be Steady Mobbin'”), and Fuck you gonna do? (“Oh Let’s Do It Freestyle”).
Did Stevie Nicks do cocaine from her…uh…other nose?
According to legend, Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac at one point took cocaine anally in order to get a good high, since she’d built up a high tolerance to snorting nose candy. That’s pretty hardcore of Nicks, and even though it’d be gross, there’s a part of you that wishes it were true. Well, it isn’t. Nicks has come out and publicly denied it. In the event that you were hoping that one of the old school rock stars really did do something this batshit crazy, you’re in luck. Rod Stewart has admitted that he used to take blow up his ass because he was concerned about damaging his nasal passages. So there’s that.
What the hell are the Killers talking about on “Human” and what’s up with Brandon Flowers’ grammar?
The Killers have a history of “thought-provoking” lyrics (“Somebody told me/that you have a boyfriend/who looked like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year”), but nothing took hold of the internet quite like Day & Age‘s “Human” did. Anal English majors and grammar enthusiasts alike were frustrated at the line, “Are we human/or are we dancer?” due to the fact that it’s grammatically incorrect. Yes, Brandon Flowers is aware of this. In an effort to quell the annoyance of their fans, the band’s official website has since tried to make sense of the line in question, explaining that these lyrics were inspired by a comment made by Hunter S. Thompson about how America was raising a “generation of dancers.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Flowers seemed irate over the subject, stating: “It’s supposed to be a dance song, [the beat] goes with the chorus…If you can’t put that together, you’re an idiot. I just don’t get why there’s a confusion about it.” Oh… well, this is awkward.
What does The Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” mean?
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” is fun to sing along to, and while the lyrics, too, may seem meaningless like those in Eiffel 65’s “Blue,” this set of seeming nonsense is, at very least, rooted in reality, inspired by an acquaintance of Paul McCartney. “Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra” was something that Jimmy Scott-Emuakpor, who McCartney knew from a nightclub he frequented, would say. McCartney thought to himself, “that’s a great saying,” and thus it became a Beatles song.
Oh, and how about “I Am The Walrus?”
Based on lyrics from “I Am the Walrus,” it ‘s unsurprising to discover that the song was the product of a few acid trips. It’s more exciting to discover that John Lennon was a serious troll in an age before the internet. Upon hearing that a teacher from his old high school was making his class analyze Beatles lyrics, Lennon decided to conjure up the least sensible lyrics, just to fuck with them. The first few lines, as explained by Lennon to Playboy in 1980, were thought of when he was high:
“The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko… I’d seen Allen Ginsberg and some other people who liked Dylan and Jesus going on about Hare Krishna. It was Ginsberg, in particular, I was referring to. The words ‘Element’ry penguin’ meant that it’s naïve to just go around chanting Hare Krishna or putting all your faith in one idol. In those days I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan.”
The song is actually comprised of fragments of three separate songs. The Beatles’ official biographer, Hunter Davies, was around during the writing process, recalling that Lennon wrote “another few words that day, just daft words, to put to another bit of rhythm” for the second segment of the song. The third part started with the phrase, “sitting in an English garden,” which Lennon repeated to himself until a melody came to him. The madness, meaning, and trolling of “I Am the Walrus” was compounded by The White Album‘s “Glass Onion,” on which Lennon sang: “I told you about the walrus and me, man/You know that we’re as close as can be, man/Well here’s another clue for you all/The walrus was Paul.”
