10 Songs That Are Darker Than You Realize
A Little Scary Under the Surface.
Any good song doesn't need good lyrics to get your attention. In the grand scheme of pop music, if you have a good enough beat and melodic structure, the words don't really have to mean anything at the end of the day. Not paying attention to what's actually going on though can be a bit of a mixed blessing.
Since no one bothers to focus on the words, most artists have been able to slip anything under our noses whether we knew it or not. Instead of just the ordinary club jam or pop banger you might be listening to, even a casual look at the lyrics may be about anything from murder to drug use to even death at the worst of times.
Then again, there's still something about these melodies that keeps us coming back for more. Regardless of the dirty or insane lyrics on top of everything, each of these songs have held up as classics in their own right, even if you shouldn't take their messages to heart.
From the worlds of punk to classic rock to straight up pop music, these are the songs that will send shivers down your spine once you actually have the lyric sheet in front of you. They might sound happy on the surface...just proceed with caution though.
10. Jump - Van Halen
When talking to the Van Halen community, there tends to be two categories of fans: ones who like Jump and ones who can't stand it. Though this wasn't the first time Van Halen had entered the realm of keyboards, the booming Casio at the forefront of this tune led many to believe that the kings of hair metal had sold out. Or maybe they were just compensating for the twisted tale happening in the lyrics.
For most of the verses, David Lee Roth's lyrics are just the sort of quippy banter you've come to expect from him at this point, and yet there's something about the use of the word 'jump' that puts us a little on edge. When speaking about it after the fact, Roth actually said that the inspiration for the lyrics came from a news story he was watching at the time where a man was threatening to kill himself by jumping off the top of a building.
Advocating for the more macabre ending, this song gets ten times more morbid once you realize that the "might as well jump" line might actually be endorsing suicide in this scenario. While the EDM style backing track might be fun for the time being, ignorance may be bliss when it comes to breaking down the where and when of jumping.