10 Weirdest Rock Songs That Became Hits
6. Turning Japanese - The Vapors
As punk found its way into the '80s, the class of '77 was starting to turn a corner a little bit. Once the post punk genre started to take over, we were about to go all in on the new wave style of rock and roll, with bands like Devo and Blondie getting on the air with some more off the wall ideas. There was still room for some punk rock though, but the Vapors gave us a bit of curve ball on Turning Japanese.
While it's gone down in rock and roll legend that this song is about masturbation, the band have always denied the rumors, saying that there's no vulgar connotations in the song. That's fine, but that begs one question: what the hell is the song about, then? When you first listen to the lyrics, it seems that it's just about being alone and having nothing to do, but the chorus throws everything out of whack, complete with the Eastern sounding riff and talking about changing your race.
What we end up getting is a song that seems to be on the verge of something and then going completely bonkers whenever it gets to the chorus. If we took the topics of boredom on their own, this would be the perfect song for the pop punk crowd a few years later. The people are here for the chorus though, and they will be trying to solve this puzzle for years to come.