11 Songs With Hidden Meanings
8. Goo Goo Dolls - Slide
The lyrics to Slide, featured in the 1998 album Dizzy Up the Girl, seem to have a straightforward meaning. However, frontman Johnny Rzeznik doesn’t believe most people understood what the song was about.
In an episode of VH1’s Storytellers in 2002, Rzeznik explains that Slide is a song about abortion. A teenage couple find out that the girl, who was raised a strict Catholic, is pregnant.
The boy then reflects on their options. Either get an abortion - “Don’t you love the life you killed?” - or get married: “Do you wanna get married or run away?”. Moreover, the girl’s father is a priest and her mother has disowned her: “The priest is on the phone, your father hit the wall, your ma disowned you”.