So I Googled it. In all these years, I had no idea it contained the C word.

I love love love passionately their Personality album, but while I can work out what words they are saying, I have no idea what they're on about.

Sample lyric from You Needed More:
Is that your brother in undercover?
All through the summer, to slip at winter
It's unreturning, you don't deserve me
You don't confirm me

This interview doesn't clarify matters much either:

..ever. And I'm not being facetious - I love their stuff and having some idea what they're singing about would be nice, (though I imagine Pixies and glaciers feature largely). See also The Cocteaus.

I guess it would have to be Procol Harlem's A Whiter Shade Of Pale, haven't really a clue what it's about, but it still moves me very time I hear it.

...What's "mean" got to do with it? ;-)

is probably one of my favourite songs of all time but to this day - I haven't got a clue what Jagger's on about

"No show bitch are fishin'
Harbour feet a-twitchin'
Douchebag mice in a row"

Or something?

by R.E.M. off Reckoning is up there with the best of their catalogue, which makes it pretty much perfect, but have I got a clue what the words are? I have not.

Neither does Stipe, apparently. True.

Michaelangelo by Emmylou Harris

Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were older
You were looking like Picasso
With a scar across your shoulder
You were kneeling by the river
You were digging up the bodies
Buried long ago
Michelangelo

Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed you were a pilgrim
On a highway out alone to find
The mother of your children
Who were still unborn and waiting
In the wings of some desire
Abandoned long ago
Michelangelo

Were you there at Armageddon
Was Paris really burning
Could I have been the one to pull you
From the point of no returning
And did I hear you calling out my name
Or was it forgotten long ago
Michelangelo

Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were riding
On a blood-red painted pony
Up where the heavens were dividing
And the angels turned to ashes
You came tumbling with them to the earth
So Far below
Michelangelo

Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you lay dying
In a field of thorn and roses
With a hawk above you crying
For the warrior slain in battle
From an arrow driven deep inside you
Long ago
Michelangelo

Did you suffer at the end
Would there be no-one to remember
Did you banish all the old ghosts
At the terms of your surrender
And could you hear me calling out your name
Well I guess that I will never know
Michelangelo

Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were weeping
And your tears poured down like diamonds
For a love beyond all keeping
And you caught them one by one
In a million silk bandannas that I gave you
Long ago
Michelangelo

In the 80's Maxell used this concept as the basis for an ad campaign. Very funny, I thought.

First We Take Manhatten - Leonard Cohen

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I don't like your fashion business mister
And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin
I don't like what happened to my sister
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I'd really like to live beside you, baby ...

And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now I'm ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

I am guided

Ah remember me, I used to live for music
Remember me, I brought your groceries in
Well it's Father's Day and everybody's wounded
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

..by Steely Dan is, to me, impenertratable.
I know it's kinda hip, I know it's sorta cool, but what's it all about?

with Steely Dan, they are trying to be obtuse. But at least there is some meaning, even if it's a bit cryptic.

Imagine what 'Tie me kangaroo down sport' means to the average American. :-))

..not sure there IS any real meaning, to Americans or otherwise.
It doesn't really spoil my enjoyment of the records, I was just making an observation.
I don't really know what (if anything) "Desolation Row" means either, but I still love it.

well, which songs in particular are you referring to?

I agree with you on Desolation Row

..what ANY Dan song is "about", but as you say, that's probably the whole point.

...I'm starving for me gravy

Of course...answer...Bowie..etc

What a great song, though.

to be great.

Yoda.

Even if you cannot understand the words the meaning is always - sex.

..even "Close To The Edge"?

John Martyn. First few 'folk' albums, no real problem. But from Bless The Weather onwards, what the hell was he saying? This isn't a criticism because I love his style of singing and really miss the anticipation of another album coming out. The positive thing is that we can all sign-along-a-John, even if we don't know the words.

this is rich, folks..

Better than the original lyric by a mile.

The first album, August And Everything After. Love it to bits but I've no idea what most of it's about.

"Complainte Pour Ste Catherine" off the McGarrigles first album when it was played on Radio One in 74-75 whenever.
I hadn't a clue what the words even were or what it was about until I became possibly the last person ever to get connected to the the www.interwenbnet.
Having had a peek, I think it's about hookers in Montreal. I hope so anyway
Does anyone still have that "Exile" flexidisc the NME gave away? I have but it's in a lock-up in Blackburn, or rather it probably isn't now as I gave up paying the standing order

“THE CLAW! THE CLAW! THE CLAW! THE CLAW! YOU KNOW WHAT THE CLAW IS FOR!” bellows Lemmy Kilmiister at the conclusion of The Claw - a characteristic pedel to the metal Motörhead track that rises from the smouldering pig iron of the Orgasmatron album.

The trouble is that I don’t know what it’s for. I am like the man in the song who, having failed to comprehend the power of The Claw, comes off second best to the weather-beaten, mutton-chopped front man.

Looking at it logically, The Claw implies some kind of hand or foot-like appendage, capable of a grasping or rending action - a weapon of some kind perhaps.

Maybe it’s more ceremonial - a lucky charm like a rabbit’s foot. Or in this case, a dessicated demon talon that reaches down from the leather chord, binding it around your neck, and guides your motorcycle to Valhalla, while you recline on the seat and drink the blood of your enemies from a goblet fashioned from a wolf’s skull.

The song ends with Lemmy and an unnamed lady performing the “horizontal dance”. It is possible that The Claw is a sexual position, or some implement of carnal pleasure. I live in fear that a sexual partner will ask me to perform The Claw on them and I won’t know what to do, and will be asked to leave their bedroom in disgrace, naked apart from my socks.

Once I broached the possible subject of The Claw with a friend, hoping that he would be able to provide some hitherto undiscovered insight. He scoffed derisively as if I was unworthy of the knowledge. Later I realised that this was a ruse to cover his own ignorance. Like stonemasonry and butter churning, the traditions of The Claw have been reduced to a quaint folk art. I am but one of a whole generation of men have forgotten its power. Heaven help us if there’s a war.