Seemingly Inoffensive Pop Songs with Political Undertones.

Either mainstream pop with a wide appeal or music nerd pop.

Pixies - Here comes you man

About the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Nena - 99 Luftballons

Also about bombings and referential to the cold war.

Stereolab - Les Yper-Sound

About ethnocentric nationalism and fights over wealth and lands. Needless to point it out but most of Stereolab's lyrics have political overtones.

Johnny Hates Jazz own this thread

"I Don't Wanna Be a Hero" was all pretty much a pacifist anti-war song, while "Heart Of Gold" was about prostitution.

Stereolab - Ping Pong

About the hyperbolic failures of capitalist societies.

i like ping pong less now.

wiki says this baout HCYM

In an interview with NME, Francis commented on the meaning of the song: "It's about winos and hobos traveling on the trains, who die in the California Earthquake. Before earthquakes, everything gets very calm—animals stop talking and birds stop chirping and there's no wind. It's very ominous.
I've been through a few earthquakes, actually, 'cause I grew up in California. I was only in one big one, in 1971. I was very young and I slept through it. I've been awake through lots of small ones at school and at home. It's very exciting actually—a very comical thing. It's like the earth is shaking, and what can you do? Nothing."

The word "boxcar" was apparently a starting point for the song's lyrics, and Francis has suggested that this was in part inspired by the song "Carnival of Sorts (Box Car)" by R.E.M.: "I probably liked the word 'boxcar' because I heard it on the R.E.M. song, from their first record.

wiki says this baout HCYM

In an interview with NME, Francis commented on the meaning of the song: "It's about winos and hobos traveling on the trains, who die in the California Earthquake. Before earthquakes, everything gets very calm—animals stop talking and birds stop chirping and there's no wind. It's very ominous.
I've been through a few earthquakes, actually, 'cause I grew up in California. I was only in one big one, in 1971. I was very young and I slept through it. I've been awake through lots of small ones at school and at home. It's very exciting actually—a very comical thing. It's like the earth is shaking, and what can you do? Nothing."

The word "boxcar" was apparently a starting point for the song's lyrics, and Francis has suggested that this was in part inspired by the song "Carnival of Sorts (Box Car)" by R.E.M.: "I probably liked the word 'boxcar' because I heard it on the R.E.M. song, from their first record.

Francis has always been a tad contradictive and reclusive about explaining his lyrics, so he could be lying about it. I recall reading he has given 3 different explanations for the song.

Clues that this song might actually be about the Nagasaki bombing and not about winos and hobos (I wrote by mistake it was about the Hiroshima bombing upthread):

Bockscar was the name of the B-29 Bomber that dropped the bomb 'Fat Man' over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
If you read the lyrics they actually seem to depict a vivid imagery of a nuclear explosion, specially on the second verse ('a wind that makes the palms stop blowing', 'big big rock fall and break my crown').

Then, Francis lyrics were always cryptic and ambiguos so might mean anything.

My Guy is actually about the greatness of fundamentalist Mormonism.

How funny of them.

Midnight Oil - Beds are Burning

About giving a part of Australia back to the Aborigines and the discrimination they have experienced.

Undertones - It's Going to Happen: About the H-Blocks, and the Thatch response

I think of the pop songs of the mid-sixties such as "Dedicated to the One I Love", "Please Mr. Postman", and "Last Train to Clarksville" being about the draft and military service. Not necessarily political, but about a more specific situation than someone just being away or leaving.

yeah i was going to say midnight oil, they were pretty overt tho

http://www.kohila.com/you/research/sorry.jpg

The Specials - Ghost Town

About Maggie Thatchers policies in the 80s and how they were leading to high unemployment especially in northern manufacturing towns.

xpost: Yeah you're right, nothing subtle about their political stance. Scratch that one of the list.

Beach Boys' Kokomo - about covert CIA activities propping up corporate interests and "fighting communism"

Black Eyed Peas "Where Is The Love"

I thought "Ghost Town" was about fear of the race riots breaking out on the streets keeping people inside.

Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" is about the genocide in Darfur.

tears for fears, "everybody wants to rule the world"

Pet Shop Boys - "Shopping"

Here's the opposite to this thread:

Seemingly political lyrics that actually aren't.

Anyway, there a lot of soul tunes from the 1960s and 1970s with seemingly religious/spiritual or personal lyrics that actually refer to the civil rights struggle and its aftermath: "People Get Ready", "Respect", "Follow Me", "Keep on Pushing", "Backstabbers", etc.

Chumbawamba said "Tubthumping" is actually about being drunk and defiant no matter how hard the capitalist system tries to grind you down. I guess there's some credibility to that claim, considering they were always a staunchly leftist/anarchist pop band who just happened to have a chance hit with "Tubthumping", but I think that song has one of their least obviously political lyrics.

i don't know if the supremes' "reflections" has any political subtext on its own, but i will always associate it with the show china beach.

Lonesome Town is about Soviet era gulags.

Fuck me, I never suspected that anarchopunks Chumbawamba, first album Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, might've been slipping political messages into their light-hearted chart hits.

Maybe it was a bit unclear in my post, but what I meant is that most people who heard "Tubthumping" probably had no idea about Chumbawamba's past or politics, so them it was merely an inoffensive pop hit. And the lyrics are much less obviously political than with many other Chumbawamba tunes.

I mean, "I get knocked down, but I get up again" has many more possible interpretations than "give the fascist man a gunshot".

To be fair to Tuomas, Chumbawumba's political stance was pretty well known in the UK, but may have been less publicised in other countries.

I think in here the only people who knew anything about them were anarchists and leftists who were already into them before "Tubthumping". And it didn't help things that EMI censored the political liner notes (which they usually have in their album sleeves) from the US version of Tubthumper, as those notes would've explained what "Tubthumping" and others songs were about.

Hue and Cry - Labour of love.

Vince Vance & the Valiants, "Bomb Iran"

"The Man on the Burning Tightrope" by Firewater

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGEyWcUPOnM

assuming the lyrics are "Mama never told me... look out for the white man"

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