Interpretation is a concept that has been widely discussed in most humanities disciplines. It’s a complex concept that hasn’t always been used in exactly the same way in every article. However, most scholars in the field of humanities generally agree that individuals’ interpretation of any type of intellectual work like novels, movies, popular songs or paintings can be different and that each person’s interpretation depends, for example, on the person’s personality, social status, gender and age.
However, people will often agree on an interpretation of certain works and in various cases on an interpretation that even goes against what the author of the work intended to convey. This has happened no less when it comes to popular songs. There are many examples where the text of popular songs, their message, content and spirit have been misunderstood by a large number of listeners even for years. Below are some examples of well-known Icelandic and foreign folk songs that have been quite misunderstood.
They are not released in any particular order, but include the performers’ names and the year of release.
Who Let the Dogs Out – Baha Men (1999)
The song was very popular and was one of the best-selling singles in the world at the time. This song was and was new enough to be filmed at sporting events. As often happens, most people knew the main phrase of the accompaniment, which is the same as the title of the song. Many people took the song at face value and thought it was about letting dogs out in the wild.
A 2019 documentary of the same title as the song clarifies that the song is and always was intended to be feminist with the intention of criticizing men shouting sexist words at women in public. This seems obvious when referring to the lyrics of the song, but it says, among other things, in a journalist’s very rough translation:
The party was good, the party was tight and everyone had a great time. Until the guys started calling and the girls answered, I heard a woman yell: who let the dogs out?
Nina’s Dream – Eyjólfur Kristjánsson and Stefán Hilmarsson (1991)
This song is one of the Icelandic Eurovision songs that Icelanders have adopted the most. The song is often sung at gatherings and parties, usually with cheerful energy.
The song is sung to a dead woman, and when the power increases over time, it is simply because the singer is expressing his anguish and desire for the dead woman to rise from the dead and return to him.
It can therefore be said that the lyrics of the song were not misunderstood, but rather its content and spirit. A song about a deceased person should, at first glance, hardly be the subject of happy and festive songs. In this way, the song actually acquired a new life that the author, Eyjólfur Kristjánsson, may not have anticipated.
A dream about Nina is therefore an example that popular songs as well as other works of art can often take on an independent life in ways that their authors could not have imagined. While this new life isn’t exactly in perfect harmony with the original lyrics and content of the song, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Macarena – Los Del Rio (1996)
It was one of the most popular songs in the world in 1996 and topped the charts in many countries. A dance of the same name accompanied the song, which was danced to enthusiastically around the world. Many listeners saw the song as an innocent and fun dance song without any particular undertones.
The song was released in several versions, but the one that received the most distribution was sung in English and Spanish, but Los Del Río was a Spanish duo. Perhaps this fact caused the meaning of the text to be a bit exaggerated for many listeners. The song is about a young woman, who has the same name as the song, who cheats on her boyfriend with two of his friends while he is away doing his military service.
At one point in the song, it is said that while the boyfriend is sworn in as the new soldier, the Macarena entertains his friends. In the last verse of the song, Macarena is dying to move to New York and seduce a man to become her new boyfriend.
Sodom – Jon’s Soul (1992)
The song was written especially for the film Sodóma Reykjavík, which premiered this year. The Sodom the song and film refer to is a party place where the music plays, the rhythms dance, and the booze flows. The song speaks lyrically of what can be experienced in Sodom.
Entrepreneur Brynja Dan talked about it in an interview with K100 two years ago, however, she had long misunderstood the song, and according to a poll she did on her Instagram page, she was by no means the only one. She said she had been singing “Svo kom A” for twenty years instead of Sodom, which is the word sung between the verses. She says other people sang “Skot og mark” and thought the song was somehow about football.
Blackbird – The Beatles (1968)
For a long time, the song was taken at face value and considered to be about the flight of a beautiful bird.
However, it was intended as an anthem to the struggle for the human rights of black Americans, especially women, but in Britain, the band’s country of origin, at that time the word bird was used as a term for slang for women, by men. If men were talking about birds, they were more likely to be talking about women than bird watching. Singing on Blackbird, it really referenced black women.
In the song, “the bird” is encouraged to take flight, but it was an allegory, but the motivation was to fight for your rights and flee oppression.
Paul McCartney, one of the songwriters, described it on that the song is inspired in particular by the struggle of a group of nine young black students from the State of Arkansas in the United States, who fought for the abolition of racial segregation in the school system of the state. The group put themselves in great danger with their struggle.
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