What song you can't believe you were singing as a kid and nobody stopped you?
In my case I'll say either Bloodhound Gang's The Bad touch or Aqua's Barbie Girl.
I mean.. what the hell is "hanky panky".
But for bonus points, I did also sing "take a walk on the wild side~" with no flying clue what "giving head" was supposed to be.
My stepson was always singing I Will Survive. Mentioned that was sorta the gay anthem. He was horrified. So he started singing YMCA instead.
That punchline got me real good.
Call me crazy, but him being horrified by that sounds like bad parenting...
Back when I took singing lessons my teacher (who mostly taught kids but I was an adult learner) shared that she often had to veto the songs kids wanted to sing. One in particular that stuck with me was a less than 10 year old who wanted to sing Lady Gaga’s Love Game. Which has the lyric “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick” among other very adult lyrics.
Those lyrics are more spoken than sung, so for music lessons, that makes sense.
For some reason I Don't Like Mondays was popular with my parents when I was a kid and I remember singing it sometimes. Turns out it's about an actual school shooting and not just disliking Mondays.
Like "pump up kicks" though that's more obvious.
I think "I want to shoot the whole school down" isn't terribly subtle, but Pumped Up Kicks definitely spells it out for you.
It did have a pretty catchy chorus.
Turns out it's about an actual school shooting and not just disliking Mondays.
Back when a school shooting was actually something to write a song about.
All the Linkin Park songs.
After he hung himself, it all makes sense.
Yeah that one was weird. Like the dude was always singing about being horrifically depressed, and then when he hung himself it was like surprised Pikachu face
In The End, Numb, Crawling, One Step Closer, Runaway, Place for My Head… motherfucker I hadn’t really thought to much about it before
OPP. - Naughty By Nature
Yeah you know me!
Sweet Transvestite from RHPS lol. My mom played magenta for many years
My sister loved that movie as a kid.
Mezmerize was one of the first albums I ever owned around age 9. I knew almost every song by heart and would constantly sing along to them in the car. I have a vivid memory of singing this song in particular in the parking lot of the local mall when my dad finally decided to tell me what "cock" meant.
Edit meant to reply to the thread not your comment.
You're telling me Serj wasn't singing about a rooster??!
Ring Around the Rosie
Independence Day by Martina McBride is about murdering an abusive husband by setting the house on fire.
The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia is about murder
Two.
*And his cheating wife had never left town
And that's one body that'll never be found*
Cum on Feel the Noize
Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran
Clarence Carter - Strokin
Bobby Brown - Humpin Around
My Dingaling by Chuck Berry
Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band
I was 5 when it came out.
I’m sorry for violating your criteria, but…
6th grade, gym class, we are all doing this new thing called “aerobics” and that hot new song on the radio is playing. The song with the chorus “My angel is a centerfold”.
Then again, that’s the year we had sex-ed, so we kids knew that adults sexually lusted after each other, so … 🤷
When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, the gym teacher would play Mambo # 5 all the time... a song about boinking a different woman every day of the week.
Oh god, unrelated but more cringe school song memories: Assembly before high school prom introduced the football team for some reason.
To... let the bodies hit the floor, followed by I Stand Alone, which does not make any fucking sense as football is a team sport.
Ugh.
That would be 'Centrefold' by J. Geils Band
When I was a kid I had a few albums of french singer Renaud who was a bit of an anarchist. So naturally the first CD I got next Christmas was a live album of his, which starts with a song called "where did I put my gun". It's uh... Maybe his most savage ever, with gems such as :
Good times...
Wild Thing by Tone Loc
"Tone, let me tell you one thing I need fifty dollars to make you holler, I get paid to do the wild thing"
Barbie Girl is cool though
Next - Too Close
I recall my friends and I singing some of these lyrics when we were 11-12 with zero idea that it's blatantly about a hard dick. The radio channel that played it didn't come in too well where I lived, so we didn't know 99% of the song, only the melody.
When I was a kid, Strokin’ by Clarence Carter was a super popular wedding song (at least where I grew up) and it had a fun line dance so we all knew every word and had no idea what it was about.
Dance Ten, Looks Three from A Chorus Line.
I'll let you look it up. My relatives thought it was hilarious.
It's pretty straightforward but I had to look it up: https://oldtimemusic.com/the-meaning-behind-the-song-dance-ten-looks-three-by-audrey-landers/
It's amusing to me that overview never mentions the rather catchy hook (which was cause to clutch pearls in the era).
The version I grew up with on Youtube. Later versions softened the delivery a bit, but... yeah.
My dad was very irresponsible and taught me "Blind Man's Penis" when I was a kid. Cue the looks of horror on everyone's faces when I sang it out loud... not that I was totally unaware of why!
The only artist I can think of where I did this is Dr. Bombay.
A Swede/Dane pretending to be Indian doing a lot of crazy stuff.
What is probably his most well known song is Taxi, taxi, taxi! Where he sings about being a blind taxi driver in Calcutta, the music video was recorded in Malaysia:
Then there is this song about him taking over a relative's restaurant, notice the frogs os in the soundtrack....
Then he made this sexist song about how he want a wife who cleans, cooks and washes laundry for him, it is made with humor, so how serious it is I can't say:
There are more songs by this character, but the guy behind him then invented the same character to Dr. Mcadoo a crazy scotsman...
This time the songs where more focused on partying:
So a bit more generic...
Then he reinvented himself again into a carzy Mexican called Carlito.
I have not found any live action music videos by that character.
Here is his most well known song as far as I can tell:
I was wrong, there is one live action music video by Carlito:
Then he went away, only to resurrect Dr. Bombay a few years ago...
Dr. Bombay would never have got off the ground these days, the idea that a Swede/Dane could pretend to be Indian would just not be acceptable.
He still performes live and does ok from what I can tell, I am happy for him, but starting this kind of act these days would not work.
Kudos for adding the links. Thanks!