Have you ever pressed play on a beloved tune only to realize you never truly grasped what the lyrics were saying? That moment of “wait, what?” is exactly why we’ve compiled this top 10 songs roundup of musical numbers that are wildly misread. From Broadway classics to newer hits, each song on this list carries a secret story that most listeners completely miss—sometimes with hilariously dark consequences.

Top 10 Songs Overview

Below you’ll find a numbered rundown, starting at #10 and climbing to the #1 spot, each entry packed with the original context, the surprising twist, and a sprinkle of theatrical trivia. Buckle up, because the more you know, the more you’ll never be able to hum these melodies the same way again.

10 The Sound of Music

When The Sound of Music first lit up Broadway in 1959, audiences fell head‑over‑heels for Maria, the von Trapp children, and that unforgettable opening number, “Do‑Re‑Mi.” Yet nestled among the more obvious hits is the gentle ballad “Edelweiss,” a song that most people assume is a centuries‑old Austrian folk tune or even the nation’s anthem. In reality, the piece arrives at a pivotal moment when Captain von Trapp, previously hostile to his children’s singing, is moved by his daughter’s tender rendition. The flower‑laden lyric serves as a symbolic salute to the Captain’s homeland, Austria, where the edelweiss blossom high in the Alpine crags.

Over the decades, a persistent rumor grew that “Edelweiss” was an authentic Austrian melody passed down through generations. Oscar Hammerstein II biographer Hugh Fordin, however, set the record straight: Hammerstein himself penned the song specifically for the stage production. So while the tune feels timeless, it is in fact a 20th‑century creation crafted to evoke nostalgia for a country on the brink of annexation.

This little white flower, though simple, carries a weighty emotional punch in the show, underscoring the Captain’s conflicted loyalties and the looming threat of the Nazis. Listeners who think they’re humming a folk classic are actually singing a freshly minted ode that helped cement the musical’s legacy.

9 Pippin

At first glance, “With You” from Pippin seems like the perfect soundtrack for a wedding ceremony—sweet, earnest, and full of promises about a brighter future together. The lyrics paint a picture of a lover who would make life “twice as fair” if only they could share every day with their beloved.

But the scene in which the song is performed tells a very different story. Rather than a tender duet, we’re treated to a raucous, over‑the‑top orgy where Pippin flits from one woman to another, crooning the same “you” refrain to a parade of potential partners. The irony is razor‑sharp: the song lampoons Pippin’s flippant, non‑committal attitude toward love, turning what sounds like a heartfelt ballad into a tongue‑in‑cheek commentary on his lack of genuine affection.

So unless you’re planning a very avant‑garde, open‑marriage celebration, you might want to steer clear of this number at your next reception. It’s a hilariously misread love song that, when taken at face value, could lead to some awkward dance‑floor moments.

8 Six

Catchy beats and TikTok trends often mask darker narratives, and “All You Wanna Do” from the musical Six is a perfect illustration. The song, performed by Katherine Howard—the fifth wife of Henry VIII—went viral in 2020, with users posting upbeat choreography to its infectious hook. At first glance, the lyrics seem like a playful confession of a woman who knows how to attract attention.

Diving deeper, however, reveals a chilling backstory. Katherine recounts her illicit first romance with a 23‑year‑old tutor when she was a mere 13‑year‑old, describing the unsettling power dynamics with the line, “He was 23 / And I was 13 going on 30!” The track then spirals into a litany of past lovers, ending with a desperate plea: “All you wanna do, baby / Is touch me, when will enough be enough?” The juxtaposition of a dance‑floor anthem with such harrowing subject matter makes the song a stark reminder that a catchy melody can conceal a story of exploitation.

While TikTok users may be shaking a leg to the rhythm, the underlying narrative is a sobering portrait of a young queen forced into a life of sexual politics. It’s a cautionary tale about how easy it is to overlook the depth beneath a pop‑savvy façade.

7 Sweeney Todd

The opening lines of “Not While I’m Around”—”Nothing’s gonna hurt you / Not while I’m around”—seem to promise a protective, almost paternal comfort. In the show, young Toby clings to Mrs. Lovett, his surrogate mother, assuring her that he will shield her from any danger.

Yet the comforting veneer quickly crumbles when the murderous barber Sweeney Todd slinks onto the stage, intent on a spree of bloodshed that will eventually claim both Mrs. Lovett and Toby, as well as himself. The song’s innocence stands in stark contrast to the surrounding carnage, making the tender promise bitterly ironic. Toby’s naive vow underscores the tragedy of a child’s innocence being swept away by the surrounding darkness.

6 Groundhog Day

While “Hope” from the musical adaptation of Groundhog Day may not enjoy the same mainstream recognition as some of its Broadway counterparts, it serves as a textbook example of a song whose meaning is locked inside the narrative. The story follows Phil, a jaded reporter forced to relive February 2nd indefinitely, a premise that hides a surprisingly grim undercurrent.

After a series of reckless escapades, Phil decides that suicide might finally break the endless loop. Each chorus of “Hope” appears to champion perseverance—”Never give up hope / Never let yourself be defeated”—but the lyrics actually chronicle a series of increasingly desperate suicide attempts, from dropping a toaster into a bathtub to leaping off a skyscraper. The song’s seemingly uplifting refrain masks a dark, cyclical obsession with ending his own life.

In the finale, the lyrics turn a chilling phrase—”Hold on to your faith / You may wanna live / But baby don’t give up hope”—into a bitter promise that Phil will continue hoping for a successful suicide, rather than a genuine call to resilience. The number’s bright melody belies its morbid narrative, making it a perfect case study in lyrical misinterpretation.

5 Dear Evan Hansen

“Have you ever felt like nobody was there?” opens the soaring anthem “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen. The song quickly became a staple in religious and community gatherings, its uplifting chorus echoing messages of solidarity and hope.

Yet the emotional core of the piece is far more somber. The narrator, Evan, sings about a boy named Connor who recently died by suicide, yearning for a world where Connor would finally be “found”—a place where someone truly cared for him. Rather than an uplifting proclamation of personal salvation, the song is a heartbreaking lament that underscores the tragedy of a young life lost without anyone noticing.

Thus, while choirs may perform the piece as a hopeful hymn, its true subject matter is a poignant reflection on mental health, isolation, and the desperate wish that those who slip through the cracks might one day be seen and embraced.

4 A Chorus Line

One of Broadway’s most iconic productions, A Chorus Line, is renowned for its lack of a conventional plot, instead offering a mosaic of dancers’ personal testimonies in front of a casting director. Among its most celebrated numbers is “What I Did For Love,” a song that has been covered by the likes of Bing Crosby, Aretha Franklin, and Josh Groban.

At first glance, the lyric “I can’t regret what I did for love” suggests a romantic ballad about a past relationship. In reality, the song delves into the gritty world of a dancer’s devotion to her craft, reflecting on the sacrifices she’s made for the art of performance. Some scholars even interpret the refrain as an allusion to the infamous casting couch—a grim reminder of the darker side of the industry during the 1970s, where artistic ambition could be exploited.

Consequently, the piece is less a love song and more a potent commentary on the lengths performers will go to keep dancing, even when the price may be their dignity or personal well‑being.

3 The Sound of Music

“My Favorite Things” is arguably one of the most recognizable tunes from any musical, often surfacing on holiday playlists and radio stations during the winter months. Its mention of “warm woolen mittens” and “brown paper packages tied up with strings” has led many casual listeners to assume the song is a Christmas carol.

In truth, the number was written as a comforting lullaby for the von Trapp children after they’re frightened by a thunderstorm. Maria, the governess, sings the list of sensory delights to distract the kids from the storm’s roar, offering an emotional anchor rather than celebrating the festive season.

Thus, while the song’s imagery evokes wintery coziness, its original purpose is purely therapeutic, designed to soothe frightened children—not to herald the holiday spirit.

2 Gypsy

“Everything’s Coming Up Roses” has infiltrated pop culture, appearing in everything from The Simpsons to The Muppets. Most audiences hear the buoyant brass and assume the song is an exuberant anthem of triumph.

However, the number belongs to the stage mother Rose, whose ambition drives her to push her older daughter Louise into stardom after the younger sibling elopes. The lyric “Roses” cleverly doubles as both a symbol of happiness and a reference to Rose herself—suggesting that everything will rise in her favor, no matter the moral cost.

According to Ethel Merman biographer Brian Kellow, the song is a chilling illustration of blind ambition and megalomania, not a simple celebration. Its grandiose melody masks a ruthless pursuit of fame at any expense.

1 Cabaret

The eponymous song from Cabaret has been immortalized by legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, and Judi Dench. On the surface, the lyrics—”Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret!”—seem to celebrate the joys of living and performing.

Within the narrative, however, the song is sung by Sally Bowles, a pregnant former cabaret star confronting the rise of Nazism in 1930s Berlin. Rather than an ode to carefree revelry, Sally uses the tune to mask her denial, choosing to indulge in hedonism while the world around her darkens. In some productions, the song culminates with Sally deciding to have an abortion, underscored by a visceral visual of her striking her own abdomen—an act that starkly contrasts the song’s upbeat veneer.

The Louis Armstrong rendition famously omits the darker verses, presenting a sanitized version that strips away the political and personal turmoil embedded in the original. The full theatrical context reveals a powerful commentary on escapism, oppression, and the desperate choices made in the face of looming catastrophe.

For as long as humanity has been around, the fear of certain animals has been pervasive and entrenched in our various cultures, all the way from ancient mythological depictions of animals as exaggerated monsters, to our modern society’s urban legends and misconceptions, certain animals have earned a horrible reputation and millions of people fearing them, often without much to back that up. This is precisely why the top 10 misunderstood list is worth a look – to separate fact from fiction and give these critters a chance at redemption.

10 Camel Spiders

Why Camel Spiders Rank Among the Top 10 Misunderstood Creatures

We kick off with a critter that looks like it stepped straight out of a sci‑fi horror flick. Solifuges, colloquially called camel spiders, are neither camels nor true spiders, yet they’ve amassed a legion of urban legends: lightning‑fast speed, lethal venom, and a monstrous size approaching a metre. Viral photos and sensational stories have painted them as unstoppable killing machines that could take down pets or even humans.

The reality, however, is far less dramatic. The biggest camel spiders only reach about 12‑15 cm (5‑6 inches) in length – nowhere near a metre. Moreover, no species possesses venom or any apparatus to inject it. Their preferred tactic is to bolt away from danger, not to attack. A bite might feel a bit nasty, but it’s never deadly, and these odd‑looking arachnids are more interested in running than in hunting humans.

9 Snakes

While the fear of snakes isn’t entirely baseless, they are vastly misunderstood. Many assume that every snake is a deadly, venom‑spitting monster, but the truth is that less than one‑tenth of snake species pose any real danger to people. Most snakes are shy, non‑aggressive, and would rather avoid a confrontation than waste precious venom on a creature that offers no nutritional value.

If you do encounter a wild snake, give it space and try to identify whether it’s harmless. Even the venomous ones often give a warning bite (a dry bite) before delivering venom. Thanks to modern antivenoms, fatalities from snakebites are decreasing worldwide, making the overall threat much smaller than popular imagination suggests.

8 Scorpions

Scorpions, with their alien‑like pincers and stinging tail, instantly provoke a visceral reaction. Out of roughly 1,500 recognized species, only about 20‑25 have a sting that can cause serious medical issues. The majority are harmless to humans and would rather keep to themselves.

Even the medically significant species usually deliver a sting comparable to a painful bee bite. Unless you’re extremely unlucky or live in an area where dangerous species (like the deathstalker) are common, the risk of a lethal encounter is minimal. So, while it’s wise to avoid getting stung, the notion of scorpions hunting humans is pure myth.

7 Piranhas

Films love to show piranhas swarming like a blood‑thirsty cloud, ripping apart anything that moves. In reality, these fish are formidable predators with sharp teeth, but they are largely disinterested in humans. Researchers have even waded into piranha‑infested waters wearing only swimwear, only to be ignored by the fish unless a piece of fresh meat was presented.

Piranhas mainly form schools for defensive purposes, not to launch coordinated attacks on large animals. While occasional bites happen, they’re rare, and the creatures sit low on the food chain, making them far less threatening than pop‑culture portrays.

6 Cockroaches

When most people think of cockroaches, they picture the dreaded kitchen invader that seems impossible to eradicate. However, the world hosts nearly 5,000 cockroach species, and only a few dozen ever set up residence in human homes. The majority are harmless, diverse, and often quite fascinating.

Even the famed resilience of cockroaches is overstated. They cannot survive a nuclear blast, and their lifespan is far shorter than the popular myth of decades-long longevity. So while a few pest species deserve our disdain, the broader cockroach family is far less terrifying than the urban legend suggests.

5 Tarantulas

Massive, hairy, and often featured in horror movies, tarantulas have earned a reputation as real‑life monsters. Yet most species are docile, especially those from the New World (the Americas). Their venom is mild and not considered medically significant, and they’re popular in the pet trade for their calm demeanor.

Old‑World tarantulas can be a bit quicker and more defensive, but even they rarely bite humans, and no recorded human death is linked to a tarantula bite. In short, these eight‑legged giants prefer to stay hidden and only bite when absolutely provoked.

4 Sharks

Sharks have been mythologised as relentless killers, largely thanks to movies like Jaws. The reality is far more nuanced: out of hundreds of shark species, only a dozen or so have ever been implicated in unprovoked attacks on humans, and most of those incidents are cases of mistaken identity.

In 2018, for example, only five human fatalities were recorded worldwide, while millions of sharks are killed by fisheries each year. The belief that sharks can sniff out a drop of blood from miles away is also a myth. So, while they deserve respect, the chance of a shark attack is vanishingly small.

3 Bats

Bats often get a bad rap, appearing in horror movies and being blamed for disease outbreaks. While some species can carry rabies or other viruses, only a tiny fraction pose a real health risk to humans. Vampire bats, which do feed on blood, rarely target people; they prefer livestock.

Most bat species are harmless, and contrary to the old adage, they’re not blind. They use echolocation to navigate and hunt insects, providing valuable pest control. So, while caution is wise around sick or injured bats, the vast majority of these nocturnal mammals are more beneficial than frightening.

2 Poison Dart Frogs

Poison dart frogs boast some of the most potent toxins on the planet – enough to kill several adults if ingested. This has earned them a fearsome reputation, especially among those who imagine a single touch could be lethal.

In truth, the poison is only dangerous when it enters the bloodstream, typically through a wound or if the frog is eaten. Handling a healthy frog with clean, intact skin may cause a mild irritation, but it won’t kill you. Interestingly, these frogs lose their toxicity in captivity because they acquire the poison from their natural diet, a mystery still under scientific investigation.

1 Spiders

Spiders hold the crown for the most common phobia worldwide. Their myriad shapes and sizes can send shivers down the spine of millions, even though the majority are harmless. Out of roughly 50,000 known species, only about 25‑30 pose any real danger to humans.

Even the infamous black widow prefers a dry bite over injecting venom, and fatalities are exceedingly rare, typically occurring in very young or elderly individuals. Most spiders are shy, opting to flee rather than fight, and they play a crucial ecological role by controlling insect populations.

So before you reach for the shoe, remember that spiders are more interested in catching flies than in bothering you. Embracing these eight‑legged allies can actually make your home a healthier place.

The world of everyday language is littered with catchy expressions, but many of the top 10 sayings we toss around have backstories that are stranger than fiction. Below we break down each phrase, separating the tall tales from the documented facts, so you can impress friends with the real scoop.

10 Upper Crust

Meaning: Refers to people who sit at the very top of the social ladder—think aristocrats, high‑society types, and anyone who enjoys the finer things.

Myth: Legend has it that medieval bakers reserved the very top slice of a loaf for nobles, dubbing it the “upper crust” because only the elite could afford such a luxury. Some even point to a 15th‑century injunction that supposedly advised cutting the upper crust for one’s sovereign. Yet the story never actually says that only the rich could eat it.

Reality: The phrase didn’t acquire its snobbish meaning until the early 19th century. The first recorded use as a synonym for the upper class appears in 1823, where it described a person’s head or hat—or even the earth’s surface—rather than a piece of bread. In short, “upper crust” simply came to label those perched at society’s pinnacle.

9 Toe the Line

Meaning: To act in strict accordance with established rules or expectations.

Myth: Some claim the phrase stems from a misspelling—”tow the line”—and imagine a nautical scene where a ship is being towed, or even a parliamentary practice designed to keep MPs from killing each other. These colorful explanations, however, have no documentary support.

Reality: The correct spelling is indeed “toe the line,” first documented in 1813. Historically, it referred to athletes placing their feet on a marked line before a race or competition. Over time the expression broadened to any situation where someone conforms to a prescribed standard, and it’s especially common in political discourse about “toe‑the‑party line” behavior.

8 Brand Spanking New

Meaning: Something that is completely fresh, never before seen.

Myth: A popular tale suggests the phrase evokes an infant being spanked to make it cry, implying a literal spanking. In reality, the word “spanking” here merely intensifies the idea of “brand new,” adding emphasis rather than referencing any physical discipline.

Reality: The expression first shows up in print in 1860, likely evolving from an older phrase “brand span new.” The word “span” may have morphed into “spanking” for added punch. The “brand” element harks back to the hot iron marks used by ranchers to brand cattle—a practice dating to the 16th century.

7 Bated Breath

Meaning: Holding one’s breath in anticipation or anxiety.

Myth: Many mistakenly write “baited breath,” assuming it relates to laying a trap. The notion of “baiting” a breath is nonsensical, and the misspelling has become so common that it often eclipses the original.

Reality: The phrase dates back to Shakespeare’s 1598 play *The Merchant of Venice*, where “bated” is a shortened form of “abated,” meaning reduced or restrained. Over the centuries the verb “to bate” fell out of everyday use, leaving the phrase as a fixed idiom.

6 As the Crow Flies

Meaning: The most direct, straight‑line distance between two points, ignoring obstacles.

Myth: A fanciful story claims medieval sailors kept crows in a cage to guide them to land, arguing that crows despise water and would fly straight to shore, thereby giving the crew a clear line of sight. This tale also tries to link the phrase to the ship’s “crow’s nest” lookout.

Reality: The earliest printed uses appear in the 18th century, primarily describing land distances. Observers on the ground noted that crows, when they fly, tend to take the most direct route, soaring over terrain without the need to navigate around trees, rivers, or buildings—hence the metaphor.

5 A Kangaroo Court

Meaning: An unofficial, biased tribunal that delivers a predetermined verdict.

Myth: Because kangaroos are iconic Australian animals, many assume the term originated Down Under and reflects the creatures’ unpredictable hopping. Some even imagine a courtroom where judges literally hop over evidence.

Reality: The phrase first surfaced in the United States in 1849, describing sham trials that lacked genuine legal authority. Occasionally it was also called a “mustang court.” The kangaroo metaphor was likely chosen for its whimsical, chaotic connotation rather than any direct Australian link.

4 Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

Meaning: Don’t discard something valuable while getting rid of the unwanted.

Myth: A medieval anecdote claims families washed the baby last, so the filthy bathwater obscured the infant, leading mothers to accidentally discard the child with the used water. Comedian Karl Pilkington even joked that the baby might have washed itself.

Reality: The saying actually stems from a 1512 German proverb recorded by satirist Thomas Murner in his work *An Appeal to Fools*. It was never about literal bathwater; rather, it warned against careless elimination of precious items while discarding the unwanted.

3 It’s All Greek to Me

Meaning: Something that is incomprehensible or unintelligible.

Myth: Many attribute the phrase to Shakespeare’s *Julius Caesar* (1601), believing he coined it to describe a character’s confusion.

Reality: The expression predates Shakespeare, appearing in a Medieval Latin proverb “Graecum est; non legitur” (“It is Greek; it cannot be read”). Thomas Dekker used it before Shakespeare, and the phrase has retained its original meaning ever since.

2 It Ain’t Over ‘til the Fat Lady Sings

Meaning: A situation isn’t finished until the very end, no matter how close it seems.

Myth: Some claim the saying originates from Kate Smith, whose powerful renditions of “God Bless America” allegedly turned the Philadelphia Flyers into an unstoppable force, making the phrase synonymous with sports luck.

Reality: The earliest printed appearance is a 1976 pamphlet titled *Southern Words and Sayings* that notes, “Church ain’t out ‘till the fat lady sings.” The phrase entered popular culture when NBA coach Dick Motta used it to describe a tight basketball game, linking it to the operatic tradition of the concluding soprano in Wagner’s *Götterdämmerung*.

1 Kick the Bucket

Meaning: To die.

Myth: A grim legend says a person ready to hang themselves would stand on a bucket, tie a noose, then kick the bucket away, causing the death.

Reality: The “bucket” element traces back to the French word *buque*, meaning a yoke or wooden beam. In 16th‑century England, a pig slaughtered on a beam would thrash and eventually kick the beam—referred to as the “buque.” Shakespeare even alludes to this in *Henry IV*, using the term in a death‑related context.

Understanding the Top 10 Sayings

Now that you’ve seen the real origins behind each phrase, you can appreciate how language evolves, shedding myths for documented history. The next time you drop one of these expressions into conversation, you’ll know exactly what (and what not) to tell your audience.

Nearly everyone has had the experience of going to a movie with their friends, only to leave the theater and debate their interpretations of the ending. Well, it turns out that there are certain movies that people get wrong all the time. Here on Listorati, we’ve gathered 10 such films to talk about how you may or may not have been getting them wrong all along.

Keep in mind, some of these reveal spoilers for the end of a film, which is why we’ve chosen titles that have been out for several years…

10. (500) Days of Summer

In 2009, the romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer premiered in theaters. Many people related to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s heartbroken character, Tom, and bashed Zooey Deschanel’s character Summer for being a villain who put him in the friend zone, despite being such a “great” guy. However, the film was meant to make the viewer examine their own behavior in past relationships, because everyone paints themselves as the victim after a breakup.

Throughout the entire movie, Summer makes it very clear to Tom that she is not looking for a romantic relationship. Despite her honesty about the emotional wall she put between them, Tom continued to believe that she was “the one,” and pushed his expectations on her. When she didn’t reciprocate those feelings, he felt betrayed. He fell in love with the idea of Summer, rather than listening and paying attention to the reality of the situation. During a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel revisited the film for its 10-year anniversary. Gordon-Levitt said, “I think a really fun thing to do is try to watch it and just put yourself in Summer’s shoes the whole time.”

9. Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is considered one of the greatest movies of all-time. Every single film student in the world has been forced to sit through this masterpiece by Orson Welles and analyze the deeper meaning. However, if you’re watching it as a casual viewer at home, it may be easy to misinterpret what’s really going on. In the film, we watch a man named Charles Foster Kane rise from poverty to become a millionaire. His dying word was “Rosebud,” and the journalists in the film go crazy trying to figure out what “Rosebud” actually is.

Donald Trump claimed that Citizen Kane was his favorite movie, and during an interview, he was asked to analyze Rosebud. He said, “A lot of people don’t understand the significance of it. I’m not sure if anyone understands the significance. But I think it means bringing a lonely, sad figure back into his childhood.” Throughout the rest of the interview, Trump describes Kane’s misfortune as a “modest fall,” and he said that character needed to get “a different woman” if he wanted to be happy.

Well… Trump was at least halfway right. At the very end of the film, we see the camera pan over all of Kane’s treasures, and it stops on his beloved childhood sled, “Rosebud.” Earlier in the movie, we see that he was playing in the snow with this sled during his last moments of childhood innocence. Basically, he spends the rest of the movie acquiring wealth, but he will never be as happy as he was as that care-free kid sledding in the snow.

8. The Shining

The Shining is one of the most famous horror movies of all time. But the author of the book, Stephen King, is famously frustrated that the director, Stanley Kubrick, was the one to completely miss the point of his story. The plot surrounds the Torrance family, who are spending the winter in a haunted mountain resort called the Overlook Hotel. In the beginning of the movie, Jack Torrance has been sober, and the hauntings do not begin until he starts indulging at the hotel bar.

In the movie, there is a scene where Jack is reading an issue of Playgirl magazine, which is full of pictures of nude men. Internet sleuths did some digging, and realized that that specific issue had an article about incest. There are several other clues in the movie that suggest that Danny Torrance was being sexually abused by his alcoholic father, which could explain the young boy’s deteriorating mental state. Combined with Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the character, this made Jack Torrance crazy from the very start, and it’s possible to interpret the movie as being about mental illness, instead of a haunting. In the book, Jack Torrance is a good father who is struggling with his addiction, and their family tries to keep it together in the midst of a very real supernatural experience.

King notoriously disliked Stanley Kubrick’s movie version of The Shining so much that he made his own version in a TV miniseries. During an interview with The Guardian, King explains that The Shining was one of his favorite books, and the characters stuck with him for years. He decided to write a sequel called Dr. Sleep. Danny Torrance is all grown up, but he is obviously traumatized from the events of the Overlook Hotel. He inherits his father’s alcoholism, but is managing it by going to AA. We learn that he does, in fact, have psychic abilities. There will be a movie version of Dr. Sleep coming in 2019, starring Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance.

7. American Psycho

After American Psycho premiered in theaters, it was bashed for glorifying toxic masculinity and violence. It was even protested by the National Organization of Women, who demanded a boycott. But in reality, it was directed by a woman named Mary Herron, and it was meant to do the complete opposite of what everyone assumed.

As a dark comedy, we are meant to see how Christian Bale’s character Patrick Bateman is narcissistic and uncaring about other people. He also, incidentally, is a serial killer. Bateman admits that he is a murderer multiple times throughout the movie, but everyone around him is so self-absorbed that they aren’t even listening. According to the author of the novel, Bret Easton Ellis, “It was meant to be a critique of male behavior. A lot of people don’t realize that. They haven’t read the book.”

6. Donnie Darko

After Donnie Darko premiered in 2001, plenty of people felt their jaws drop by the end of the film. Fans cannot seem to decide if the character Donnie truly did send a plane engine traveling through time to save the world, or if he was simply mentally ill. Since he admits to having “emotional problems,” has visions of a giant rabbit, and frequently goes to therapy, the audience can believe either may be true. The writer and director, Richard Kelly, was just 26-years-old when he released Donnie Darko.

In 2017, he re-released a new Director’s Cut of the film so that he could go into more detail in order to answer the questions that fans had about the movie. He said, “I wanted to provide a bunch more information than was there. It’s a very dense, layered film, and there’s a much bigger world beyond the film.” So, if you’re still confused by the plot, you may just want to watch this new cut and commentary.

5. Shutter Island

Shutter Island is about a US Marshal named Teddy Daniels, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. He is investigating the Ashecliffe Mental Hospital on an island outside of Boston. But in the twist ending, he is told that he was actually a patient named Andrew Laeddis, who was serving time for killing his wife. His doctor was allowing Laeddis to live out his fantasy of being a US Marshal, hoping that bringing it to a conclusion would help snap him out of his dissociative identity disorder. By the end, he relapses, and must be lobotomized. But he says, “This place makes me wonder. Which would be worse – to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?”

This had audiences losing their own minds over the ending. If you were confused as to what really happened in the movie, don’t worry — you’re not alone. Even Leonardo Dicaprio told the director, Martin Scorsese, “I have no idea where I am or what I’m doing.’”

While DiCaprio and Scorsese refuse to reveal the meaning behind the quote, most agree that Andrew Laeddis actually was cured, but he simply could not live with the guilt of his true memories.

The screenwriter, Laeta Kalogridis, adapted the screenplay from the novel by Dennis Lehane. The story was so complex Kalogridis had to make a 40 to 50 page outline, which took her an entire year, before she actually wrote down any of the dialogue. Every time you watch the film over again from another perspective, you will pick up clues about the truth that you never saw before.

4. Total Recall

In the 1990 movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a man named Quaid who pays for a service called “Recall,” which promises to let anyone live through any fantasy scenario. He says that he wants to become a secret agent, but before the procedure finishes, he finds himself caught up in a series of strange events that lead him to the planet Mars.

At the end of the movie, we see him standing on Mars, looking out onto the horizon with his new lover. Fans of the film have debated over the years whether the events of the movie were actually happening, or if it was all part of the fantasy secret agent scenario he was paying for. According to the director, Paul Verhoeven, “Total Recall doesn’t say whether it’s reality or it is a dream. It’s really saying there’s this reality and there’s that reality, and both exist at the same time.” So, basically, everyone is right, and people can stop arguing over it.

3. Inception

The characters of the movie Inception enter dreams within dreams. They are on a mission to insert an idea into the subconscious of a powerful CEO. The only trouble was Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Cobb, was haunted by the memory of his wife, and she keeps trying to sabotage their mission. Each of the characters carry a totem with them to help them distinguish dreams from reality.

At the end of the movie, Cobb finds closure in his wife’s death, and he regains custody of his children. The camera focuses on Cobb’s totem, which is a spinning top. It looks as though it may topple at any second, signifying that he is in reality. But the movie ends before we learn if he is truly in a dream or not. Fans everywhere debated with one another over this scene. However, the true message behind the ending of Inception is that once Cobb has his kids, he chooses to make this his new reality. And, according to Christopher Nolan, he would rather the audience draw their own conclusions about what the ending really means.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a very trippy sci-fi romantic comedy. A couple named Clementine and Joel break up and choose to pay for a procedure that erases the memories of their relationship. It had many fans watching over and over again to try to see any hidden messages. Some people out there have a theory that Clementine and Joel have erased the memory of their relationship multiple times, and they are doomed to repeat this process forever. Since Clementine dyes her hair a lot, they theorize that each color represents a new timeline.

In reality, Clementine truly does change her hair color through the course of just one relationship. Each color represents the “season” of their love story — from green in the “spring” of new love, to blue of the icy cold “winter” of a breakup. The first time they got together, Joel was depressed, and expected Clementine to be his “manic pixie dream girl” who was going to solve all of his problems and make him a happier person. When she failed to live up to that expectation, things fell apart. In the end, Joel and Clementine find one another again, and choose to give their relationship a second chance. They no longer go into the relationship expecting perfection, which will ultimately be healthier for them.

1. Fight Club

The first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club… Unless we’re talking about the 1999 movie, of course. After the film premiered, young men everywhere began idolizing Tyler Durden, and real-life fight clubs sprang up across the world. However, for those that walked away from the movie feeling compelled to punch somebody in the face and burn their house down, they completely missed the point.

The audience can relate on some level to Durden’s rejection of consumerism, and “working jobs we hate so we can buy (bleep) we don’t need.” But his all-out rejection of society is incredibly dangerous. It is meant to show how easy it is for desperate men to rally behind radical ideologies. In the final scene, Project Mayhem blows up the entire city. We are meant to recognize that he is crazy, and not someone to be idolized. During an interview, the author of Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk, said: “Ideally, each person would leave Fight Club and go on to live whatever their dream was—that they would have a sense of potential and ability they could carry into whatever it was they wanted to achieve in the world. It wasn’t about perpetuating Fight Club itself.”

Animal behavior is a classic example of a topic most of us believe to be more knowledgeable about than we really are. Often, we turn out to be wrong because we should have checked our sources. However, it could also be because humans have a tendency to try to find their own habits in other species or because we have outdated information that has been disproven since our parents and teachers first mentioned a particular animal.

Here are 10 animal behaviors that humans think they may know… but might be surprised to find they’re all wrong.

10 Opossums Don’t “Play” Dead

Some people think opossums are adorable, while others hate them. But most people make two false assumptions about them: first, that English speakers are allowed to drop the first “o” when talking about them, and second, that trapped opossums feign death to scare off would-be predators. Indeed, the fuzzy creatures will fall down, tongues lolling out, discharging their bowels; they’ll lay—seemingly dead—for minutes to hours on end, making them not only appear dead but also smell too bad for most animals to eat. Humans have mistakenly assumed that this behavior was intentional for so long that “playing opossum” (or, colloquially, “playing ‘possum”) is a commonly used English expression for playing dead.

The sad truth is that the little animals involuntarily enter a catatonic state when taken by surprise. The phenomenon is closer to them being nearly scared to death. They can’t control it, and—what’s worse—they cannot get out of this state which lasts from several minutes to several hours, no matter what’s being done to them. Though their smell might dissuade most predators, opossums become incapable of defending themselves from being moved, injured, or killed.^[1]

9 Raccoons Don’t Wash Their Food

Raccoons look adorable when they take their food to a water source and “wash” it. However, they aren’t actually fussy eaters who worry about germs. What they are, in fact, are extremely tactile animals. They have four to five times the number of nerve endings in their paws that most mammals have. Therefore, they glean a lot of information from touching things. And it turns out that wetting their paws improves the nervous response to tactile input. That is why raccoons “wash their food.”^[2]

8 Not All Fireflies Are Looking to Mate

Fireflies, the common name for members of the Lampyridae family, light up our summer skies. Incredibly, there are more than two thousand species of the little beetles. They may all look the same to us, but there sure are distinctions and variations among them. We tend to assume that they light up in order to find mates, and predictably, that is the case for many of them.

However, not all fireflies are on the prowl in the same sense at night. Some of them use their phosphorescent lighting abilities to hunt. And some even use it to attract lightning bugs of a different species in a fake mating call. The unknowing bug will then fly over to them, only to get trapped and eaten.^[3]

7 Ostriches Don’t Stick Their Heads in the Sand

We all know the expression, “Don’t stick your head in the sand!” It is often associated with the idea of running away from one’s problems. In an extremely bizarre example of anthropomorphism, humans have thought ostriches literally stick their heads in the sand when scared.

Aside from the fact that they would not be able to breathe with their heads in the ground, ostriches aren’t actually dumb enough to think that not seeing danger would actually make it disappear. No potential prey animal that survived that long could possibly have such terrible instincts!

In reality, what looks like ostriches sticking their heads in the ground, is just them putting their beaks into their nests to turn their eggs a few times a day.^[4]

6 Lemmings Do Not Commit Mass Suicide

We all know the sweet—albeit disturbing—image of one lemming jumping off a cliff and the rest of the group following. Much like ostriches, lemmings don’t actually have bad survival instincts. They do, however, migrate when their population density becomes too great.

In the case of migrations, they’ve been known to try to cross a body of water that turns out to be too large for their endurance capacity, in which case many of them will drown. They’ve also been known to accidentally fall off the edge of a cliff.

For the longest time, their behavior and the resulting lemming corpses were inexplicable to humans, causing false theories about lemmings falling out of the sky, exploding, swimming into the ocean until they drowned, and jumping off cliffs.

Most notably, perhaps, these misconceptions were reinforced by the 1958 Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness.^[5]

5 Skunks Do Not Spray Every Time They’re Scared

Under the impression that skunks always spray larger animals, most people panic when they encounter one. In reality, skunks spray as rarely as possible. Indeed they try to avoid using their glands whenever they can because the liquid they secrete is limited and will fully empty itself out before getting replenished. Depending on the skunk, they can spray up to six times before they need to wait two weeks for their glands to recharge. In those two weeks, they are, of course, extra vulnerable. So skunks do, in fact, employ any other method to get away from predators before they resort to spraying.

On an interesting side note, skunks warn us that they are about to spray by doing what looks like a very specific little dance. It involves stomping on the ground and handstands, depending on the species of skunk—though, of course, what we see as a “warning dance” is, in reality, a way to attempt to scare us away. And it will work on any knowledgeable human!^[6]

4 Cats Always Land on Their Feet

Cats are extremely good at jumping, balancing, and righting themselves during a fall. Among other things, their whiskers (which do not only exist on their faces but also on the backs of their legs) help them orient themselves and keep their balance.

However, they do not always land on their feet. It’s a great evolutionary tool, but it isn’t magic. If a cat falls from too short a distance and can’t course correct or if it’s overweight, it might very well have a bad fall and injure itself or die. If you are an apartment-dwelling cat owner, keep your windows closed…^[7]

3 Cats Don’t Play with Their Prey

Another common misconception about cats is that they play with their prey. For instance, when domesticated cats have been observed hunting mice, they toss them around in much the same way as they do one of their toys. In truth, though, it is the opposite: they treat their toys the same way they treat their prey; for many predators, playtime is hunting practice time.

So why do they toss their food around instead of just killing and eating it? Simply put, all cats are highly specialized predators. They are incredibly well-built killing machines from their prey’s perspective, but if anything goes wrong, they can quickly get injured and die. Therefore, they have to be very careful in their hunting technique and avoid any risk of getting scratched or bit back.

Cat owners will, for instance, notice that the mice their pets bring home never die from a bite but almost always from a broken spine, where the cat tossed the mouse with a strong flick of its paw instead of risking getting its face too close to the little rodent.^[8]

2 The Alpha Wolf Doesn’t Beat Down the Pack

We used to believe that wolves (and, by extension, dogs) fought for dominance and that the most dominant male or female of the species became their leader. However, more recent research has disproven this theory.

Indeed, it would seem that the pack leader is no more than the most prolific breeder, who consequently has the most children in the pack, and that wolves and dogs very much just know that “father/mother knows best” and follow their parents’ guidance.

What’s even more interesting is that most wolf “packs” actually turn out to simply be singular wolf families. In that case, the supposed alpha doesn’t even need to outbreed anyone. They are simply pack leader by the fact of being the parent.^[9]

1 Pandas Excel at Mating—in the Wild

Giant pandas are famously kept in captivity in an effort to save the species from extinction. They’re adorable, have the most useless eating habits (they almost exclusively eat bamboo, which has such poor nutritional value to them that they need to eat up to eighty-four pounds of it a day), and have been branded as inept at surviving.

In an incredible twist of irony, though, it turns out that giant pandas barely mate in captivity. The females are only fertile for a very brief period of time. When set up in a scientific context, neither the males nor the females seem particularly interested in copulating. The funny (and very sad) fact is that, in the wild, pandas have no libido problems at all. In fact, it’s hard to put delicately just how much sex they have…

Now that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t die out if left alone. But it sure says a lot about humans that we think any male and female of a species will reproduce if we just lock them up together…^[10]

It’s often been said that songs are largely driven by emotion rather than meaning or complexity of the music. This certainly would explain why a scant three chords and a groovy haircut goes a long way and can help to sell a ton of records. Conversely, sometimes the lyrics can evoke equally powerful feelings — even when a song’s meaning is completely misunderstood.

From The Clash to The Kingsmen, here’s just a fraction of classic tunes that people continue to love, despite completely missing the point of what the songwriters were trying to say.

This is an encore presentation of this list, as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. You can read the full list here!

Literary critics have invented a host of phrases and concepts to separate artists from their art. By far the best known is “death of the author,” which comes from a 1967 essay by Roland Barthes. Essentially, the notion is to imagine that the author cannot be asked for their intent, or how their own life experiences shaped their writing, so the theorist’s interpretation is at least as valid as the author’s intention–provided said interpretation is reasonably derived from the text.  

While that’s a worthwhile literary exercise, there can be a problem that comes from many people knowing pieces of writing through cultural osmosis instead of actually reading the text. Indeed, sometimes there are aspects of the text that simply aren’t as haunting as the passages in stories that become touchstones. So interpretations of stories can be demonstrably incorrect. As is the case with…

10. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

When the 1995 Disney adaption of this movie came out, many critics and audience members were united in decrying the supposed borderline desecration of the original story. They pointed to the 1939 or 1920 versions of the story as proper adaptations, which properly portrayed the unsavory nature of Quasimodo, the tragic fate of the gypsy Esmeralda, clergyman Claude Frollo, and so on… and all in the shadow of one of the most celebrated buildings in French history.

It was a criticism completely undermined by how Victor Hugo wrote the original 1831 version of the story. As Lindsay Ellis explains in her highly recommended video essay, in the original novel, Quasimodo is a mere bit part and certainly not a sympathetic figure. There’s no tragic romance with the gypsy Esmeralda, who it turns out was actually a caucasian abandoned as a child. In brief, Hugo didn’t write his novel as a tragedy, so much as a tribute to the cathedral itself, which at the time of writing was less a French institution than a wreck that had been vandalized numerous times over the centuries and neglected.

That Hugo’s sympathies were with the building over the people who lived in and around it is much less surprising to anyone who knows that the original title was “Notre-Dame de Paris” and that he did not approve of the English title change. Perhaps that theme would resonate with misanthropic architecture students, but it certainly wouldn’t have been the crowd pleaser many subsequent adaptations have been  

9. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Washington Irving’s 1820 story, set in a Dutch community in 1790s New York (loosely based on real events), as we all know is about a schoolteacher named Ichabod Crane, who gets chased by a headless horseman across a bridge. When the horseman can’t catch him, he throws a pumpkin at Crane. Those who read an abridged version in class might remember that it was heavily implied that Brom Bones was pretending to be the Headless Hessian Horseman to scare off Crane so that he could marry Katrina Van Tassel without any competition from superstitious schoolteachers. Considering Ichabod disappears and Bones gets what he wants through pretty underhanded and aggressive means, it seems like this slice of Americana should be a pretty dark, spooky tale where the villain wins in the end, be he ghost or local tough guy in disguise.

Readers have that impression because many of them lost track of how odious a person Irving wrote Ichabod Crane to be. Like many schoolteachers of the time, Crane is described as having romantic interest purely for financial reasons (Irving explicitly describes him as looking at her father’s fortune with “green eyes”). He’s also explicitly a mooch and a glutton, only getting away with it because he knows a lot of local ghost lore. The story also ends with a postscript noting there was talk in Sleepy Hollow that Crane was seen again later, having moved to another community and becoming a judge. However, the locals rejected that because his supposed disappearance made for a better story. If anything, Irving went overboard in assuring audiences not to worry about ol’ Ichabod.  

8. Jabberwocky

Lewis Caroll’s titular monster, which was first introduced to readers in Alice Through the Looking Glass, has been portrayed as a serious beast in such adaptations as the 1985 movie. Even those who know better than to portray such serious versions of the monsters from the poem assume that “slivey toves” and “more raths” from the opening verse mean “unidentifiable beasts,” such as in the version done for The Muppet Show.

Jabberwocky’s origin was in 1855, in a magazine called Misch-Masch, which had a circulation of Lewis Carroll’s immediate family. It was not only meant as a parody of folk poems, but he actually handily explained what all the words meant, so those terms aren’t so much nonsense as coded. For example, “slivy toves” are actually cheese-eating badgers. “Mome Raths” are turtles. Bryllyg is said to be the early afternoon, as it refers to the time of broiling dinner. All things considered, the opening verse is much closer to a slightly offbeat version of Wind in the Willows than it is a surreal menagerie of cryptids.

7. Harrison Bergeron

In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 short story, equality is perverted so that every exceptional person is limited to be no better than the worst performing person, either by restraints that weigh them down or by zapping them if they think too much. This idea has been embraced by right wing publications like National Review. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited it in a ruling requiring tournament golfers to walk between shots.

What they don’t seem to notice is the portrayal of the eponymous character. As critics have more recently pointed out, Bergeron is a ridiculously overpowered human being who not only stands 7-feet tall at age 14, he is also literally capable of flying as he dances (once he removes his restraints that weigh hundreds of pounds). More revealingly, he proclaims himself “emperor,” which probably isn’t something Vonnegut would have a “heroic” character do.

He also makes this declaration and displays his powers on live television, which of course means that the Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers would have no trouble hunting him down and shooting him, as she does seemingly effortlessly in the story. Clearly, Bergeron is a parody of the Howard Roark and John Gault-type supermen that are so perfect and so, so underappreciated in Ayn Rand’s novels. Considering Vonnegut’s left-wing views throughout his writing career, it’s objectivism that’s in his sights at least as much as socialism.

6. The Satanic Verses

When it was published in 1988, author Salman Rushdie struck free publicity gold when his book was interpreted as blasphemous and banned in India while the Ayatollah demanded his head. He surely didn’t celebrate this, as he had to go into hiding from very real threats. Several translators of the book were attacked—one fatally. Considering that the book is a formidable 600 pages long, it’s not so surprising that many people didn’t read the entire story and were content to go off a vague sense of what the novel was about, or a heavily abridged version.

The Satanic Verses tells the intertwined stories of two Southeast Asian Muslims, one born wealthy and the other poor. The pair both survive a plane crash, and the rich one becomes cursed (one way is he smells bad) while the other becomes angelic. Still, the rich one survives the novel while the other commits suicide while wanted for murder (he is unambiguously responsible for several deaths). The offending portions of the book are a secondary narrative of a few dozen pages about the rise of the prophet Mahound, written in an approximation of Koranic verse.

The “Satanic Verses” of the title are an allusion to a claim by the prophet that, for some contradictory statements he made, it must have been Satan pretending to be Allah. In a manner that paralleled a scene that offended many in The Last Temptation of Christ, Rushdie styled his parody of the prophet as a very elaborate dream sequence to give him plausible deniability that he was portraying an in-universe, fictional version. The version many Muslims were given, however, only showed the dream sequence without the larger context, and so inevitably it misled many on the intent of the book.     

5. Valley of the Dolls

These days, this 1966 novel is better known for selling forty million copies than it is for its contents. Its story of three women who try to enter show business but run into such pitfalls as creative compromise, sexual exploitation, and drug addiction (the “dolls” of the title are upper/downer pills) was so salacious for its time that it couldn’t help but become one of, literally, the bestselling books of all-time. No wonder it got a couple film adaptations: a much derided smash hit in 1968, and a TV movie in 1981.

An aspect of the literary juggernaut that, for decades, was held up as the impetus for its success was the titillation of guessing which characters were modeled on which specific real people. For example, was the character that had a pill addiction Judy Garland? Was the over-the-hill singer who stands in the protagonist’s way based on Ethel Merman? According to Jacqueline Susann, the answer to all these guesses was “no” and that all of the characters were invented to fit a theme instead of to reveal the truth behind a real entertainer’s persona. She eventually said of the misconception, “Let them think that, it sells more of my books.”  

4. Dracula

Bram Stoker’s 1897 classic isn’t just one of the two most influential horror novels of the 19th century (alongside Frankenstein). For many outside Central or Eastern Europe, it was the popularity of Dracula that led them to learn of 15th century Romanian ruler Vladislav III, better known as Vlad the Impaler. Deposed early in life, Vlad fought against both the Ottoman Empire and fellow Romanians and eventually died in battle, but not before leaving behind battlefields laden with impaled prisoners of war as an attempt to demoralize his enemies. Such a person seems tailor-made to inspire a monster in human shape.  

Which completely misunderstands Stoker’s real writing process. It’s not so much that he didn’t carefully study Vlad Tepisch’s life for inspiration for his iconic character, as there’s no evidence that he even knew the bygone monarch had existed. In 1890 (the year he began working on it) he noted that he read a book on Westphalia and came across the word Dracula, but he misinterpreted it as being the local word for “evil.” While Vlad is from approximately the same area of Europe as Dracula, Vlad was certainly not much associated with Transylvania, which would have been a key connection to invoking the memory of the historical figure. In short, Stoker seemed to have more lucked into the historical echoes than anything else.  

3. The Great Gatsby

Nearly 80 years after its initial disappointing release in 1925, F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age triumph sells roughly 500,000 copies a year. It’s resonated with readers enough to make its way to the silver screen in 1926, 1949, 1976, and 2013. Each release was greeted with a critical thrashing and to very mixed results at the box office.  

But that’s not to say readers, who generally regard themselves as more astute than movie fans, don’t mistake Fitzgerald’s intention with Gatsby. As explained by Sarah Churchwell in The Guardian, most people misinterpret Gatsby as being a suave charmer. There are a few telling descriptions that undermine this: His pink suits (tacky even in the Roaring ’20s) and his bewilderment in the face of the high society that narrator Nick Carraway takes for granted. That’s why he overcompensates for his parties, doing such things as hire entire orchestras. Gatsby is a dreamer, pining for the fantasy version from his youth of his neighbor Daisy Buchanan, not a man with his feet on the ground in the present. Not that this dissonance is anything new: Fitzgerald wrote back in the day that, “Of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one has the slightest idea what the book was about.”

2. Don Quixote

It’s been just over 400 years since Miguel de Cervantes’s masterpiece was first published in English. Since then, the image of a nobleman putting a washing basin on his head, taking a nag for a noble steed and his trusty assistant Sancho Panza on a number of delusional, pointless quests in an attempt to restore chivalry to the land has only become more poignant. Don Quixote is both absurd and loveable, and many readers have mixed feelings about the ending where he regains his sanity enough to dictate in his will that his niece be disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry.  

As recounted in the New York Times, the title character actually comes across as much less sympathetic when you really look at the text. While Quixote means well, Cervantes does not skimp on the details of the pain he causes. Not just to his assistant Sancho Panza (who gets beat up because Quixote doesn’t pay a hotel bill), but even mules that can’t drink from their water trough because Quixote insists the water is holy. It’s an aspect of the story that is understandably omitted from adaptations such as Man of La Mancha, which contributed to those interpretations being dismissed as “kitsch.”

1. Slaughterhouse Five

Well, when an author writes as many famous satirical, morally complex, and whimsical stories as Kurt Vonnegut did, it’s not surprising that he’d have multiple works end up on lists like this. So it is with his 1969 anti-war classic (that he self-deprecatingly called his “famous Dresden novel”) about a WWII veteran named Billy Pilgrim, whose subjective experience of his life jumps back and forward through time. Within the intro of the book, Vonnegut quotes an associate who asked authors writing anti-war books why they didn’t instead write an “anti-glacier book.” Meaning, of course, that the human tendency towards war is as implacable as glaciers.

A similar sentiment is expressed by the alien race called the Tralfamadorians, who consider their own atrocities and eventual destruction of the universe as utterly inevitable, because they can see the entirety of all the time they live, all at once. Hence many have viewed it as a pro-fatalism book as they wonder whether the events of the book are real or not.

The text makes explicit that the aliens don’t exist. Within the book, the aliens Billy Pilgrim meets, and the environment they place him in (specifically a zoo), are described as something he read in a novel by hack sci-fi author Kilgore Trout. Further, Pilgrim does not express anything to anyone else about the aliens until after a plane crash that leaves him unconscious (i.e., likely with brain damage and trauma). As Michael Carson of Wrath-BearingTree.com points out, when Pilgrim first discusses the lessons he supposedly learned about the inevitability of war and the atrocities that come from it, it’s with a war hawk named Rumfoord, who Vonnegut mocks. Pilgrim merely echoes Rumfoord and then says he learned all of what Rumfoord told him on Tralfamadore.

On the other hand, Vonnegut also makes it explicit that the Tralfamadorians believe they will eventually destroy the universe. Vonnegut’s message isn’t that war and atrocities are inevitable, but that to follow this fatalist philosophy (that could come from absurd aliens that are the result of head trauma) makes its adherents into puppets, and leads to disaster for everyone.     

Adam & Dustin Koski also wrote the occult horror novel Not Meant to Know. Feel free to read and misinterpret it.

It’s often been said that songs are largely driven by emotion rather than meaning or complexity of the music. This certainly would explain why a scant three chords and a groovy haircut goes a long way and can help to sell a ton of records. Conversely, sometimes the lyrics can evoke equally powerful feelings — even when a song’s meaning is completely misunderstood.

From The Clash to The Kingsmen, here’s just a fraction of classic tunes that people continue to love, despite completely missing the point of what the songwriters were trying to say.

10. “Train In Vain” (The Clash)

Ever since its release from the seminal London Calling double album, “Train In Vain” arrived at the station shrouded in mystery — largely in part to the track not being listed on the sleeve or back cover. The song name would also become muddled after fans began calling it by its chorus, “Stand By Me,” as well as the actual title never being mentioned in the lyrics; furthermore, the toe-tapping tune has absolutely nothing to do with transportation or working out. Now 40 years later, the heart of the controversy lies in a simple printing snafu and a stubborn girlfriend.  

Written by Mick Jones, “Train In Vain” was originally intended to be used as a flexi-disk promotion for the British music magazine, NME. But when the deal fell through at the last minute, the band decided to tack it onto the master of their recently completed album. This, however, resulted in one small problem: the artwork, lyrics, liner notes, etc. had already gone to the printer. As a result, it landed on Side Four as Track 5 with the title crudely scratched on the original vinyl in the needle run-off area. Subsequent pressings would later include the proper title on the album — although in the U.S., it contained the variation, “Train In Vain (Stand By Me).”

The story behind the meaning is rooted in Jones’ ex-girlfriend, Slits guitarist Viv Albertine. Although Jones has remained somewhat tight-lipped about the doomed relationship, the feminist rock icon has been more candid: “I’m really proud to have inspired that but often he won’t admit to it. He used to get the train to my place in Shepherds Bush and I would not let him in. He was bleating on the doorstep. That was cruel.”  

The all-female Slits supported The Clash on their White Riot tour — and the alluring Albertine enjoyed a well-earned reputation of breaking many punk hearts, including Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders, and Joe Strummer.

9. “There She Goes” (The La’s)

An undeniably catchy, jangly ballad, “There She Goes” appears to be a simple tale of unrequited love. However, the lyrics ”Racing through my brain… pulsing through my vein” reveal a not-so-innocent side. Additionally, frontman Lee Mavers’ eccentric and reclusive behavior only furthered drug-fueled speculation that the popular track drew inspiration from poppies. Yep, it’s about heroin.

Released as a single in 1988, the track earned the proto Britpop band from Liverpool earned critical praise before typical band infighting and chaos ensued. Although the song would be re-released two years later on their debut album under the Go! Disc label, The La’s had already been relegated to one-hit wonder status.

Later, the alt Christian-rock outfit Sixpence None The Richer covered the tune and enjoyed a major hit stateside — proving Jesus has a place in his heart for all saints and sinners.  

8. “Fire and Rain” (James Taylor)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOIo4lEpsPY

This one’s also about smack. Sorry. Taylor wrote “Fire and Rain” as a deeply personal reflection of life’s bumpy road, capturing all of its twists and turns and pains and joys. A remarkable feat considering he was only 20 years old at the time. From his second album, Sweet Baby James, the song’s structure unfolds like a three-act play with a beginning, middle, and end. Taylor explains in a 1972 interview with Rolling Stone:

“‘Fire and Rain’ has three verses. The first verse is about my reactions to the death of a friend. The second verse is about my arrival in this country with a monkey on my back, and there Jesus is an expression of my desperation in trying to get through the time when my body was aching and the time was at hand when I had to do it… And the third verse of that song refers to my recuperation in Austin Riggs (psychiatric facility) which lasted about five months.”

The end result earned the young singer/songwriter a multi-platinum record and a career that remains strong today over five decades later. But the “monkey on his back” would become a recurring affliction. Taylor first began using heroin after arriving in New York City in 1966 — a habit that escalated in London while briefly signed to The Beatles’ Apple Records label. Despite his personal and professional setbacks, Taylor has sold over 100 million records, and in 2000 became enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

7. “Dancing With Myself” (Billy Idol)

In his tell-all memoir, Dancing With Myself, the title is both metaphor and the name of one of his biggest hits. It’s also a cheeky double entendre for spanking the monkey. You know, the five knuckle shuffle. Jackin’ the beanstalk. Badgering the witness. Jerkin’ the gherkin. Okay, enough already — it’s about masturbation.

The song was first recorded in 1979 by Idol’s previous band, Gen X, and then re-released as a single in 1981 for the singer’s solo launch. Written by Idol and Gen X bassist, Tony James, the song was inspired in part during a Gen X tour of Japan in 1979. According to Idol, he and James visited a Tokyo disco, where they were surprised to find most of the crowd there dancing alone in front of a wall of mirrors instead of with each other.

However, when pressed on the subject, Idol later conceded there’s more than one layer: “There’s a masturbatory element to it, too. There’s a masturbatory element in those kids dancing with their own reflections. It’s not too much further to sexual masturbation. The song really is about these people being in a disenfranchised world where they’re left bereft dancing with their own reflections.”

Umm, sure, Billy, whatever you say. The song’s music video (which saw heavy rotation in MTV’s halcyon days) features a half-naked Idol thrusting and grinding with post-apocalyptic zombies. Oddly, there’s no mention of social anxiety, disillusionment or the despair of ennui. But then what do you expect from someone who kicks off his autobiography prologue with sordid tales of “never-ending booze, broads, and bikes, plus a steady diet of pot, cocaine, ecstasy, smack, opium, quaaludes, and reds.”

Long live rock & roll!

6. “Imagine” (John Lennon)

On the surface, this simple piano-driven ballad is a dreamy elixir for the soul, calling for an end to war, borders, religion, greed and hunger. The song would not only become a modern hymn of sorts for world peace and unity, but also helped solidify Lennon’s enduring legacy as a stand-alone rock and roll deity. But the ex-Beatle, who clearly understood the power of celebrity, was also a bit cryptic with the hidden message — one which he later characterized as his way of delivering a “sugarcoated” communist manifesto.

Masterfully arranged and co-produced by pre-felon, Phil Spector, in 1971, “Imagine” remains as relevant today as ever and ranks #3 in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs Of All-Time. But the main takeaway that’s often overlooked isn’t just some hippie ode to all love one another — but rather encourages people to use revolutionary methods and ideas to make the world a better place. Does this mean John Lennon spent his free time puffing on cigars with Fidel Castro in Havana or riding on the back of Che Guevara’s motorcycle through Bolivian jungles? Hardly.

Lennon much preferred the company of his wife and co-collaborator, Yoko Ono, at their spectacular estate in Ascot (and location for the song’s music video). Furthermore, Lennon set the record straight regarding party affiliations, stating “I am not particularly a communist and I do not belong to any movement.”

5. “Poker Face” (Lady Gaga)

Anyone who saw Gaga on Season 5 of American Horror Story knows this lady can get down. In fact, her convincing performance even won her a Golden Globe — which shouldn’t have been terribly surprising given her impressive real-life talent for switch-hitting. And no, we’re not talking baseball. As for that little ditty that launched Gaga’s career into another galaxy, “Poker Face” has little to do with playing cards. It’s all about bi-sexuality.

Co-written by Gaga with her longtime collaborator, Red One, the track is said to be a tribute to past conquests in Gaga’s wild ride to fame and fortune. It was first released in 2008 off her debut album (and prophetically named), Fame, and went on to become one of the best selling singles of all time. Featuring more hooks than a Bass Pro Shop, the song also benefits from that over-the-top accompanying music video, a wildly sexy romp that has since been viewed more times than every Kardashian sex tape combined. Well, maybe.

Unlike other songs on this list, the lyrics are fairly transparent and only get lost in the blinding glare cast by the singer’s hyper-radiant star. Nonetheless, it’s doesn’t take much imagination to decipher what she means when she playfully teases, “I’m just bluffin’ with my muffin.” Got it, Gaga. Message received, no distortion.

4. “Every Breath You Take” (The Police)

Ironically, the cops should’ve locked up these guys a long time ago for allowing this unofficial Stalker Anthem to become such a massive hit. Actually, it’s not their fault — but you’d think that someone as smart as Sting (only his name is stupid) would have anticipated that his lyrics would become so widely misinterpreted as both a sappy love song and a license to creep. Unfortunately, the subtext about a possessive lover with an Orwellian zeal for spying never quite registered with fans. Perhaps the band should’ve named the album something other than Synchronicity.

Sting wrote “Every Breath You Take” during a critical juncture in his life — both personally and professionally. Although The Police had enjoyed a mercurial run with sold-out arenas and multiple-platinum records, Sting felt cornered and wanted out. He had also become embroiled in an affair with his future wife,Trudie Styler, while inconveniently still married to her best friend, Frances Tomelty. Awkward. So, like any rock star with lots of money and access to private jets, he took off for the Caribbean, where he found refuge on Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye estate. There, he penned the song that became the band’s biggest hit and won the 1983 Grammy for Song Of The Year.

In a 1993 interview, Sting explains the inspiration: “I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn’t realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.”

3. “Death Or Glory” (The Clash)

The London-based rockers return with another entry on the list, which shouldn’t be a surprise from the group simply known as “the only band that matters.” Also from their London Calling album, “Death or Glory” is a parody about those who talk a big game but fail to back it up or wind up selling out to the man.

An upbeat tempo and satisfying melody accompanies possibly the greatest lyric in rock & roll history: “He who f**** nuns, will later join the church.” The amusing metaphor hammers home the point that those who fight hardest against conformity will eventually become what they vowed to avoid. It was apparently one of the band’s favorite songs on the album, recorded at Wessex Studios in Highbury, London for CBS records. According to legend, their eccentric producer, Guy Stevens, ran around the studio like a madman, throwing chairs and ladders during the session and even dumped a bottle of wine on Joe Strummer’s piano.

Interestingly, the song also reflects the band’s acceptance of change in terms of dealing with their own success while trying to stay loyal to their working class roots. Sadly, Strummer passed away in 2002, but unlike previous generations of rockers who pledged to die before they got old, this frontman actually did it.

2. “Born In The U.S.A.” (Bruce Springsteen)

Although many still believe this 1984 mega-hit reflects America’s ass-kicking greatness, the true meaning tells a much different story. But the confusion is understandable. The easy-to-remember chorus coupled with Springsteen’s trademark gravelly, blue-collar vocals practically screams baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. The Boss, however, wrote it as a scathing indictment of the U.S. military-industrial complex and the debacle of the Vietnam War.

Nonetheless, beginning with Ronald Reagan, politicians continue to misuse the song as a propaganda tool on the campaign trail. Perhaps taking time to actually listen to the lyrics, or better yet, having the words explained to them by the man himself would help to clarify the matter: “when you think about all the young men and women that died in Vietnam, and how many died since they’ve been back — surviving the war and coming back and not surviving — you have to think that, at the time, the country took advantage of their selflessness. There was a moment when they were just really generous with their lives.”

In “Born in the USA,” Springsteen pays a specific homage to the Hell experienced at Khe Sanh, where in 1968, a U.S. Marine garrison bravely withstood 77 days of relentless bombing in one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war.

Fittingly for our purpose, Springsteen once called “Born in the USA” the “most misunderstood song since ‘Louie, Louie.’”

1. “Louie Louie” (The Kingsmen)

No list about misunderstood songs would be complete without including that 1963 golden oldie, “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen. Featuring mostly indecipherable lyrics, it would eventually become the most recorded song in history with well over 1,000 versions, ranging from Barry White to Motorhead. But the bizarre, serpentine path that led to the rock n roll pantheon is as murky as the garbled vocals laid down in one take by an obscure, teen-aged garage band from Portland, Oregon.

In an equally strange, ironic twist, golden-voiced Harry Belafonte deserves some credit for the song’s wild odyssey. After all, his 1956 chart-topping album “Calypso” would inspire a doo-wop singer in L.A. named Richard Berry to hastily write down the original “Louie Louie” lyrics on a roll of toilet paper (yes, really) in hopes of cashing in on the popular island sound craze. In 1957, Berry and his band, The Pharaohs, recorded the track about a Jamaican sailor yearning for a girl as he laments to a bartender named Louie.  

Although the song enjoyed decent regional airplay, Berry sold the rights a few years later for $750 to help pay for his wedding (he would be justly compensated years later). Then in 1961, a singer in the Pacific Northwest named Rockin’ Robin Roberts covered the tune with his band, The Wailers — and that’s when The Kingsmen finally enter the picture.

Childhood school friends and bandmates Lynn Easton and Jack Fry had heard Roberts’ version playing on local jukeboxes around town and decided to try a recording of their own. And so on April 6, 1963, after coughing up 50 bucks to pay for a quickie studio session, the boys walked into Northwest Inc. Recording and a date with infamy.

The small studio had been set up for an instrumental arrangement only, forcing Ely to get up on his toes to be heard on a microphone dangling from the ceiling. Adding to the difficulty, he also wore braces at the time, producing his soon-to-be-legendary mumbled words. By October that year, the single had raced up the charts, fueled largely by the raw sound and its perceived obscene message.

The single was banned by several radio stations and declared indecent by the Governor of Indiana — and later investigated by the FBI. Eventually, the boys from Bridgetown would only be found guilty of poor enunciation (as well as Fry botching the third verse two bars too soon) but no charges were ever filed. It should be noted, however, Easton can be heard yelling “f***” at the fifty-four second mark after dropping his drumstick.