6 “Jump”

The lyricist of this single by Van Halen is David Lee Roth. The idea of this song came to Roth’s mind after recalling news about a man who threatened to jump off a tower and commit suicide. Roth imagined that there would’ve been at least an individual in the crowd yelling the jumper to “go ahead and jump,” and that’s how he came up with the first line of the song.

The lyrics of the song written by Roth centered on the single phrase, “Go ahead and jump.” Roth was driven around Los Angeles in his Mercury convertible when he wrote the initial phrase of the song. Later, different parts of the song were developed by the rest of the band, mostly by Ted Templeman, and Eddie Van Halen.

It took the band two years just to come to the terms of recording this song. The song was often vetoed away either by Roth or Templeman.

Finally, in 1980, the song was recorded and in just a single day. “Jump” soon jumped the charts rapidly and remained at the top for five weeks straight in 1984. (Source)

7 “Poker Face”

This hit by Lady Gaga has nothing to do with poker, or love or seduction. It is actually Gaga hiding her homosexual fantasies from her heterosexual lover. Gaga admitted that she always used to think about girls while having sex with her lover, and she felt bad about it. But not after she wrote the song.

Gaga had been dating this man a long time ago and she revealed the true meaning of the lyrics only in 2013 during a private gig in London. It was released back in 2008, and the honest revelations of the lyrics proved shocking for her fans.

During the private gig in London, Gaga publicly said, “I was thinking about chicks every time we had sex, and I didn’t want him to figure it out because I felt so bad.” Concluding, “but I don’t anymore because I wrote a song about it.”

Besides hiding her bisexuality from her partner, Gaga once mentioned she also derived inspiration for writing the song from gambling.

In 2009, “Poker Face” topped the Billboard Hot 100. And in no time also found its position in several charts globally.  

When the song’s true meaning came out after 13 years of its release, it quickly flooded the Internet with opinions and jokes, particularly on social media. (Source)

8 “This Land Is Your Land”

The lyrics of this song written by Woody Guthrie are a protest to how much “God Bless America” was played during the Great Depression. It is also sometimes considered as a second American National Anthem, yet it was downplayed due to the fear of McCarthyism.

The song was first written in 1940 when Woody moved from Oklahoma to New York. After that, it took 11 long years for the song to be released by Folkways in 1951.

Woody, a genius artist and entertainer since his childhood, was irritated by Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” being played repeatedly on the radio in the late 1930s. He was irritated to the degree that he decided to write a song in response to it and sarcastically naming it “God Bless America for Me.” Nonetheless, renaming it later as “This Land Is Your Land”

Attempts were made by Woody’s son, Arlo, to record the lyrics in 1944, but the controversial words raised objections. However, Nora, Woody’s daughter, once mentioned that The Weavers recorded and published the first three verses of the song from which their family was able to generate some royalties.

The political left in America enjoyed the melody, yet some criticize it by saying it’s a Marxist response to “God Bless America.” (Source)

9 Total Eclipse of The Heart

The composer, Jim Steinman, wrote this song in 1983 in the context of vampires. In fact, its original title was “Vampires In Love” since it was going to be used in a Vampire musical. Jim said once in an interview that the song is about “the darkness, the power of darkness, and love’s place in the dark.”

Bonnie Tyler, the singer of “Total Eclipse of The Heart” was 45 when it was recorded. When Jim introduced Bonnie to the composition, she got extremely excited and just wanted to record the song as soon as possible.

The song, which could be easily anticipated as a narration of a human love story, is a vampire love story. And fair enough since it was composed by Jim for a vampire musical based on the 1922 vampire flick Nosferatu.

First, it was “Vampires in Love”, later it became “Total Eclipse of The Heart”, and after that, the same song was known as “Dance of the Vampires” in Steinman’s 2002 Broadway musical.

The vampire musical played on for almost two decades. It was revived again when Tyler performed it in 2017 during the actual total eclipse of the Sun. (Source)

10 Jolene

The artist Dolly Parton wrote this song dedicating it to two redheads she had come across in her life. One was an eight-year-old girl named Jolene who waited for Parton’s autograph after a television show broadcast in the 1960s. The second one was a bank teller who had developed a crush on Parton’s husband and had met them around the same time.

Parton met this cute little girl with green eyes when she was gazing at her, hoping for an autograph. Parton acknowledged her and asked for her name. When she replied, “Jolene,” Parton knew she was going to be one of her song’s names.

Jolene was also a bank teller who had a terrible crush on Parton’s husband. He too liked visiting the bank because of the special attention he was getting.

The coincidence of the two events was the genesis of the idea of the song “Jolene.” It was largely a simple track with the same words repeating again and again; “Jolene”, the most.

Later, Parton mentioned that the song became popular because people could relate to Jolene’s inadequacies. She said, “No matter how beautiful a woman might be, you’re always threatened by other women.”

It was released in 1973 and became one of Parton’s biggest single hits. (Source)