9 of the most sneakily depressing hit songs of all-time
Chris Spags 
Popular music is a funny thing. Sometimes a good hook and a catchy tune are all people remember of a song. But what about when you actually listen to the lyrics? In this article, we go just a little deeper to break down nine of the most sneakily depressing hit songs of all-time.
9 J. Geils Band – “Angel Is a Centerfold”
The premise of the song seems like a typical fantasy for most men: You wake up one day and find a woman from your past is now naked in media. Think about it for a second. J. Geils is so stoked that a girl he had a crush on in high school whom he thought about regularly is now naked in a magazine. That’s cool. But how about for the girl? She was going to high school, wearing sweaters, being “pure like snowflakes.” Now she’s in Hustler Magazine, forced to give up her dreams of being a doctor to allow a camera into her gynecological exam to pay for her expensive coke habit. Not quite as triumphant a moment, isn’t it?
8 Men at Work – “Who Can It Be Now?”
The second single off the Australian band’s debut album sounds like an anthem for those who wish to be alone on a cursory listen. But if you actually pay attention to the lyrics, there are a lot of strange things going on. The singer says that he’s going to “run away and hide” if someone comes into his home. He speaks of an imaginary childhood friend and expresses concerns about being taken away. This has led to many cultural theorists to suggest that the song is actually about the issue of mental illness and how one man copes with his. At the very least, this song should serve as a reminder that those Australians are a sneaky lot, what with their songs with psychological subtext and their games of knifey/spoony.
7 Eddie Money – “Take Me Home Tonight”
People love singing this catch tune at bars. And with good reason…at first blush, this might seem like it’s a song about passion or even a fun one night fling. But in reality, it’s a song about desperation. Eddie Money is so afraid of being alone that he’ll literally get in bed with whatever girl is available at the moment and lie about how special the moment is, just so he can be “[kept] warm while the cool winds blow.” Even semantically it’s a bit weird. He’s the guy. He should be taking her home, not requesting that she take him home. Just because you’ve got skintight jeans and feathered hair doesn’t mean you’ve got to be the bitch, Eddie.
6 Michael Jackson – “Black or White”
When “Black or White” came out, it was supposed to be a triumph of racial equality with one of music’s preeminent stars saying, “Hey, our colors don’t matter.” And the message certainly had its merits. But consider the source: A guy who really battled his own color for years, including another fifteen years after the song was released. Then you couple in the fact that he may have been vigorously diddling the star of the music video, young Macaulay Culkin (presumably not George Wendt), on set in between takes and things get much less fun.
5 Katrina & The Waves – “Walking on Sunshine”
4 Frank Sinatra – “New York New York” 3 Eddie Murphy – “Party All the Time” 2 Tommy Tutone – “867-5309 (Jenny)” I got it, I got it, I got it! So we’ve got a girl with a reputation based on the fact that her number was scribbled in some seedy restroom. No fault of hers, a woman’s life choices are her own and the guy who posted her number is probably a creep. Whatever. But how does that lead to this response from ol’ Mr. Tutone? Jenny, don’t change your number. I was all on board with your “fingerbang the girl with her number on a bathroom stall” strategy up until that last part there, Tom. Whenever I’ve seen a lass’s number on the wall of a restroom, I’ve never thought, “What a wonderful young woman this must be. I’m desperate to have her.” Unless you’re a dedicated collectors of all sorts of exotic strains and types of syphilis, that thought probably shouldn’t cross your mind. 1 The Police – “Every Breath You Take”
Everyone hears this song in movies or TV shows and thinks positive things (or perhaps about the airduster episode of “Intervention”). But it’s a song sung from the perspective of a woman who’s fallen in love and is now waiting for her lover to come back. So she waits by the mailbox to hear about her lover returning. And he doesn’t. But instead of this chick realizing, “Hmm, maybe this fellow doesn’t share my optimism towards our relationship,” she just sing-yells her way through the days clinging to a love that never really was. And probably doing some cutting. Lots of cutting. 
New York City is a wonderful place. I’ve lived here my entire life. It’s got a lot going for it. But if you distill this one down, it’s about someone looking up to New York as the town that’ll make him into the big shot he’s always dreamed of. He hasn’t made it. He’s looking for a panacea for his life’s doldrums and all he’s going to get is stabbed in the then-ridiculously-dangerous Times Square area or fellating strange men for a place to stay for an evening. And perhaps that’s a needlessly pessimistic outlook, but I’m not so confident a guy with the skillset of “making it” while dressed in “vagabond shoes” is going to be the next great New York success story.
Eddie Murphy’s singing career as a whole was probably enough to warrant its appearance on a list of sneakily depressing songs. However, the song itself doesn’t lack for covert sadness on its own merits. When you listen to the rhythms of the songs, it sounds no different than any other club jam of the type. But in the song, Eddie sings about how he bought his girlfriend “champagne and roses and diamonds on your finger,” only to find that his lady is out gallivanting at night. She’s presumably banging the crap out of other dudes (Murphy references how she gives her number to every guy in the club and “lays her body down”) while Eddie’s busy flipping through the pages of a Zales catalogue, trying to fix what’s wrong. Between that and Rick James’ disdain for his couch, you could kind of get why Eddie stopped doing stand-up and started making “Pluto Nash” and “Norbit”.
Everyone remembers the number and knows that the song is about someone named Jenny. But did you remember these forgotten lyrics offhand?
I got your number on the wall!
I need to make you mine.
Somewhere along the way of Sting becoming a cherished musical treasure (well, prior to his love affair with the lute that ended in a wildly mediocre album) and Diddy covering this song for his departed friend Notorious B.I.G., people forgot that this song is about some dude creepily stalking from afar a chick who left him. If you tried to do what Sting sings about in the song now, you could at least do it through some combination of Facebook and perhaps a well-placed spy camera. And even then, you’d probably find yourself on the receiving end of a restraining order and jail time. But to do this when the song came out in 1983? It’d require hours of stake outs, binoculars, and a lingering threat of murder. Romance that ain’t.follow guyism:
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