Lewd Lyrics Hidden in Hit Songs
For Decades, Songwriters Have Been Sneaking Hidden, Sometimes Dirty, Lyrics Into Songs
Editor's Note: Following the airing of a segment on "Good Morning America" on March 24, 2009 about double meanings and double entendres hidden in song lyrics, including the insinuation that songwriter Peter Yarrow's "Puff the Magic Dragon'' may have actually been about marijuana use, Yarrow contacted "GMA" to clarify that the song was simply what it seemed – a song about a little boy and a dragon. ABC News correspondent John Berman, who has covered wars in Iraq and Lebanon and produced the lyrics controversy story, said he "never meant to pick a fight with Peter, Paul and Mary."
Click here to watch the on-air correction.
Just in case no one has let you in on the secret, many people believe "Puff the Magic Dragon" may not be just about a mythical creature in the fanciful land of imagination, despite songwriter Peter Yarrow's insistance of innocence.
As Ben Stiller's character from "Meet the Parents," Greg Focker points out, "some people think that to 'Puff the Magic Dragon' means to puff ... smoke ... a marijuana cigarette."
"Puff" was not the first time listeners thought they were hearing a hidden, sometimes illicit message in an otherwise harmless song, and it has hardly been the last.
Most recently, Britney Spears' single "If You Seek Amy" has been enraging just about as many parents as it has been confusing.
The problem, some say, is in the song's title and, if said quickly, how much it sounds like the spelling of a certain four-letter expletive.
"It's more than a little dirty," Caryn Ganz, deputy editor of RollingStone.com told "Good Morning America." "I'm not sure how much I can say on TV.
"I think she kind of snuck it in secretly in the song, and if you get it you get it, and if you don't, you don't," Ganz said.
Among those who "get it" is one group of mostly 11-year-olds in New Jersey.
"It says it so fast that you almost can't hear it," one of the girls, 11-year-old Kara Grifonetti, said. "It tries to, like, sneak things in."
But nothing got by Lesley Mufson, mother of an 11-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy.
"I watched her video for one second and I was like, 'Get that off,'" Mufson said.
The battle of lyrics has been going on for decades -- the Rolling Stones famously had to change the song "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" to perform on the "Ed Sullivan Show" -- but lyrics today are more explicit.
When the group of 11-year-olds from New Jersey broke out in a new song by Flo Rider, they didn't realize exactly what they might be singing about.
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