- (React) Warning! - (both) Warning!
- (React) I might ruin some of your favorite songs for you today.
- Oh no!
- You mean like you'll sing with us?
- (React) No, I'm gonna ruin them.
We are deep diving into songs
with way darker meanings than you ever may have thought.
And for you watching at home, be sure to check out part one
for even more dark songs.
- It's a safe space, and we're gonna get dark together.
- (React) Yes, we are. - Dark!
- ♪ Dale a tu cuerpo ♪ ♪ Alegria Macarena ♪
- The Macarena!? - No way!
- You're telling me there's something wrong with this?
- That's what I'm saying!
- This is like such a timeless classic song
that you hear since birth.
- ♪ Dale a tu cuerpo ♪ ♪ Alegria Macarena ♪
- Yeah, I actually kinda know what this is about, I think.
- Do ya? - Yeah, I think so.
- Oh, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah! - Bop, bop, bop, bop!
- ♪ He's a boy whose name ♪ ♪ Is Vitorino ♪
- Ah! - This is such a happy song!
- Yeah, what? - I can't imagine what the...
- What hidden meanings are in the Macarena?
- (React) Oh, you just wait.
- I'm confused.
- ♪ What was I supposed to do ♪
♪ He was out of town ♪ ♪ And his two friends were so fine ♪
- (React) Did you hear that?
- His two friends were so fine?
- (React) Uh-huh.
- Oh well, apparently, she had a threesome
with his buddies when he was out of town.
- Look, we've all been there.
- Oh! (React laughs)
- (React) What do we think this is about?
- Well, somebody's getting cheated on, that's for sure,
'cause if he's out of town, she's waiting 'til he gets out of town
to do her dirty work. - Mm-hmm.
- (React) That's exactly what this is about.
- Oh wow! - Wow!
- (React) Yes!
When translated, the original '94 version of this song,
it's about a girl named Macarena,
who cheats on her boyfriend with two friends
while he's being drafted in the Army.
- Two friends!?
- If I'm drafted to the war,
you have to at least mourn the fact that I'm in the war.
(Jeannie laughs) For at least like four or five months.
- Well... - He's out doing his thing.
She's gotta be back home doing her thing.
- Choices have consequences.
- ♪ Visas in my name ♪ ♪ If you come around here ♪
- ♪ I make 'em all day ♪
- ♪ I get one done ♪ - ♪ In a second if you wait ♪
- This is such an iconic song.
They put this in so many movies, like...
- ♪ I'm clocking that game ♪ ♪ Everyone's a winner ♪
♪ We're making our fame ♪
- All I wanna do is bang, bang, bang. That's sex, right?
- ♪ All I wanna do is ♪ (gunfire echoes)
- Or she's actually gonna shoot people.
- Or, right.
- Robbery! (laughs) - Hey!
- (React) Maybe. - Hey!
- Hey!
- I always thought it was weird that you know,
they were using bullet shots. - (both) Mm-hmm.
- It sounds kinda cool though. - Yeah, it does!
- It sounds fine.
- ♪ Take your money ♪ - I need money!
- ♪ All I wanna do is ♪ (gunfire echoes)
♪ And a ♪ (gun clicks)
(cash register dings) ♪ And take your money ♪
- (React) So M.I.A. has said that this song
actually comments on stereotypes attached to immigrants.
How they're treated and portrayed by the media.
- Oh!
- (React) And how some people think
they're coming to take their jobs and their money.
- Ah! - No way!
- (React) Yep. - It's a political commentary?
- (React) Yeah!
So M.I.A.'s parents, they bounced back and forth
between Sri Lanka and the U.K. during her childhood.
- They were refugees, right? - (React) Yes.
- See, that's what I remember. - Oh, si, si, si, yep, yep.
- Boom, boom, boom. - (React) Yes.
Fly like paper, get high like planes,
if you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name
is a narrative about untrustworthy immigrants.
- (both) Mmm.
- (React) And how they could be making counterfeit passports
to come to the U.S.
- Interesting, okay. - (React) Okay?
- It makes me like the song a lot more, actually.
- The first time I heard the song, I think it was in Pineapple Express?
- And then... - Which is like such a carefree...
- People just get high. - Yeah, that's...
- And you're like oh.
- I always associated it with like smoking weed.
- Sure. - (React) Right.
♪ (playful music) ♪
- Is this the Backyardigans!? No it's not, no, no, never mind.
- Oh yeah!
- ♪ A pocket full of posies ♪
- No, everybody knows, this is about the black plague!
- Yep! ♪ We all fall down ♪
Yep.
- It's just, it has some historical meaning, right?
- (React) Yeah. - Like some kind of war or something?
- Pocket full of posies is so the bodies wouldn't stink.
(Alex laughs)
- (React) I mean, you guys are spot on there.
- Oh yeah, we knew that.
- (React) Many have interpreted this classic nursery rhyme
to actually be about the Great Plague.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I don't know when I learned that.
- Pocket full of posies.
- (React) Rosies are red marks that the Bubonic Plague gave you.
- Right, right.
- (React) The posies were flowers that plague doctors used
to lessen the smell of death all around.
- Yes, yes. - Yeah.
- (React) And the ashes were supposed to represent
the cremated bodies of people who died from the Great Plague.
- Right.
- (React) And then falling down meant falling down dead.
- This sounds like a scary movie.
- (React) Right.
- Like that song now sounds like the start of a scary movie.
- Mm-hmm.
- And we just over here teaching the children this song?
- (React) Yeah! - (laughs) Yeah.
- Just singing it out like it's all happy,
and they're talking about dead bodies.
- Man, I didn't even know posies were flowers.
- This is the kind of story that's known about this song,
but it's kind of been busted,
because there actually isn't much proof
that this song arrived on British shores until the 1880s.
England's last brush with the plague
was more than 200 years before this.
- Mmm.
- (React) During the plague, cremating the dead was forbidden.
- Mm-hmm.
- (React) So when they say ashes to ashes, right?
Everyone assumes that that means like cremation.
- Right, right. - Cremating the bodies,
but that was actually not allowed when the plague was actually happening.
- Okay.
- (React) So a little suspicious. - Yeah.
- (React) Maybe it isn't what we think.
- You blew my mind, and then now I'm puzzled.
- Yeah. - (React) Yeah.
- I'm just like which one is it?
- (React) We will never really know,
but that's kind of the story
that's followed this like classic nursery rhyme.
- Who...
- We could always just travel back in time.
- We do. - Yeah.
- I mean, if we needed the DeLorean, it's now.
- (React) It's now.
- Oh yeah, the German war.
- This must have been about the Blitzkrieg, right, or something?
- ♪ Hmm, hmm, hmm ♪ ♪ Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm ♪
I don't really know the lyrics.
- It's not in English.
- Oh. - Oh, that's why!
(group laughs)
- I think I've only heard this song in passing passing,
like double passing,
as in like the tune seems a little bit familiar,
but I have no idea who this is.
- They released an English version,
and that's when we all went oh. (laughs)
- Yeah, I like the little smoke. - Oh!
- (React) So you don't know this one?
- At all. - Mm-mm.
- (React) So, this song supposedly gives a glimpse
into Cold War Germany.
Of course, Berlin, in the '80s was divided,
and had been for 20 years by a 96 mile, 13 foot wall, right?
And Nena, the artist of the song's guitarist,
said that he was at a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin,
and the band released a bunch of balloons during their set,
and he watched one of the balloons kind of go off towards the wall,
and he imagined like, what would happen
if the radars picked that up and thought it was...
- Mmm. - Woah.
- (React) You know, an enemy plane or something.
- Mm-hmm.
- (React) And how that could lead to a whole war.
- Right. - Mm-hmm.
- (React) Just from something seemingly so innocent.
- Small, mmm.
- ♪ This is it, boys ♪ ♪ This is war ♪
- (React) Yes. - It's a Balloon.
- That was this, yeah. - (React) Yeah!
When you hear it, does it sound like a depressing song?
- No, it's like let's go dance! - Yeah.
(both laugh)
- ♪ Cards with spades to start ♪
- Imagine we didn't know this song.
- (React) Do you!? (group laughs)
- Yeah, we know, what is this?
- She's such an icon. Ugh, I love her so much!
- (React) Do you?
- Is it Poker Face? - (React) Yeah!
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ♪ Oh oh ♪
- She really like jumped on the scene with like two bangers,
and then like just took over the world.
- Yes.
- ♪ Can't read my ♪
- I'm just not the biggest, what, Gaga person?
- Yeah. - (React) Yeah.
- But I mean, hey, respect.
- ♪ Come on Barbie ♪ ♪ Let's go party ♪
(both laugh)
- ♪ Can't read my ♪ ♪ Can't read my ♪
- Boy, she just steals songs from everybody, doesn't she?
- It just fits.
- ♪ She's got me like nobody ♪
- ♪ P-p-p-poker face ♪ ♪ P-p-p-poker face ♪
♪ Mum-mum-mum-mah ♪
- (React) That's the song about? - I have no idea.
- I am... - Poker Face.
- Assuming that she's using, you know, the poker face,
as some sort of like facade or hiding something.
- Is this something sexual? - (React) Yes.
- Yes, is it about giving [censored]? Can I say that?
- (React) It's not. - Oh.
- (React) So this song is actually, it's not necessarily darker,
it's just kind of a hidden meaning. - Oh, okay.
- (React) That a lot of people don't know, but,
she said at one of her Vegas residency shows,
"bet you didn't know that this song was about sleeping with men,
and thinking about women the whole time.
Now that's a good poker face."
- Mmm.
- Woah!
- (React) So this song has now been coined as like...
- Interesting. - (React) A bisexual anthem.
- Yeah! - Wow!
- Woah! - (React) Alright.
But no one knew it at the time. - That's cool, I didn't know that.
- Every fact I learn more about her is just like more iconic stuff,
and I'm like ugh, she's so cool.
- But that's good songwriting, like... - True.
- You know, like you can interpret it however you want.
- (React) Yes.
- Like, I didn't know she was thinking about chicks
while she had a boyfriend. - (React) Right.
- Sleeping with guys. - (React) Totally.
- Live your life, Lady Goo Goo.
- ♪ Could you whisper in my ear ♪
- What?
- ♪ The things you wanna feel ♪
- I don't know that I know this song.
- (React) Do you know this one?
- Yeah. - Uh-huh.
- ♪ Do you wake up on your own ♪ - Are those real tattoos?
- Is that a real dimple in his chin? (laughs)
- Mm.
- This is such, like, emo days.
- ♪ I wanna wake up where you are ♪
- Why is she under his bed? - Right, that's creepy.
- Yeah dude, get out of there.
- Mm-hmm, well, she's obviously hiding.
- Yeah.
- I don't know what this song is about.
- Yeah, I just figured it was a regular alt rock song.
- Right.
I just figured it was another one hit wonder.
- He's just, it's gotta be about like a dead girl or something, right?
- (winces) Maybe, hope not.
- (React) So this is Slide by the Goo Goo Dolls.
- Goo Goo Dolls, yes. - The Goo Goo Dolls, okay.
- (React) Yep. - We know Iris.
- (React) John of the Goo Goo Dolls explained at a performance
that this song is actually a story about two teenage kids.
The girlfriend gets pregnant,
they're trying to decide whether she should get an abortion,
or if they should get married and run away.
- Right.
- (React) And when people heard the song,
they didn't have any clue that that was what it was actually about.
- Woah! - (React) Yeah.
- This is like the plot of the film, what's that movie with Molly Ringwald?
- Oh, For Keeps! - Yeah, it's like For Keeps!
- Uh-huh, yes, I love that movie!
- It's a great movie!
- I mean, that's just real. - Yeah.
- Like, it's kind of like a tale as old as time, honestly.
- (React) Yeah. - Yeah.
- (React) Right.
- ♪ (singing in Korean) ♪
- Oh, I like this man! - Wait!
- Gangnam Style? - (React) Yeah!
- Oh my God!
- When this came out,
every single person in the world was doing this dance, bro.
- (React) Mm-hmm.
- This is a, I hated it when it came out at first,
but now, in hindsight, I'm like it made people feel good,
and he's like having fun. - (Benison) Yeah.
- It's like a, it's positive.
- What could this be about? I met him once.
- You did?
- Yeah, he was walking in Beverly Hills,
and I took a Vine with him.
(Sharon laughs) Like hey!
- Hey!
Hey!
Hey, hey, hey! (laughs)
- ♪ Oppa Gangnam style ♪
♪ Gangnam style ♪
- I mean, I don't like that move right there,
but other than that, he's having a good ass time!
- (laughs) It's a little aggressive, huh?
- Yeah, it's like... - (React) Yeah!
Gangnam is a territory is Seoul, Korea.
- Mm-hmm.
- (React) It's kind of like the Beverly Hills...
- Mm-hmm. - Yes.
- (React) Of Seoul.
- Funny that I ran into him in Beverly Hills.
- (React) Yeah! - Mm-hmm.
He was doing research. - Mm-hmm.
- (React) He describes it as noble in the daytime,
and going crazy in the night time.
He compares ladies to the territory, and says,
the lyric says I am right guy for a lady who is like that.
- Okay, okay.
- (React) But many have speculated
that there is some subtle messages here about wealth,
class, and value in South Korean society behind the song.
- Oh wow.
Oh my God!
- (React) So he's kind of making a mockery of this like
chiseled, rich guy look, right? - (both) Mm-hmm.
- (React) That's associated with these Gangnam guys.
- Oh! - Okay.
- (React) Yeah. - I see, I see, I see it now.
- (React) And he's comparing wealthy people to faux wealthy people
that kind of just like dress the part.
- Mmm. - (React) To fit in, right?
- Yeah. - (React) Or to look cool.
- That's me!
- (React) Honestly, no, I feel that. (laughs)
- No. - I'm that guy!
- ♪ Blackbird singing ♪ ♪ In the dead of night ♪
- My mom loves this song. It's The Beatles!
- ♪ Take these broken wings ♪ ♪ And learn to fly ♪
- My favorite story of this is after he fell in love,
I think, with his first wife. - Uh-huh.
- He went out onto the balcony of his house,
and there was a like a crowd of people out there,
and he just played this acoustically for them.
- I'm not a Beatles fan like that.
- (React) No? - They never did it for me.
I know like a few songs, but...
- ♪ Blackbird fly ♪ - It's not my jam.
- Is this about a black person? - (React) Maybe, like a couple.
- Yeah, is this about black people?
Is this about like the civil rights movement?
- (React) Yes, exactly, exactly! - Yeah, okay, I did know this.
Yeah, mm-hmm. - (React) Yep, this song is commentary
on the civil rights movement of the '60s.
He references the Little Rock Nine, do you know what that is?
- Mmm. - Yes.
- (React) The Little Rock Nine were nine black students
that stood in the face of racism
by attending a formerly all-white school in 1957 in Little Rock.
Their attendance at the school was a test
of Brown vs. The Board of Education,
which was ratified by the Supreme Court a few years earlier.
The court's decision ruled that segregation in public high schools
was unconstitutional and paved the way
for racial equality across the country.
- Wow. - Mm-hmm.
- (React) In 2016, McCartney actually met two of the Little Rock Nine,
and he says like these are the pioneers of the civil rights movement.
- Wow!
- (React) And inspiration for Blackbird.
- Oh my God, history. - Yeah, that's crazy.
- Historical figures meeting each other.
Oh my God! - (React) Crazy!
- You know what? I love the Beatles!
(group laughs) I love them!
That's my favorite band! (both laugh)
- ♪ Anyone can see the road ♪
- ♪ That they walked on ♪ ♪ Was paved in gold ♪
- Is this... - I think I know this song.
- Is this Sublime?
- (React) No, this is Fastball.
- Well, this is giving '90s for sure.
- Well, I mean, the girlies are dancing.
- Yeah, they've got... - You know?
- Dope dancers.
- I'm digging the chops. The hair.
- Oh, the sideburns. - Yeah, what are those called?
- Sideburns. - Sideburns.
- I remember the first time I heard this.
I remember thinking like, this makes me,
I like this song, but it makes me feel sad.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - If you really understand.
- (React) What does this song sound like it would be about?
- I don't know.
- (React) And like the vibe of the video?
- All, I couldn't, I kind of blacked out,
because all I seen was a band playing in a parking lot.
- Yeah, exactly, I was like... - (React) Yeah, yeah.
- That's weird, coming out of a trailer, and they're just like...
- They're like let's set up shop!
- (Benison) Yeah. - Let's have band rehearsal.
- (React) It's actually based on a true story
of Lela and Raymond Howard, an elderly couple from Texas
who were driving to an annual Pioneer Day Festival
10 miles from where they live, and they never returned.
- Aww. - Oh?
- (React) She has signs of Alzheimer's disease,
and he was recovering from a stroke and a head injury.
- (whispers) Ah.
- (React) 13 days after the Howards went missing,
they were found at the bottom of a cliff
about 400 miles from their destination.
- Damn.
- (React) They were still in the vehicle,
which had veered off the side of the road,
and was hidden in brush.
- Wow, that's really sad. - That's rough.
- (React) Do you think you'll listen to this one the same way?
- Nope. (laughs)
Now it's gonna be sad.
- They really didn't know where the hell they were going!
- Dude!
400 miles is so far!
- ♪ Say your prayers, little one ♪ - ♪ Don't forget, my son ♪
- Oh, okay, you know this? What is it?
- It's Metallica.
- (laughs) You've never heard this song?
- I don't think so! - You've gotta be kidding.
- Oh my God. - I don't like this, Benison.
- Dude, I don't like this either. - Mm-mm.
- (React) Have you heard this? - No, I don't like what I'm hearing.
- ♪ Open ♪ - No.
I was never a rocker.
- This is one of the most famous songs ever!
♪ Exit light ♪ - Oh yeah.
- ♪ Enter night ♪ - ♪ Dah nah nah, dah nah nah ♪
- ♪ Take my hand ♪ - ♪ Dah, nah, nah, nah, nah ♪
- ♪ We're off to Never-Never Land ♪
- (React) This is Enter Sandman by Metallica.
- I know Metallica.
- I have a Metallica shirt,
but I would not know what they looked like.
- (React) There was a lyric in the song that they took out,
because it was like too dark. - Like crazy, kinda crazy?
- (React) And it originally, this lyric alluded to it being
about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
- Sudden Infant?
- (React) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, so SIDS.
James Hetfield of Metallica said
he wanted more of a mental thing in this song,
where a kid is getting manipulated by an adult,
and he says you know when you wake up with like
little crusties in your eyes? - Crust in your eyes, mm-hmm.
- (React) That's supposedly been put there by the Sandman.
- Sandman. - (React) To make you dream.
The guy in the song tells the little kid that,
and he freaks out, he can't sleep after that,
and it works the opposite way of like a bedtime story, right?
So instead of a soothing bedtime story,
he tells him this thing to like keep him awake.
The tables are turned.
- What a nasty man.
- Yeah. - It's disgusting really.
- Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of sanitary issues around that too.
Like where has that sand been?
- Yeah, is that how we're getting pink eye?
- Maybe that's why it's on the rise.
- Is it!? - No, I don't know. (laughs)
- ♪ And their bombs ♪ ♪ And their bombs ♪
- ♪ In your head ♪ ♪ They are crying ♪
- ♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪
- ♪ In your head ♪ ♪ In your head ♪
♪ Zombie, zombie ♪ ♪ Zombie-ie-ie-ie ♪
- ♪ In your head ♪ - Okay.
Never seen the music video before. There's soldiers.
- ♪ Zombie, zombie ♪
- Well, this has to be about some kind of war.
- It's Ireland!
- This isn't English either, right?
- (React) It is. - Oh my God, dude!
- What language did you think that was?
- I had no idea, I thought it was just like some random language.
She's saying actual words? - (React) Yes!
This song was written in response to the death
of Johnathan Ball, age 3, and Tim Parry, age 12.
both who had been killed in the 1993 Warrington bombings.
Two kids that died. - Oh my God.
- (React) Really impacted Dolores of the Cranberries.
She supposes that's why she sang in the song, like, it's not me.
Even though she's Irish, it wasn't me, she didn't do it,
and she still can have empathy for these people in England.
- Yeah.
- I'll say it. - (React) Yeah.
- War is terrible.
- Ugh, you heard it here first. - I'll just come out and say it.
It's gotta stop. - I mean.
- Really just has to stop.
- Controversial issue, but glad you were able to say it.
- (Alex) Yeah.
- (React) Well, that's it, you guys. - Yay!
- Yay. - (React) Did I ruin anything for you?
- No.
- It's mostly just like learn, like it's...
- It was like a history lesson! - Yeah.
- No, I'll still enjoy the music. I mean, that's what music's for.
It's supposed to make you feel something.
- Yeah!
- I feel like I learned more about songs
that were in my life already.
- Mm-hmm. - (React) Yes.
- So it's nice to put a little bit more layers and meanings
into already existing things.
- Mm-hmm, absolutely. - So that was nice.
- (both) Bye.
- (React) Bye! - Goodbye!
- Oh, bye! - (laughs) Get off your phone!
- I know, I thought we were done!