REO Speedwagon is Grim as Hell.

REO Speedwagon band photo, c. 1979

Song interpretation is a funny thing; regardless of what the song is really about, people are gonna hear what they wanna hear in the lyrics. I remember this one time when I was back in high school, when the real computer teacher had retired, the new computer teacher followed up her utter cluelessness about computers (she actually took the time to tell a third-year class learning Visual Basic that "the monitor looks like a TV, but it really isn't) with getting pregnant and missing the last couple semesters. After all of this went down, all six or so of us in what should have been the highest computer class in the school just ended up in the career counselor's office, listening the the radio, playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and making the text-to-speech program say random Megadeth and Misfits lyrics. So one day, this one other girl is in there (possibly for actual career counseling; I can't really remember) and that one Tracy Chapman song that was big in the late 90s comes on, and she says she really liked that one song she did back in the day, apparently entitled "Drunk." After some probing, the career counselor lady finally figured out that she was actually talking about "Fast Car." You see, even skimming over the lyrics, it's apparent that "Fast Car" is a song about someone who hooks up with a dude who happens to own a fast car in the hopes of escaping her shitty life, only to end up in a second, also shitty life. Yet to this person whose name escapes me, the single line "speed so fast felt like I was drunk" was enough to convince her that not only was it a song about drinking and presumably partying hard, but that the actual title of the song was "Drunk." Seriously, that one word was all it took.

Believe it or not, the song on this single isn't actually about the undying love of American Freedom.

But while an interpretation that plays that fast and loose with the actual meaning isn't normal, overall, most people don't know shit about what the songs they love mean. All it took was the line, "some folks are born, made to wave the flag, ohh, they're red, white, and blue," to turn Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" into a big "yay America, let's go blow up someone a different color than us" song. But ifyou pay attention to, oh, any other line from the song, it's pretty clear the guy who wrote it (John Creedence [citation needed]) was singing about how it's hard to be a big flag-waver when you don't have the money or political stroke to keep yourself and your kids from being the ones splattered across Cambodia. Same thing happened with Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," where it went to so far as to be used for Reagan-based political rallies, when it's one of the bigger "man, fuck this government" songs to come out in the days before popular music got to start using f-words. "Every Step You Take" by The Police gets a lot of play at weddings and is generally thought of as some hugely romantic song about a dude who loves his lady so much that his fool heart aches with every step she takes. In reality, the dude in the songs is totally stalking someone, has probably never directly spoken to this woman, and his plans for her probably don't involve marriage so much as they involve imprisoning her in a pit in his basement and eventually using her to make himself a woman-suit. "Bohemian Rhapsody," if you look at it literally, is a sad song about a poor boy from a poor family who's just killed a man, and his life has just begun, but now he's gone and thrown it it all away. Looking at it another way, it's a completely gut-wrenchingly sad allegory for Freddie Mercury coming to terms with knowing that he's dying of AIDS. But you take that song, throw it over some footage of Wayne and Garth headbanging in the Mirth Mobile, and you've got a BY GOD GOOD TIME PARTY SONG, YEAH. People play "Freebird" at funerals, and act like it's some sad song about movin' on to the next world or whatever, but if you actually pay attention to the words, it's something a lot scummier. The song ends up pretty much being Ronnie Van Zant's way of telling someone, "girl, I love you and all, but I'd really rather go on being a huge rock star, traveling the world, and having sex with people who aren't you, and you're not gonna change that - It's not you; it's me."

"...Aaaand this biiiiiird you caaannoott chaaaaaaaange"

...Which brings us to the subject at hand, which had completely flown right over my head for decades, (I'm such an old, old man) until my special ladyfriend Sarah pointed out some real-ass shit in a song that had sounded completely innocent to me (and I'm guessing most of Earth) for the whole time before that. The song is "Keep on Loving You" by REO Speedwagon, and as I hope will soon be clear to you, REO Speedwagon is grim as hell. I'm sure you've heard the song before, because it's pretty well inescapable, but just in case, here's the video, so you can follow me better on this thing:



And yeah, the way the singer dude (Radagast Eldridge Omar Speedwagon [citation needed]) came off in the opening and closing parts of the video was pretty goddamn insane, but it's got nothing on what's in the actual song. But the crazy googly eyes the guys had the whole time should be an indicator of the kind of things that sick bastard is capable of. And seriously, I know the way people think about this song, and I have to tell you that it's completely, horribly wrong. "Oh, he loves her so much that he's going to keep on loving her, and it's the only thing he wants to do, and oh my god, LET'S GET MARRIED RIGHT NOW." Bullshit. Now let's look at why this is the way it is, one lyric at a time:

You should have seen
By the look in my eyes baby
There was something missin'

- Something was missing in his eyes, possibly any traces of remorse, rationality, or a soul, if the psycho-glare he had going on in the video was any indicator:

“Believe me, if I started murdering people… there'd be none of you left!”

You should have known
By the tone in my voice maybe
But you didn't listen

- Right here, shit is already getting real. Because not even paying attention to what sort of tone the dude's voice may or may not have had, "but you didn't listen," has probably appeared in more villain speeches than any other line, except for maybe screaming "The fools! I'll destroy them all!" or telling the protagonist "We're a lot alike, you and I." Nothing good can ever happen following a line like, "...but you didn't listen."

B-Side: "Follow My Heart (TO YOUR DOOOOOM)"

You played dead
But you never bled
Instead you lay still in the grass
All coiled up and hissin'

Oh shit. I know, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, like maybe the played dead/never bled part meaning she wouldn't return his calls or whatever, but when you look at the big picture, the song as a whole, it's pretty clear what's going on here. He done strangled that bitch. The "coiled up and hissin'" part can easily be explained as an hallucination, especially once the rest of the song comes to light.

And though I know
All about those men
Still I don't remember
Cause it was us baby
Way before them
And we're still together

Here, we get more of an insight of what led to this tragic event, and Mr. Speedwagon's pathology is becoming a bit clearer. Take all those lines, mentally remove them from a song format, (but if possible, keep those "threatening-sounding for an 80s pop song" underlying guitars in mind) and instead imagine them being spoken, and not just spoken, but spoken by Mr. Crazy Eyes from the video. This is starting to look less and less like being in a relationship with an unfaithful woman that you're still in love with and a whole helluva lot more like an imaginary stalker relationship, where the stalker keeps seeing all these other dudes going into the stalkee's house, and it JUST MAKES HIM SO CRAZY. It's right there in the going-all-over-the-place crazy that's shown in saying he knows something, but doesn't remember it, right after he just said that he knew about it, indicating some sort of memory. Jesus, even that sentence sounds crazy. I think the sort of "love" we're dealing with is less of the "oh baby I love you so much that we'll be together forever and if we get shipwrecked, I'll keep the driftwood afloat even if it means freezing to death, because goddammit I love you SO MUCH" kind of love as it is the "maybe if I shoot the President, Jodie Foster will finally go out with me" kind of love. In fact, I bet if the song didn't just degrade into repeating the chorus a hundred times from here, the way pop songs are prone to do, he'd start going off on some serious monumental crazy in the resulting final verses.

"You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, you're fucked forever!"

And I meant every word I said
When I said that I love you
I meant that I love you forever

And I'm gonna keep on lovin' you
Cause it's the only thing I wanna do
I don't wanna sleep
I just wanna keep on lovin' you

At this point, we've already established that Mr. Speedwagon has already stalked and killed someone in this song, but I'm not sure what to make of the chorus. The first pre-chorus part is easy enough, I suppose. Like maybe once he figured out that she still wasn't going to love him, even after he expressed his feelings to her via heavy breathing-based phone calls and mysteriously dying pets, he'd up the ante a bit and express his love with piano wire instead. But the chorus itself doesn't make quite so much sense. I mean, what's the point in still loving someone after you've garroted them? If it was the only thing you wanted to do, why not just let them live and give it another chance? Because I mean, if all you want to do is... love someone... after you've killed them... instead of sleeping... Because... I mean... How can... Aw, fuuuuuuuuuuuck, man.

"...But you didn't listen."