Song Themes

There are certain themes which appear frequently in songs. Here are some of them. Where possible songwriter details and dates are given.

True Love Ways

There must have been love songs for as long as there have been songs. Some celebrate the general principle of love, some are more specific and many love songs also appear in other categories on this page.

There are different degrees of optimism in love songs. Some refer to an existing fulfilled love and some to a hope or aspiration of love which is yet unfulfilled. Others of course are about unfulfilled and lost love. These are in another category on this page. It has been said that sad songs are generally more successful than happy ones!

Girl

Just look in a dictionary of girls' names. Most of them will be the title of a song. For a change these are in alphabetical order:

Only Sixteen (and other ages)

Goodbye (Songs About Leaving)

Leaving was one of the great themes of songs in blues music. Usually the songs are not just about leaving a person, but about leaving the town, or the whole area.

Goodbye is one of a small number of songs written by Lennon and McCartney but never recorded by the Beatles.

Baby Please Don't Go

Closely related to several other themes on this page. In this case the separation may be imminent, but has not yet happened, as opposed to the theme of Goodbye to Love also on this page.

Bad to Me is one of a small number of songs written by Lennon and McCartney but never recorded by the Beatles.

The Minute you're Gone is intermediate. Yes She's gone, but it seems that she usually comes back. "Please don't stay away too long".

Elegy is a beautiful song about the most permanent of all departures of a lover, death, though this is not immediately apparent. It is sung by the writer himself when he was the singer with the mainly instrumental band Colosseum.

Goodbye to Love

This section is a somewhat mixed collection of songs about unrequited and lost love and currently includes both love which never happened, and love which has ended.

Unrequited is a word used almost exclusively for poetry and songs meaning unfulfilled (literally unreturned).

Surprisingly the Bee Gees wrote a large number of songs about unrequited love from their very earliest songs in the 60's right through to their hugely successful disco phase in the 70's. Spicks and Specks was number one in Australia but got nowhere in the UK.

Alone Again Naturally

World Without Love, along with Bad To Me and Goodbye, is another of the small number of songs written by Lennon and McCartney but never recorded by the Beatles.

Raining In My Heart

Various shades of emotional disturbance from sadness and distress upwards.

I'd Do Anything

About this theme in general, but sometimes this exact phrase appears in the lyrics.

On My Knees

It is surprising how many times this exact phrase appears in song lyrics. Other songs express similar concepts in other words.

Act Naturally, written by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, contains the line "On his bended knees".

Mr Moonlight was regarded by some reviewers to be the worst Beatles recorded song at the time, but it has probably been surpassed since... and what about Love Me Do?

Evil Woman

Songs with similar themes

It is interesting to notice how some songs carry exactly the same message, though in completely different words and music. We can ask whether such similarities arise through influence or coincidence.

Great Duets

Duets are not really a theme in the sense of the rest of this page, but usually are on the theme of two lovers talking alternately. By Duet I do not mean simply a song performed by two people, but I mean a song written especially for the purpose of that. There are songs here which are clearly intended to be interpreted as a duet, but were originally performed by just one singer, most notably Father and Son, but there are several such songs from Tommy too.

Great Instrumentals

Instrumentals are not really a theme, except that they are lyrically themeless, though sometimes they have an theme implied by the style and mood of the music. The late 50's and early 60s' was the heyday of the instrumental single, but since then there have been only a small number of instrumental hits. It is notable that many instrumental hit singles did include vocal of some sort, but clearly subjugated to the instrumental parts. Sometimes a tiny fragment of vocal, perhaps speech, or sometimes quiet singing in the background.

Hoots Mon sounds like a jazzed-up version of the traditional Scottish tune "Wi' a Hundred Pipers and All".

Red River Rock is a jazzed-up version of the traditional song Red River Valley.

Telstar was the first single by a British band to reach number one in the USA.

Diamonds was one of two successive number one chart hits which were both guitar instrumentals. In January-February 1963 Dance On by the Shadows was immediately followed at number one by Diamonds (Jet Harris and Tony Meehan were both founder members of The Shadows). This must represent the pinnacle of popularity of instrumentals in Britain. There is more! The Shadows had another number one in the following month, Foot Tapper, and three of the other number one songs in early 1963 were by Cliff Richard and the Shadows, thus The Shadows were involved in six of the first seven number ones of 1963!

Number one singles of 1963.

Please excuse a little artistic licence. I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman is not an instrumental, but is whistled.

Thingumybob was clearly written by McCartney and was one of the first four singles to be released on the Apple Label on 30th August 1968, alongside Hey Jude and Those Were The Days.

Other Great Song Themes

Gloom and darkness; Death; Dreams; Good times; Dancing; Travel and place names; Cars, driving and motorbiking; Help!; Work; Waiting.

This page may be expanded to include examples of some of these.

Some of the themes on this page are illustrated with examples on the Lyrics page of this site.

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