Songs Taken Literally

 I was in a store this morning when on the overhead “Dancing on the Ceiling” by Lionel Richie was playing. I remember being a little kid hearing that song and thinking, “How is he dancing on the ceiling?”  In fact I asked my mom how dancing in the ceiling was possible and how that worked. I don’t remember what she told me, but she did have a quick response  when I asked her why George Michael was Never Gonna Dance Again. “Guilty feeling, got no rhythm.” She literally told me, “Because they chopped his legs off.” 

I was about five or six and remember feeling startled when she said that. Now I look back on it and laugh. 

I remember learning about that phase in child development class when kids take everything super literally. I think it was called “the concrete operation phase” but I might be wrong. I learned nothing in formal education, just memorized shit for tests. 

When my daughter was going through that phase, she heard the song “Sound of Silence”, which has a famous line- “And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.”  My daughter asked me, “Mommy? How do you make a neon god?”  I kind of chuckled and said I didn’t know but she could take glow sticks and make them into a stick figure if she wanted lol. I don’t think she ever did that. 

Then she heard an Eminem rap song where one line was, “Like a fuck you for Christmas, his gift is a curse.”  My daughter got this confused look on his face and said, “How did he get a fuck you for Christmas?”  I facepalmed and reminded myself not to listen to Eminem in her presence anymore. I said something like, “He didn’t really. Someone just did something bad to him and he’s mad about it.”  My explanation made her more confused. 

Kids just have to outgrow the concrete/literal phase before you can really explain nuances, or things that are artistic/figurative to them.