“I’m going to kill you”: what the songs under which we kissed in the clubs are really about

A wonderful ballad performed by Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue was released in 1995 and immediately became a hit, and the incredibly beautiful video only consolidated its popularity. The British music magazine New Musical Express included this work in the list of the “500 greatest songs of all time”, well, we slow danced it and listened to it on dates.

In fact, this song is inspired by the folk ballad “The Willow Garden”. It’s a classic “murder ballad” where the groom kills his bride “where the wild roses grow”. According to the plot, a guy and a girl get to know each other, fall in love and spend three days together: the first he deprives her of innocence, the second he leads her to a rose garden, and the third he kills her with a stone and drowns his body in the river, because he is a maniac, convinced that “all beauty must die”.

Perhaps it seemed to many that this song is about love, because the video turned out to be very beautiful: in the video, the hero of Nick Cave gently caresses the dead heroine Kylie on the face and the body, sings looking at her with love, tragically lowers his eyebrows, wrings his hands and closes his face, in general, suffers a lot. At the end, he places a rose on his lips. It looks like the hero is saying goodbye to the deceased beloved, does not want to bury her, and therefore lowers her body into the waters of the river in the very garden where they loved each other. In fact, if you look closely, at some point a stone appears in Cave’s hand, and he also washes the blood from his hands, but, of course, the moment of the murder is not shown in the clip – it’s still not a thriller. Here are the lyrics to the song, which are truly chilling:

The song was released in 1968, so not only did we kiss at the dances, but also our parents (and for some, our grandparents). And even if you are not a fan of romantic hits, after hearing the name Delilah, you will surely sing a familiar tune from early childhood. After all, this song is not only romantic, but also quite energetic, and it is tempting to sing it.

In fact, this song is a typical example of so-called murder ballads – ballads about murder. The hero of the song follows the heroine’s house and sees how she kisses another. He waits for their date to end and kills her.

Another very old song that has been adored by several generations. “Hotel California” was released on an album of the same name in 1976, but this romantic ballad is an all-time hit, so our kids are lucky to have a date with it, too.

At the same time, even many who know English well believed that the lyrical hero was singing about a hotel called “California”, where he accidentally stopped for the night and met a beautiful stranger. After all, the translation gives this:

In fact, the California Hotel is a metaphor: the authors speak of the legendary state of California, a place where people obsessed with fame and money meet. It’s the same myth about the “American dream” that beckons, then bitterly disappoints you and destroys all the good that was in people. This is how the song ends: