Good Riddance
Green Day’s acoustic ballad, a perennial favorite for greatest prom song, was never intended to be a love affair. Billie Joe Armstrong, a brooding frontman, wrote the song about a lover who was relocating to Ecuador and titled it “Good Riddance” out of frustration over the breakup. Armstrong is unconcerned by the ballad’s misunderstanding as a high school slow dance tune, telling VH1’s Behind The Music, “I sort of enjoy the fact that I’m misunderstood most of the time. That’s fine.”
Good Riddance
Born In The U.S.A.
“Born in the U.S.A.” is a must-have on any list of misunderstood songs. The usage of The Boss’s smash as a rah-rah political anthem, according to music critic Greil Marcus, drives its legacy: “Clearly the key to Bruce’s popularity is in a misunderstanding,” he said. “He is a tribute to the fact that people hear what they want to hear.” Most people mistook it for a patriotic song about American pride, when it was actually a condemnation of America’s treatment of Vietnam veterans.
Born In The U.S.A.