Seemingly: A patriotic call for endurance through potentially rough times.

Actually: A vet comes home after fighting for his country and gets no help. "Born In The U.S.A." is more like "But I was born in the U.S.A.! How can this be what's happening?"

George Will: He is no whiner, and the recitation of closed factories and other problems always seems punctuated by a grand, cheerful affirmation: 'Born in the U.S.A.!'"

Seemingly: It is closing time at a bar, time to perform the requisite mating ritual.

Actually: It is closing time in the womb, time to go into the places you will be from.

Open all the doors and let you out into the world
Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl
One last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer
You don't have to go home but you can't stay here

Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
This room won't be open 'til your brothers or you sisters come
So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Seemingly: A Ladie's Man Discussing His Domination of Disco Era Tropes... Loud Music and Women 

Actually: A man struggling to get by in the big city. Disco Dancing is his only escape from the monotony of his life.

"Everybody struggles against the world, fighting all the bullshit and things that can drag you down. And it really is a victory just to survive." - Barry Gibb

Got the wings of heaven on my shoes
I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose
You know it's all right, it's okay
I'll live to see another day

Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me, yeah
I'm stayin' alive

Seemingly: ??? Good Dance Song?

Actually: I think my girlfriend wants to cheat on me, but is afraid of losing our relationship, so let's end it now because staying together and being unhappy is dumb. Everyone else, lets just have a good time to avoid all this nonsense.

Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance

If what they say is "Nothing is forever"
Then what makes - then what makes
Love the exception? So why oh why oh, are we so in denial?

My baby don't mess around
Because she loves me so
And this I know for sho
But does she really want it
But can't stand to see me
Walk out the door?

Actually: A comment on the value of love songs. An ironic response to John Lennon's accusation that all McCartney does is write poppy love songs.

Seemingly: Professing Love To Someone

You'd think that people
Would've had enough of silly love songs
But I look around me
And I see it isn't so

Some people want to fill the world
With silly love songs
And what's wrong with that?
I'd like to know
Cause here I go again

I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

Seemingly: Sir Mix a lot really likes big butts.

Actually: Yes, he loves big butts, but so does everyone else. The established concept of "skinny = beautiful" is wrong, and comes from whitewashing perpetrated by popular media.

Becky, look at her butt...

she's just so... black!

I like big butts and I can not lie,
You other brothers can't deny

I'm tired of magazines
Sayin' flat butts are the thing
Take the average black man and ask him that
She gotta pack much back

So I'm looking at rock videos
Watching these bimbos walking like hoes
You can have them bimbos
I'll keep my women like Flo Jo

when it comes to females, Cosmo ain't got nothin'
To do with my selection...

So Cosmo says you're fat
Well I ain't down with that!

To the beanpole dames in the magazines:
You ain't it, Miss Thing!

#166 on Rolling Stone's top 500 of all time

Most Played Song of All Time on BBC Radio 1

On It's Surface...

A Man Commits Murder...

Confesses to His Mother...

His Mother Please For His Life With Demons...

He resigns himself to the Demons...

His Mother Storms Away in Anger...

He Acts as if His Fate is OK...

Beneath The Surface?

Freddie Mercury has his first homosexual experience...

Confesses to his then wife...

He battles with himself and his wife over his sexuality...

He accepts his homosexuality...

His wife storms away in anger...

He is upset over hurting his wife

Methaphoric Symbols

Death / Devils = Homosexuality

God / Christ = Heterosexuality

Gun = A Certain Body Part

Mama = Mary Austin (his then wife)

Open Questions?

Why Does Mercury use negative symbolism? 

Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile / Whether Jew or gentile, I rank top percentile

- Fugees, Zealot

Perfected poem, powerful punch lines

Pummeling petty powder puffs in my prime

 - Blackalicious, Alphabet Aerobics

Dead in the middle of little Italy little did we know that we riddled some middleman who didn't do diddly.

- Big Pun, Twinz

And be prosperous, though we live dangerous 

Cops could just arrest me, blamin’ us, we’re held like hostages

 - Nas, NY State of Mind

Now, what you hear is not a test, I'm rapping to the beat.
And me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet.

 - Sugar Hill Gang, Rapper's Delight

The attractive assassin, 

blastin the devil trespassin

Master gettin cash in an 

orderly fashion.

 - The Roots, Respond/React

If I sell a brick I can buy a house
If they find the key they might lock me up

- Logic, Gang Related

When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 45

It ain't to play games with you... probably mame you.

 - Jay Z, Encore

I don’t half-step on the ‘caine

- Jay Z, Hello Brooklyn 2.0

You stopping us is preposterous
like an androgynous misogynist

- Talib Kweli - Twice Inna Lifetime

I refugee from Guantanamo Bay
Dance around the border like I'm Cassius Clay

- Praz, Ready Or Not

My rhymes are like shot clocks,
interstate cops
and blood clots,
my point is your flow gets stopped.

 - Talib Kweli - Hater Players

Once upon a time not long ago
When people wore pajamas and lived life slow
When laws were stern and justice stood
And people were behavin' like they ought ta good
There lived a lil' boy who was misled
By another lil' boy and this is what he said:
"Me and you, Ty, we gonna make some cash
Robbin' old folks and makin' tha dash"
They did the job, money came with ease
But one couldn't stop, it's like he had a disease

My man Inf left a Tec and a 9 at my crib
Turned his self in, he had to do a bid
A 1-to-3, he be home the end of '93
I'm ready to get this paper, G: you with me?
Motherfucking right, my pockets looking kinda tight
And I'm stressed
Yo, Biggie let me get the vest
No need for that, just grab the fucking gat
The first pocket that's fat, the Tec is to his back
Word is bond, I'mma smoke him, yo, don't fake no moves
Treat it like boxing, stick and move, stick and move
you ain't got to explain shit
I've been robbing motherfuckas since the slave ships
With the same clip and the same .45