All is Ephemeral

Back to Life… opens with the express wish to leave behind a fantasy realm two lovers inhabit and to return to the reality that is life.

The Humpty Dance is a silly but fun bit of hip hop, detracting from social commentary in favour of a humorous tale of a so-called ugly man’s sexual antics.

Nothing Compares 2 U conveys the painful end of a relationship and how one of the people in this union is struggling to pick up the pieces.

In Free Fallin’ Tom Petty teamed up with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) to write a track that was a homage to San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.lin by Tom Petty

One popular interpretation of Lullaby is that it refers to bedtime stories Smith heard as a child of a spiderman that eats children alive.

The Sundays' Can't Be Sure generalises the concept of desire and the narrator describes it as being a “terrible thing.”

Pixies' Monkey Gone to Heaven deals with environmental issues and is a testament to the damage mankind has done to the planet.

I did read that Getting Away With It is partly a parody of Morrissey from his days in The Smiths and the image he projected to his audience.

W.F.L. is not the most straightforward song to unravel but it does seem to concern a relationship that has changed or broken down.

Like a Prayer harks back to Madonna’s own upbringing. She has stated in interviews that being raised as a Catholic led to a lifelong impact.

Faith No More's Epic describes a narrator who is in the midst of an experience, one that is leaving them feeling very good indeed.

In Me Myself & I each of the members of De La Soul take it in turns to express their frustration at being labelled by their contemporaries as hippies.

I Am the Resurrection seems concerned not with a love of religion but with a breaking of the bond between mankind and faith.

In the chorus of Soy gitano we hear that he is gatecrashing a wedding and is going to make a spectacle of himself and declare his feelings.

Songwriter Martin Gore took inspiration and indeed the song title from Priscilla Presley who once referred to her husband, Elvis Presley, as her own “personal Jesus”.

Chris Isaak himself said Wicked Game was inspired by a late night call from a girl who wanted to come over and “talk” with him.

A Little Respect is another of Erasure’s gems and in this period they were regularly flirting with the UK Top 10.

Love Shack referred to a real place in Athens, Georgia and was a cabin where singer, Kate Pierson, once lived and apparently it burned down in 2004.