

High and drunk, the guy gets in a head-on collision with a truck and dies. The rest details the last few minutes of a fan racing to a Kiss concert. The song opens with a news announcement about a fatal car accident. However, if one listens to the album version, the song’s meaning becomes obvious. Most people are probably more familiar with the single meant for radio airplay. The song tells everyone to get off their feet, but it is really about how bad partying can be. So it is no surprise that their darkest song is still an arena rock jam. It is hard to have existential woes in kitty makeup.

With their busy schedule where they rock and roll all night and party every day, there is not a lot of time for mourning. If there is any band that one would think would not talk about death, it’s Kiss. That lesson is reflected in the song as the morbid narrative is masked with a fun melody.ĩ The Kiss Of Death In ‘Detroit Rock City’ Seeing the menu item inspired him to take a lighter view of death. In the wake of losing a pet, his mind naturally turned to death. In 1972, Paul Simon experienced the first real loss in his life when his beloved dog died. Though the title may have been a joke, the inspiration was certainly not. Simon wrote the song after he saw a chicken-and-egg dish called “mother and child reunion.” He thought the rather dark pun was so hilarious that he somehow had to work it into a title. Those who spent hours decrypting the song’s deeper meaning will be disappointed to discover that the real-life inspiration was something as insignificant as a Chinese menu. The cheery tune hides a dark past, while the philosophical and introspective lyrics are actually a dumb joke. Part of what drove the song’s popularity was the charming reggae riffs and cryptic lyrics about the “strange and mournful” day when the mother and child shall meet again. 4, “Mother and Child Reunion” is now considered one of Simon’s biggest and best songs. The end result was the 1972 hit “Mother and Child Reunion.” As the first single released following his breakup with Art Garfunkel, the song’s success was key to launching Simon’s equally famous solo career. Long before he was copying African music, Paul Simon tried his hand at imitating Jamaica.
