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The 5 Most Mind-Blowing Predictions Ever Made in Pop Songs
Most of us imagine that the creative process as it relates to songwriting probably goes something like this: take drugs, hallucinate, and then write down what you see. Strangely, that’s also how a lot of history’s most famous “prophets” came upon the predictions that eventually made them famous. So it should come as no surprise that, from time to time, the two fields meet in a rocktastic explosion of guitars, drums, and telling people about stuff before it happens.
Here are five songs that eerily predicted the future, in mind-boggling detail …
#5. Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Was to Be Released on 9/11, Features Songs That Sound Like 9/11
Photo Credit:Wikipedia
Even though it was ranked among Rolling Stone‘s 500 greatest albums of all time, Wilco’s career-defining album almost didn’t see the light of day. And, surprisingly, it had nothing to do with the fact that it predicted one of the biggest national tragedies ever in two different songs. Check out these terrifying lines and try picturing them as something other than a reference to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. First, from the song “Jesus, Etc.“:
“Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs …
Voices whine
Skyscrapers are scraping together
Your voice is smoking”
And now, from “War on War“:
“Moving forward through the flaming doors …
You have to lose
You have to learn how to die if you want to be alive”
The lyrics in “Jesus, Etc.” — with descriptions of quaking skyscrapers and whining voices — are obvious allusions to the terrible images we saw on the news for the months following the terrorist attacks. “War on War” then, is about the aftermath and the rebuilding of New York City. Of course, the title is also an apt description of the disenchantment many Americans felt about the wars that followed.
However, not only was all of it recorded well in advance, but if it were not for some legendary record label dickery, it would have been released on the exact day of the tragedy it accidentally documented.
A couple of other nifty notes about this album: 1) It features another song called “Ashes of American Flags” and 2) The cover art bears a passing resemblance to a couple of tall buildings. So there’s that. Reviews of Yankee Foxtrot Hotel call the album “telepathic” and “mysterious,” because calling it “sonic witchcraft” is too on the nose.
#4. Nicki Minaj Predicts a Fatal Shooting a Year in Advance
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Nicki Minaj may be best known for portraying an Ecstasy-overloaded Barbie doll with multiple personalities and an ass that swallowed Lil’ Kim’s career, but did you know she also has clairvoyant abilities behind those insane, dead eyes? Check out these Nostradamabars:
“Why’d you have to leave in July?
On a peaceful and serene summer night …
Why the doctors could not stop the bleeding …
Now you see you not bullet proof …
I could’ve told you about my intuition …
Why’d you have to go so soon?”
When that track, called “We Miss You,” showed up online, it was almost immediately following the news that Nicki Minaj’s cousin, Nicholas Telemaque, had been shot to death. Clearly it was written in response to the tragedy — for starters, her cousin was gunned down on July 4 (“Why’d you have to leave in July?”), in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. Although we’re not sure any night in Brooklyn counts as serene, unless Minaj was just mispronouncing “siren.”
So big deal, a lot of rappers write about losing loved ones due to gang violence, even the ones who grew up in Malibu. But in fact, Minaj recorded the song almost a year earlier, and had even shopped it around to artists like Mariah Carey and Keyshia Cole to see if they’d be interested in recording it instead. And knowing that, the other details thrown in are downright creepy — she says paramedics rushed him to the hospital, but he unfortunately bled out (“Why the doctors could not stop the bleeding?”) from his multiple gunshot wounds.
Eery! The German song: Am 30. Mai ist der Weltuntergang keeps ringing in my head. Hope those boys aren’t psychic.