r/SipsTea • u/sco-go • 13d ago
Feels good man Hey there, is that Delilah?
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u/Rand0m_Spirit_Lover 13d ago edited 13d ago
Delilah is former professional distance/steeplechase runner Delilah DiCrescenzo.
She met the plain white T’s singer through a mutual friend, in like 2001 or so.
They were both from the Chicago area and he wrote the song when she went away to college (at Columbia in New York), they were never in a relationship though.
The woman on stage here is not Delilah
The actual Delilah:
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u/FyouinyourA 12d ago
Seeing him perform that song in the Chicago burbs at a random town fall fest in the early 2000s when I was in middle school right around the time it started to blow up on the radio is a wild memory I have lol
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u/fruitmongerking 12d ago
We used to make fun of Plain White Ts when they opened for Lucky Boys Confusion. Then this song came out and rocketed them past LBC. It was unexpected, for sure.
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u/Frontline99 11d ago
In the early 2000s I went to see Reel Big Fish and Sum 41 opened for them. They were supposed to open up for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones later that year but blew up literally a couple weeks before the show and got their own tour.
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u/Nice-Bandicoot9725 12d ago
The woman he wrote that about said she met him very briefly and that she finds the song creepy.
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u/Centuurion 12d ago
"If you want to know what DiCrescenzo thought of the song, which went on to sell more than 4 million copies in the U.S. alone, check out this interview in which she described hearing it for the first time:
My first thought: "Oh no! Did I lead Tom on?" I became anxious. I was with Will. I'm still with Will to this day. Tom and I had a friendly relationship and I wondered if he misconstrued my actions. He put so much effort into the song. I felt guilty, like, "I'm such a wench!"
I didn't want the spotlight. I was nervous that I'd let Tom's fans down. They'd be disappointed to hear I have a boyfriend. Every girl would want a song written about her, and they'd think I was ungrateful and rude to deny Tom. I felt pressure to live up to those expectations."
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u/EquivalentQuery 12d ago
Oh so she didn't think it was creepy just that she might have misled him. u/nice-bandicoot9725 please don't spread misinformation!
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u/CycleMother2006 12d ago
I think writing a song like that for someone who you just met who you know has a boyfriend is... a little creepy. I mean OK he's a songwriter, sometimes you can't help what inspires you. But maybe keep it to yourself and don't give it to her. Change the name to like Susannah, Emilia, Theresa, Victoria, Natalia... all of which maintain the cadence.
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u/EquivalentQuery 11d ago
Fair enough you think it's creepy, and I would tend to agree. However, that's different than the actual person involved thinking it is creepy - which is what the parent comment incorrectly stated.
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u/ri89rc20 12d ago
Yeah a good example of how people write songs. Everybody wanted to believe there was a great love, a story, that the song is "true".
In reality many songs are written because the girl has a name that works well, and a bout of fantasy, with maybe a kernel of reality.
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u/elheber 12d ago
Back in the geocities era of the internet, a pre-incel satire (?) website blew up when its owner came up with the now infamous Ladder Theory. One of the other popular theories on the site was about Für Elise, in which Beethoven would bring women to his home and convinced them to sleep with him by naming this unpublished song after them. No matter how hard he tried, however, one woman would not put out... Elise. So he doubled-down, officially published it as "Für Elise" and played it in his concerts.
Hey There Delilah would therefore be the Tom Higgenson's Für Elise.
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u/Relative-Relief-8816 11d ago
there was a great love
It just wasnt reciprocated.
And this plummeted the lovesick man who was rejected to greatness.
Happens time and again. Just listen that Avril Lavigne song about the Skater Boy.
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u/ri89rc20 11d ago
Avril has stated a number of times that "Skater Boi" is just fictional, made up, based on a "what if".
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u/Unicorns99 12d ago edited 12d ago
Thank you for taking the time to clarify this
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u/GrayMareCabal 12d ago
Didn't she also hate the song and how big it got?
Like, it's still a catch AF song more than a decade later, but I remember hearing the story and thinking it felt creepy - especially with the song using her real, actual name (which was not a common name)
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u/MouthJob 12d ago
The song's existence never really bothered her, though apparently her boyfriend wasn't a fan. But yes, she did claim to get tired of hearing it everywhere.
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u/Severe-Procedure-308 13d ago
Vocalizer on that woman's mic?
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u/tjvs2001 13d ago
Yes fucking terrible
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u/JustGoogleItHeSaid 13d ago
How on earth can you tell i cant hear shit
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u/Claxton916 13d ago
It’s hard to describe.
When the man sings you can hear natural vibrato in his voice. When he sings it sounds like ~~~
When the woman sings her voice is exactly perfectly on the note and there’s very little vibrato it it. When she sings it sounds like ——.
When people sing there will be microtones that are unique to your voice because of the shape of your sinuses, nose, throat, and vocal cords and how their different from my sinuses nose, throat, and vocal cords. It’s why you can tell the difference between two people’s voices. Autotune and vocalizers trim out a lot of those microtones when they pitch the singer to match the note they should be singing. It makes it sound uncanny and unnatural.
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u/DannarHetoshi 12d ago
She also displays zero breath control or makes no indication that she's trying to project. It's like she's barely even singing because she knows the slop will do it for her.
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u/FastWalkingShortGuy 13d ago
Musicians who have been playing with live vocalists for years or decades can hear that shit in an instant. Guessing the commenter is a musician.
It's like seeing AI slop, but with your ears.
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u/joe-clark 13d ago edited 13d ago
I'm by no means a musician but I noticed her voice sounds a bit robotic and unnatural.
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u/PhthaloVonLangborste 13d ago
I listen to a lot of podcasts. Today I listened to short wave, and the girl had so much vocal fry, and valley girl vernacular I wanted to drive off the road.
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u/repdetec_revisited 13d ago
I work with a guy that only speaks in fucking fry and it drives me crazy.
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u/spyboy70 12d ago
I was watching a retro video game video from pojr on YouTube last night and I'm assuming he has the male vocal fry, the end of every sentence drops down to a slight growl. I couldn't take it and had to stop watching.
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u/Next_Hospital6729 13d ago
Can confirm my dads a singer and it always blows my mind how fast he points that shit out
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u/ShorthalteanLore 12d ago
Can confirm. It’s equivalent in distinctiveness to someone talking/singing into a megaphone to me.
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u/Doctologist 12d ago
I came straight to the comments because it’s all I could hear. It was really off-putting.
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u/hogester79 13d ago
Listen closely you’ll hear her voice almost ripple up and down - that’s because it’s digitally managed
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u/DeputyDomeshot 13d ago
Idk how you can’t hear it lol. Borderline sounds like she’s using a fuckin voice changer
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u/Itchy_Psychology3300 13d ago
If you’ve been trained in music, you can sometimes pick up on it. I def can hear it. It sounds slightly unnatural. It’d 100% be better just doing it with her normal voice imo.
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u/ButterscotchTop194 12d ago
It's a unique robotic effect that is over-used massively in pop music. Once you recognise it, every song you hear with it is totally ruined.
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u/Severe-Procedure-308 13d ago edited 13d ago
The minute she starts. You can hear it kick her up on note and hold it there. "Hey it's delilah". and "even more in love with you I fall". are very telling...
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u/AlternativeWonder471 12d ago
I can hear it in the "in love with you I fall". Like it catches the I and brings her back down.
But the "Hey" at the start just sounds like her doing that, to me anyway
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u/Aeon1508 13d ago
she can't sing. she's just cute
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u/Kampvilja 13d ago
She can but pretty limited. She's pop punk (God I hate calling that stuff punk) but that's what it is referred to as). Not a bad little singer songwriter in her lane.
Edit: does use tuning a lot.
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u/New_pollution1086 12d ago
I used to sing this song do my dog Dale. "Hey there chihuahua"
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u/CeddieKruger 12d ago edited 12d ago
Hey there, Chihuahua
What's it like to bark at silence?
Put you down, and you get violent,
Pick you up, you get excited..
You just peeeeed...
All over meeee....
Thanks for the awards. I may have to write this out into a full song lol
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u/Rogue_Squadron 12d ago
I love this so much. Nothing beats making your own Weird Al parodies to sing to your pets. We have a long tradition in our house of doing the same.
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u/_The_Bran_Man_ 12d ago
Big fan of doing this as well! Keeps the house alive.
Side note: I hate that I read Al as AI.
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u/Responsible_Word7018 12d ago
Oh god that’s how I read it too. Now anyone named Al is damned to be AI for all eternity or until the robots come for us
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u/SleepingWillows 12d ago
My favorite was (to the tune of Hot Girl Shit by Megan Thee Stallion) “I’m a hot dog / I do hot shit / earn some kibble / on my next trick”
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u/EverythingSucksYo 12d ago
I did this with Ridin Dirty lol. My version was “Fat n Chubby”
They see me walking,
They laughing,
Kids running past sayin I’m
Fat n Chubby
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u/EntertainerSuper8933 12d ago
Used to have a foster dog named Nala - it was around Xmas and my 8 year old and I came up with an entire song called "Feliz Nala Dog" complete with dance movements.
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u/doktorfantastik 12d ago
One time I walked in on a girl I was dating giving our dog a bath and singing “The Sounds of Silence” but changing the lyrics to be about giving the dog a bath.
We’re married now.
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u/ObiFlanKenobi 12d ago
I am currently sitting at work (on a break) with my chihuaha on my lap, so now I HAVE to sing it to him.
His name is Calvin.
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u/ChuffChuff101 12d ago
I studied music in college and I remember every lunchtime there was this one guy who would pull his guitar out and play this song and only this. He'd be surrounded be girls every time
Fuck that guy. Why weren't those girls interested in jazz drummers instead??? (/jk, I know why)
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u/NauticalInsanity 12d ago
Only people that fawn over bassoon is other bassoonists. Which would be fine if homosectionality wasn't a sin.
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u/xsnakexcharmerx 12d ago
Dude, in my time it was Glycerine by the band Bush. If you could play that song and sing decent, the girls would flock to you lol.
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u/ChuffChuff101 12d ago
Haha you know it. Jokes on that guy though, I went into musical theatre.
Found out that way all you had to do was be male and not gay.
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u/j-b-i-r-d 12d ago
I had two or three mates who were far better at guitar than me but I can sing, so learnt this and about 3 other songs and took one of their guitars and played this circa 2009 at a festival campsite and had about 5 girls telling me how amazing I was. Life peaked for about 3 mins.
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u/BaronVonUberMeister 12d ago
My brother in law would do this with More Than Words. Didn’t even have to sing
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u/Known-Ad4293 12d ago
They don't know the difference in difficulty..lames asses
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u/ChuffChuff101 12d ago
Pfft why listen to The Plain White Ts when Giant Steps is available? Girls just dont understand it. No one understands me. MOM GET OUT OF MY ROOM GHAAAAAD!
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u/WideHuckleberry1 12d ago
Probably didn't want to be in the crossfire when you got chairs thrown at you.
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u/Swimming-Food-9024 12d ago
I think jazz drummers are super fucking rad! ...but alas, I'm a dude and extremely married.
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u/MJ9426 13d ago
Was she even born yet when the song came out
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u/FastWalkingShortGuy 13d ago
Absolutely not. This song came out when I was in college and I'm in my 40s.
Edit: unless she lives on a diet of botox and fillers.
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u/NOTcreative- 13d ago
It was pretty well known (at least a rumor) that the original Delilah had a boyfriend and was creeped out
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u/ThresholdZero 12d ago
She's 38. I think the distance and knee highs are doing a lot of the work here.
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u/supernasty 13d ago
This is Lølø and she was 7 years old when the song came out 👀
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u/ShadyGuy_ 13d ago
It has actually been confirmed the original Delilah barely knew him and she was incredibly embarrassed when this song became a hit.
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u/ll0l0l0ll 12d ago
Non related but it been more than 25 years I still curious about who let the dogs out !
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13d ago
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u/Burner-QWERTY 13d ago
Women just don't appreciate stalkers these days.
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u/ourstupidearth 13d ago
Maybe you just aren't stalking hard enough
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u/Any-Cranberry-6305 13d ago
100%. Men, if you feel like shes a little afraid you need to double down and stalk harder. Follower her at night, after work, to the club. Figure out where she lives and start leaving flowers.
/s - Guys. No means fucking no.
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u/Chudpaladin 13d ago
Back in my grandpas day, you just stalk women enough until they give up and marry you
Thankfully now I just stalk Reddit
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u/Anothergasman 13d ago
I learned from Cary grant movies that if she says no, just grab her and kiss her against her will until she says yes
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u/Opposite-Funny-9669 13d ago
my uncle has the worst line ever, it's "nice legs, what time do they open?"
idk why but that line just popped in my head.
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u/julianmartinross 13d ago
When we played football, my uncle would say, "I'm wide open like a hooker on a holiday!"
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u/darksoulsremastered 12d ago
Not nearly as bad as:
You like Subway?
Wanna see a 6 inch turn into a footlong?
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u/Kn1ghtV1sta 13d ago
Who's the woman? Asking for science
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u/Special_Spirit8284 13d ago edited 13d ago
Lolo aka Lauren Mandel not sure why the down vote but it's literally her.. LMFAO https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/plain-white-t-l-l-171659979.html
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u/Much-Cryptographer13 13d ago
A yahoo link, holy shit
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u/GravityTest 13d ago
Look at its length. Impressive.
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u/oldDotredditisbetter 13d ago
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/plain-white-t-l-l-171659979.html
clean link without yahoo's extra tracking
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u/JetreL 11d ago
This song seems to be one of the worst forms of torture I could imagine. You have an attraction to someone put it in a love song expressing your inner desires and then it hits and you have to sing it for the next 20+ years, your life is defined by it and you never get the person.
This is some Stevie Nicks painful drama.
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u/Ok_Mathematician_314 12d ago
Why is she dressed like SpongeBob
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u/Dry-University797 13d ago
I saw them perform at a mall outside Philly right when this song blew up. A family friend who I grew up with was their manager. Seemed liked nice guys. I don't think that band did much after that.
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u/Rocket_Robin 13d ago
I used to be a stagehand I remember setting up for the Plain White T’s when this song came out. They were the main act with multiple trucks of equipment to unload. Then a couple years later they came back as an opener for someone else with only a small space on one truck for their equipment. Quite the difference.
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u/Bluefalcon325 13d ago
I mean, they were the song on my MySpace profile so my girlfriend could know for absolute sure I loved her. So they did that, too.
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u/Cletus7Seven 13d ago
I was in middle school and this girl had a crush on me and would call our landline to talk with my all the time… she would constantly play this song over the landline and my parents would pick up and listen in lol. Embarrassing but good times. She would hog our landline for hours. Of course I was a shy oblivious kid that did not pick up on anything at that age. This song always makes me think of her to this day.
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u/StrangeCatch382 12d ago
Oh god, this reminds me of the time I typed an "I really like you" letter to my crush in jr high. It was through this online game or something. His parents responded back saying they'd pass along the note. They were really nice about it but yeesh, painful to think about it even to this day.
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u/Kabutroid 12d ago
Reading the comments makes me sad.
What I want to know is, did the original songwriter or the real Delilah write the new lyrics in here, because they in themselves are wonderful.
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u/orangevega 12d ago
I read up on this. the real Delilah did not like him back. she's a triathlete or some such
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u/bealzabubba 12d ago
Read up on the female singer, who goes by L0L0 - during Covid she started doing “reaction lyrics” on TT, and this was apparently her big “hit”. I’d never seen or heard it until very recently on here.
So: the female singer wrote the lyrics, not the original songwriter.
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u/FishTshirt 13d ago
This song is evil. It got stuck in my head for like a decade where any quiet moment this fucker starts singing to Delilah in my head. I never even liked the song
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u/North_Chipmunk_7959 13d ago
I have that too but with the Three Amigos theme song
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u/icantsppell 13d ago
She either sounds incredibly nervous singing or there’s some weird vocal tricks with that mic
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u/obi_wan_jabroni_23 12d ago
Yep I work in audio, really shocked how obvious the auto tune is on her voice. Sounds terrible IMO.
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u/Optimal_Bed_1872 12d ago
I think this is really sweet and all, but my favorite take on this song goes like ->
"Hey there Delilah what's it like in New York City. I'm a thousand miles away, but girl snapchat me them titties"
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u/cookeryandwookery 13d ago
All that I know is the actual Delilah eventually found him extremely creepy. Because it was her actual name and suddenly she was famous against her will. And yes she went to the vma’s.
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u/TheCitizen616 13d ago
You may be editorializing her opinion just a tad. She certainly found it weird, as anyone else would, but "extremely creepy"? I dunno. For context:
DiCrescenzo stated she found it difficult to deal with the popularity of a song written about her. "When I'm at the gym, it's playing; when I'm at the pool, it's playing. Part of me wants to scream at the top of my lungs that it's about me. Another part of me wants to cower and say it's not. [...] It was so beautifully written. There was pressure to live up to this ideal. I didn't know how to be polite but, you know, ditch him."
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u/kjsmitty77 13d ago
I feel like some people have a hard time conceptualizing that something can inspire, or you can have a feeling in a moment in time that inspires something, and a creative person can translate that in to art that resonates with other people. It doesn’t have to be this deep obsession, it’s just a source of inspiration. Then listeners can take completely different meaning than what the artist intended too, and that doesn’t make the listeners wrong. Art can take on a life of its own based on how it resonates with different audiences.
For some reason I keep thinking of this line from an Ani Difranco song. “Every song has a you, the you the singer sings to and you’re it this time.” And a lot of songs do have a subject the singer sings to or about. Tons of songs are titled after a person’s name. And we listen to it and project it on our own life experiences. Hopefully it makes the listener feel something. Sometimes it’s better not to overanalyze the artists process and just enjoy the art for what it is for you.
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u/ShowMeYourTritts 13d ago
I almost tried to say something like this to another commenter but you’ve done it so much better. A lot of us play fantasy in our heads especially when we are younger. And then again when we are older. It’s just how some of us work.
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u/Designer_End5408 13d ago
Ooh the potty’s not just for pee…. We used this song to potty train our one child. lol.
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u/sky_shazad 13d ago
Is there an actual proper recording of this version of the song?
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u/luisstrikesout 12d ago
I named my kid Delilah, and not because of this song. However whenever someone hears her name, they have to sing this song or the “hey there Delilah” part. She freaking hates it. She’s only 4 too.
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u/Jpgamerguy90 13d ago
I think the song works better for what it was, I don’t love this version
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u/blockov12 13d ago
Seen lolo live, she's great, real banger songs, err as the kids say it's rad/lit/bet no cap
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u/academicthrows 12d ago
I had a roommate around the time this song came out who, about 4 times a week, would bring a new girl to our apartment, play this song for her on guitar, and then fuck her. It was like clockwork.
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u/Brad23212 13d ago
I always thought Delilah was doing webcam stripping to pay the bills in nyc lol
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