Wading into lyrics can get pretty deep

Is Gwen Stefani really singing about cheerleading on “Hollaback Girl”? And what does Van Morrison mean when he opens “Astral Weeks” with “If I ventured in the slipstream / Between the viaducts of your dream”? These are just two of the daunting questions that music buffs and “lyricologists” are debating on the website www.SongMeanings.net.

The site doesn’t just post lyrics -- SongMeanings.net encourages users to discuss “factual song meanings, personal experiences through the song, or even just their dismay for a song,” writes site creator Michael Schiano, 22, in an e-mail.

Inspired by a debate surrounding the Ben Folds Five song “Brick,” Schiano and a buddy developed the site in late 2000 as a pet project to hone their computer programming skills. But within a few weeks of its launching, SongMeanings.net burgeoned into a popular interactive music community that now averages 50,000 unique hits a day.

Some of the lyric interpretations are real doozies -- but the thinking and passion behind other postings are as thorough as a graduate poetry dissertation.

“Mr. Brightside” is one of the most-searched-for songs in July (second only to Green Day’s politically charged “American Idiot”). A few of the website’s community members have posited that the Killers’ hit is about a prostitute, but poster Antimyopia notes, “Read the chorus without thinking hard and you’ll see that it’s about a shy, spoiled boy lacking social skills who gets mad at the slightest rejection.”

Zeve’s interpretation of the song is slightly different: “ ‘Coming out of my cage’ means that he got out of jail. He was doing fine in jail. He discovers that the girl, Jenny, is now involved with someone else.”

While modern hit makers dominate SongMeanings.net’s monthly search charts, an old-school song still piques visitors’ curiosity the most: Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Various interpretations include references to drug trips, Satan worship and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Deja vu, anyone? (Now don’t forget to play the song backward too.)

-- Christine N. Ziemba