People shocked after realizing what TLC's song 'Waterfalls' is actually about
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: Jim Smeal / Contributor/YouTube/TLCVevo
'Don't go chasing waterfalls' - no really, don't.
How many years have you sung TLC's absolute banger from the confines of your shower, tapped your foot and nodded your head on the train - and even got on stage at karaoke?
Well, the happy go-lucky song 'Waterfalls' is actually quite sinister.
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It is sung by Rozonda 'Chilli' Thomas, Tionne 'T-Boz' Watkins and the late Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes - who died in 2002 in a car accident in Honduras, while volunteering at a children's development center.
The American R&B group, who released their first album in 1992 and boast of more than 15 million monthly listeners on Spotify, actually open the song with, 'A lonely mother gazin' out of the window'.
It continues to explain how the mother struggles to communicate with her son and how 'he can't seem to keep his self out of trouble'.
The final two lines of the verse go: "So he goes out and he makes his money the best way he knows how.
"Another body layin' cold in the gutter, listen to me."
He goes out to earn his own money is a reference to drug dealing, but things get more eerie.
According to Songfacts, the chorus narrates how the mother begs her son to not chase 'waterfalls', which apparently means 'money and respect by dealing drugs'.
The site went onto explain: "The second verse deals with a man's relationship with a woman. His 'waterfall' is casual sex - he has a 'natural obsession for temptation'.
"This could mean he is cheating on someone or the woman he is seeing is cheating on someone. Either way, he contracts HIV and dies ('three letters took him to his final resting place')."
And people were shocked when they found out, taking to Twitter one user wrote: "Just looked up the meaning of Waterfalls by TLC. I did not expect that."
While another commented: "My co-workers fiancée thought TLC's song was about a guy named Jason Waterfalls. Really changes up the meaning of the song."
And a third added: "Me and my older brothers song is Waterfalls by tlc It has so much meaning to us. It makes me sad when I hear it. I miss him. Love you p hars."
But it didn't end there.
Since childhood, we have been bellowing a song which has lyrics inferring drug addiction and crime.
The lyric in question read: "For tootin' caine in your own vein/ You shoot and aim for someone else's brain/ For fallin prey to crime/ I say the system got you victim to your own mind."
The songs overall message, however, was to raise awareness about the aids crisis.
Speaking to The Guardian, Thomas said: "We wanted to make a song with a strong message – about unprotected sex, being promiscuous, and hanging out in the wrong crowd.
"The messages in 'Waterfalls' hit home. I think that’s why it’s our biggest hit to date."