Then there's Steely Dan who goes the opposite direction. He looks and sounds middle of the road, but the lyrics are dark as fuck. Used to only know of him because of jokes about his music being soft as shit, and then I took the time to actually listen to it and I was blown away.
Steely Dan isn't a person, it's two main artists and a bunch of other session musicians. The band's name came from a steam-powered dildo named Steely Dan in a book from the early 60's I believe.
I definitely thought Steely Dan was a person when I was younger. Also I wanted an excuse to share the dildo story.
Pink Floyd also could be a person's name. In fact one of their songs even references a record exec mistaking the band's name for a person with the lyrics "Oh by the way, which one's Pink?"
"My Rival" is my favorite jaunty funk-rock ditty about a guy stalking the man that stole his wife, cornering him in the middle of the desert, and kicking him to death in a strip mall parking lot. And that's not even in the 'Dan Top 10.
And you can't listen to "Godwhacker" and tell me that isn't the basic plot of half a dozen death metal songs, just with more jive and a sicker bassline.
He looks and sounds middle of the road, but the lyrics are dark as fuck
Have you ever listened to the lyrics for Simon and Garfunkel songs? They make the most beautiful and serene music, all about darkness, loneliness, and desperation.
I don't like this cover particularly much, but it definitely stays true to the feel of the original.
"Bye bye love" is a pretty funny one by S&G as the lyrics are all about heartache bordering full on depression, but people love to clap along to the upbeat melody.
The song about creepy Mister LaPage wanting to show kids dirty movies comes to mind, Everyone's Gone To the Movies. Also Third World Man, about a veteran suffering from PTSD, or Kid Charlemagne and the story it tells of a drug kingpin.