OutKast’s Hey Ya lyrics are so much darker than you realise

Music fans are just now realising how dark the lyrics to OutKast's hit song 'Hey Ya' are, more than two decades after we first heard the catchy tune.

Whether you did a knee slide while listening to it at a school disco, or bopped along to the iconic Just Dance routine on the Wii, there's no argument against the fact the song was a staple of the 2000s.

The track was released on 25 August 2003 and went on to become a huge success, reaching number one in a slew of countries including the United States, Australia, and Canada, as well as peaking at number three on the UK singles chart.

However, although the song has well over a billion streams on Spotify, a lot of those listeners won't have been paying much attention to the lyrics and what they actually mean.

We've all been there - for example, singing along to a wildly inappropriate song as a kid while in car with your parents, with no idea what words you're really saying.

OutKast's 2003 bop 'Hey Ya' actually has a dark meaning behind it (YouTube/Outkast)

And this is actually a similar scenario, as so many of will have happily sang along to 'Hey Ya' without picking up on the real meaning.

When you really pay attention, the song from OutKast - hip hop duo Big Boi and André 3000 - is actually really sad.

Its lyrics are about 'the state of relationships today,' André 3000 previously explained in an interview with VH1.

In fact, the whole song is about how love can be an illusion, highlighting that some people are simply sticking together out of fear of being alone.

The lyrics reference the singer not being sure he and his girlfriend will be together long term.

In the interview, André explained: "A lot of people stay together for tradition. All I’m saying is I think it’s more important to be happy than to meet up to somebody else’s expectations or the world’s expectations of what a relationship should be.”

He added: "This is a celebration of how men and women relate to each other in the 2000s. But you wouldn’t know that if you just dancing all night. You really have to sit down and listen to it.”

I mean, just give these lines a read: "You think you’ve got it, oh, you think you’ve got it / But “got it” just don’t get it ’til there’s nothing at all /We get together, oh, we get together / But separate’s always better when there’s feelings involved."

Not to mention: "If what they say is, “Nothing is forever” / Then what makes, what makes, what makes love the exception?"

Even OutKast themselves poked fun at the contrast between the tune and lyrics back in 2021 with this meme (Twitter/OutKast)

OutKast also poked fun at the upbeat tune and sad lyrics with a meme they posted back in 2021.

The official Twitter account for the duo shared a post that read: “Alright alright alright alright alright we made one.”

The picture showed a picture of André 3000 in the song’s video with his head divided up into two parts.

The smallest part was labelled ‘a bop,' while the largest part was was labelled ‘the saddest song ever written’.

Now you know - and will probably never listen to 'Hey Ya' the same way again!