Skip to content

Peanuts

The Police
Popularity ยท Top

Listen

YouTube

0:00 / 0:00
Loading YouTube player...
Lyrics offset
Synced

Lyrics

Lyrics meaning

The lyrics present a speaker who is fed up with a once-famous person and the attention surrounding them. The repeated โ€œoh noโ€ sounds like a refusal to be persuaded or drawn into the personโ€™s troubles. The mood is mocking and irritated, with a hint of disappointment: the celebrated figure is now called a โ€œfallen hero.โ€

โ€œYour famous name / The price of fameโ€ suggests that public recognition brings costs as well as rewards, though the speaker does not explain exactly what those costs are. โ€œThe bread has goneโ€ may mean the personโ€™s money or success has run out; โ€œbreadโ€ is an informal word for money. The repeated references to drugs, love, and a โ€œlife youโ€™re fakingโ€ point to gossip and a gap between public image and private reality.

The song may be criticizing both the fallen celebrity and the people who keep reporting on their private life. The speaker says they do not want to hear or read about it, yet the repeated list keeps returning, which can make the speaker seem as caught up in the subject as the audience they criticize. โ€œPeanutsโ€ at the end is ambiguous: it might mean something trivial or of little value, but the lyrics do not make its precise meaning clear.