Martinex1: It is that time of week again - Tuesday means
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28 comments:
Discuss mis-heard song lyrics. Are there any lyrics you heard different to what was intended ? Do garbled and unintelligible lyrics annoy you or is it only the tune that matters ?
Here are some song lyrics I totally mis-heard.
In Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" I heard the line
"The dark sacred night" as "The dogs say goodnight".
In ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' I heard the line
"With a bit of rock music" as "With a fear about music".
In ABBA's 'The Winner Takes It All' I heard "I apologize" as "I don't wanna joust".
But my all-time favorite is Billy Ocean's 'Red Light Spells Danger' where I heard
"Another danger sign is on" as "Another day in the China zone".
But there are some songs where the entire song is unintelligible such as 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' - what on earth is Michael Jackson singing about, I can barely understand a word. Or 'Geno' by Dexy's Midnight Runners - I've always loved the song but the lyrics mostly baffle me apart from "Oh, Geno". I'm glad you can go online nowadays and uncover these mysterious song lyrics :)
As Colin said, I think Dexy's had the most unintelligible singer ever. I love "Come On Eileen" since it came out (was infatuated with a girl named Eileen at the time!), have listened for over 30 years and still have little idea what most of the words are.
Yoyo
"She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys. . . that she calls mens."
Made the mistake of singing it out loud that way along with the radio at the shop one day, and my shop associate (my sole employee!) literally collapsed with laughter at my lyrical ineptitude. And continues to do so every time Hotel California plays on the XM.
Sheesh.
One mistake. . .
HB
No song lyrics but several years ago I received this customer enquiry when staffing a library desk:
"Do you have a copy of a book called Lionel Ritchie's Wardrobe?"
Around about the same time I had the following exchange with a German library customer:
Her (in a strong German accent): "Do you have any books about gerbils?"
Me: "I should think so. It depends on the angle you want to take."
Her: "I..."
Me (cutting in): "I mean, do you want a biography, a book about the war, perhaps a history of fascism or propaganda...?"
Her (rather tersely): "No, I have just bought a gerbil and I want to know how to look after it."
Me (mortified, Basil Fawlty style): "Oh, I see, you said gerbils and I thought you said Goebbels..."
Not my finest professional moment.
When I was about 15 I mentioned to my friend, Jason, that I couldn't understand a certain lyric in some song or other and he said: "Nobody cares about the words - except you" - I was rather taken aback as I assumed everybody was interested in what the lyrics were saying. I've mentioned that Neil Tennant, later of the Pet Shop Boys, was editor of UK Marvel in the mid-'70s but he later became a journalist on "Smash Hits" magazine which was launched in 1978 - every week Smash Hits printed the lyrics of all the latest chart hits so they clearly thought the readers were interested in a song's lyrics.
And all the songs I mentioned earlier were pre-Smash Hits except 'Geno' and 'The Winner Takes It all' which both came out in 1980 - before I'd starting buying Smash Hits (and I only bought it occasionally anyway).
You never forget your first...
I was a wee lad of 8 years old in the summer of 1970 and my neighbor friends and I got into an argument about Eric Burden’s “Spill the Wine.” Was it “spill” or “chill” the wine???
If I recall, logic leaned towards “chill” b/c whilst the wine was chilling (in the ice bucket – surely something we learned from Bewitched on TV, LOL) you could be digging the girl. If you spilled the wine, why you’d have to clean it up and the girl could leave in the meantime.
Bakin' carrot biscuits.....every day!
Bakin' carrot biscuits.....every way!
Or.....
Every time you go away
You take a piece of meat with you!
As long as we are on the music theme…
Did any of you watch the “Osmond Family” cartoon or the “Jackson 5” cartoon in 1972-1973 time frame?
Growing up in Gary, Indiana, my brother and I were partial to J5, of course!
Great topic Colin J. Hilarious. Between gerbils and Hotel California, people are going to think I'm nuts randomly laughing in the office.
I've misinterpreted many lyrics over the years. The one that immediately comes to mind is the first times I heard The Who's "Eminence Front" and thought they were singing "Heaven is fun...". Part of me still likes that better. Ha.
Back in '83, when 'Burning Down The House' by Talking Heads was a hit, a friend of mine always got the opening lyric WAY wrong.
Instead of "Watch out, you might get what you're after," he sang "Don't die, or you will have to drop dead." This was so bizarre that it's stuck with me for more than 30 years now.
One I misheard for a long time:
Springsteen's first album has a song called "Lost In The Flood." The second verse tells the story of a race car driver known as Jimmy The Saint. One lyric during this verse is "He leans over the hood tellin' racin' stories."
For many years, I thought Springsteen was singing "racist stories," which would give this verse a much different meaning!
Our younger son was notorious for "sounds like/really is" when it comes to song lyrics. His best one was that great anthem from The Who (referenced above by Martinex), "Livin' in the Swamp".
Many mistakenly heard that as "Eminence Front", but I'm pretty sure he was right... ;)
The 2012 Passat commercial drove today's topic home for me -- I'll readily admit to not knowing what Sir Elton was singing all those years!
Doug
And Colin Jones, yeah, Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" is almost a self-parody of unintelligibility-- THIS is what it has always sounded like (and still does) to my ears: "Git-off. . . at the drug-store. . . don't stop til you're bad e-nough." I mean, I really thought that WAS the lyric. . . for decades. It wasn't like I was cracking-wise with it. . . !
Anybody remember that after the first couple of seasons of ALL IN THE FAMILY, Carrol O'Conner and Jean Stapleton re-recorded their delightful little opening duet, really emphasizing that last line, "Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. . .(those were the days)"? 'Cause man, NO ONE could make out what the heck they were saying in the original version. People wrote the network, there were editorials, etc! And you can see them getting a bit of a kick (especially Jean) out of making sure that 2nd version is REEEEEEEALLY clear. Heh.
HB
I know that everyone says it but I'm still convinced that in Madonna's, "La Isla Bonita," she's singing, "Young girls with eyes like potatoes," and don't have a clue what she's really singing.
As for Michael Jackson, I'm sure we all remember the lyrical genius of, "Billie Jean's not my lover. She's just a girl who dreams that I am the one. But the chair's not my son."
Great topic! I'm all grins. Colin B- I will never be able to hear "gerbils" or "Goebbels" again without chuckling. That might be a problem...
HB- I heard that line from "Hotel California " exactly as you did! "Mens", it almost made sense.
Not quite a mishearing, but the chorus in John Lennon's " Number 9 Dream" still throws me. Is it " Aaah, bobba kobba José José " or what? I've read it "Bowa Kowa" , but that makes about as much sense.
It's an obvious pick, but the first one that struck me was Manfred Mann's " Blinded by the Light". Probably three fourths of the earth's population would swear they sing " wrapped up like a d**che". I certainly did, and at the time had no idea what that meant either....
I'll definitely second your closing sentiment, Redartz!
Doug
Red, Doug, I've even heard radio shows talk about the "d**che in the night" line. The whole world can't understand this line, nor almost 99% of anything the Stones sing, lol
Yeah, I was thinking of that Manfred Mann lyric too :) And as far as Hotel California goes, I remember years ago on Rosie O'Donnell's talk show, she said she always thought "Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air" was actually "warm smell of my feet dust ..." which doesn't even make sense.
A lyric that still drives me crazy is in "Saturday's Kids" by The Jam; right after "Their mums and dads smoke Capstan non-filters", what the hell is the next line? Every reference I've found says it's "Wallpaper lives cause they all die of cancer", and that IS what it sounds like, but that makes no sense to me. Anybody know the "real" lyric (or if that IS the real lyric)? It's been driving me nuts for years :)
By the way, I am assuming everyone has heard the original Springsteen version of Blinded by the Light... right?
Sounds very different!
Doug
Mike Wilson, regarding the Paul Weller lyrics for the Jam's "Saturday's Kids" - I believe that is the correct lyric. And I agree it makes no sense at all. I believe it is even printed in the "Setting Sons" liner notes exactly like that.
On a related note, I really like the Jam but I misinterpreted many lyrics including ""Eton's Rifle" being "Eat at Nightfall" or maybe "eat a knife full" before I knew the title. But the wallpaper one is real I believe.
Colin B's library misinterpretation reminded me of a story from my early working days when an executive with an accent would meet with his elderly assistant and new hires and tell the young employees, "if you want to get ahead in this company you must focus" with a rather odd pronunciation of "focus". The "us" was clear, the rest you can imagine. The uncomfortable befuddlement would continue when he would continue louder saying "Focus! Focus! That's all it takes!" His assistant would invariably whisper to clarify "FO-cus". Good times.
These are hilarious.
My brother thought that Van Halen's "Panama" was "animal" and was singing it that way, along with the car radio.
I told him that didn't make any sense, and he said, 'Well, neither does "Panama."
He had a point there...
I could never make out the lyrics to "Bennie and the Jets."
"Hey kids, dabba doo badabba..."
M.P.
Thanks for all the comments. Steve, Madonna is singing:
"Young girl with eyes like the desert" - whatever that means. Having eyes like potatoes isn't that much odder than having eyes like a desert.
There is a daily news/discussion show on BBC Radio 4 called P.M. and a few years ago they had somebody on the show who said we've all mis-heard Neil Armstrong's famous line
"That's one small step for man - one giant leap for mankind"
Apparently Armstrong really said "That's one small step for A man..." but the "a" wasn't heard because of his accent. The show's presenter wasn't convinced and neither was I. For weeks afterwards they kept playing the Neil Armstrong line as a joke.
@Martinex1: Huh, that's weird. Maybe Weller was drunk when he wrote it :)
Forgive me Marti, but the helpful assistant makes me think of Mr Burns and Smithers.
Ohhh, this is a day late, sure, but I'll toss it in for any stragglers. In the sub-subject of mis-hearing well-intentioned ESL folks.
'Way back in the late 80's, while my wife was in law school, she volunteered as an English tutor for a local non-profit. Her sole student was a delightful, out-going woman from China named Miu-- pronounced "Mew". Miu didn't have a natural facility for languages, but was by nature a very talk-oriented person. And not a bit intimidated by her limited command of English. I'm home alone one evening, the phone rings, I picked it and say "Hello, this is Tom." And a rich, full woman's voice at the other end says, "Hellooooooooo, I am you!"
Me: You. . . I'm sorry. . . excuse me?
Voice: Hello! I am you!
Me: You. . . you're. . me? (I glance out of the corner of my eye to see if Rod Serling is lurking near the fridge-)
Voice: I talk Su-sahn! (Declarative statement--no question-mark inflection--)
Me: Uhhh. . .
Voice: I say sheeee no come today!
And thus it went for an awfully long bit of awhile-- largely because I never quite got over the initial shock of receiving a mysterious phone call from myself. . .
She was saying, of course, "I am Miu"-- but man, I could not get my ears to hear it that way!
(She and her family are, btw, STILL dear, dear friends of ours. Watched all of our chicks hatch together and leave the nest over the intervening years---)
HB
I asked this question on Facebook a few years ago. Here are some of the responses I received:
- "Every time you go away you take a piece of meat with you."
- "Submarines (summer breeze) makes me feel fine."
- "And you come to me on a submarine (summer breeze)" How Deep is Your Love by The Bee Gees
And my all time favorite - "There's a bathroom on the right" (There's a bad moon on the rise" by CCR.
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