Inquiring minds

[pbray]

[Poll #1432590]

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Ha! "Like a deuce" was actually a topic of debate and discussion on vacation earlier this month :-)

[norilana.livejournal.com]

I still hear it like a douche and that's that. *grin*

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I'm with you-- I know the official lyrics but I'd swear on a stack of bibles that's not what comes out of the singer's mouth.

[lagilman]

well, in the original that's what he's saying -- the cover, they got the lyrics wrong.

[guinwhyte.livejournal.com]

The problem with Googling the song is that sometimes the people who have posted the lyrics don't know them either. :P I've seen songs with three or four different versions of the lyrics at various places online...and from my own listening, sometimes none of them are correct. Unless you're getting them from the band/performer's website, it's a tossup as to what you'll actually find.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Good point-- I fell into that trap a couple of times before I realized I needed to check the most authoritative source, not just whatever popped up as number one in the Google search.

[cedunkley.livejournal.com]

I remember when Al Jarreau's song Roof Garden came out in 1981 my father and I had absolutely no clue what he was saying. So we bought the album on the hopes that it had the lyrics printed, which it did.

I still remember how disappointed we were to find out all Al Jarreau was singing about was:

Does anyone wanna go
waltzing in the garden?
Does anyone wanna go
dance up on the roof?

The fun thing about the song was imagining what he might have been saying. Once we learned the words the song was just boring.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And remember the days when you could play the record backwards to hear the hidden messages? Ah vinyl, how I miss you.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Hey, according to my little brother you can get USB turntables and make your computer play your 7"s!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

scbutler has a USB turntable that he's used to digitize all of his old LPs. He loves it.

[tryslora]

Okay, I am going to have to hunt me up one of those. I have a bunch of old LPs I'd love to make digital.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I can imagine ;)

What I need is a USB tape player. Which DB assures me I can also get, but I've never actually got my sh!t together to (a) find or (b) purchase one.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Oh, I know that feeling. There was a Euro-hit in the early 80s called 'I Lost my Heart to a Starship Trooper', which was universally referred to as 'I lost my hat to a draft excluder', as that was what it actually sounded like.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

You do have to be careful when you Google. But sometimes there's just no option. I really like the House Martins, but they are totally incomprehensible to my Canadian ear :P

[pbray.livejournal.com]

For me it was The Pogues--I'd swear the lead singer had a mouthful of marbles.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Oh, yah, he's incomprehensible too.

I am not hopeless at understanding people with accents different from my own (rellies with duelling regional accents and a misspent youth full of British TV shows on PBS), but every so often one defeats me ...

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

My friend Al and I sued to collect really wacked out lyrics. The perpetual favourite was Emerson, Lake and Palmer 'somewhat sadder, somewhat madder, someone bring me a ladder', but 'Things like polyester pants and shoes don't make it easy to remember/Was it here and yesterday, or wasn't it the 14th of November?' (Men Without Hats) was a very close runner up.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It's great when you know the lyrics and still have no idea what the song is about-- I've oft suspected that some bands use random lyrics generators or just fill in the blank MadLib style.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I don't have any idea what that last line is in reference to, but in general I'm always surprised to find out I've got the words wrong, so I checked it anyway. :)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I've been startled a few times to discover that I'd memorized the entirely wrong words to a song filling in the gaps with words that made sense to me.

[tryslora]

I'll often Google or check the lyrics included with the CD (one of the reasons I still love buying physical CDs). What cracks me up is when it's obvious that the printed lyrics are what the artist wrote and intended to sing, but aren't what came out of his/her mouth when the song was actually recorded.

And half the time my brain still inserts completely different lyrics than printed/sung and I sing along with those.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I still like physical CD's, even if a friend refers to my habit of buying entire CDs as quaint, something from "Jesus times" which is apparently a catchword for really, really old.

In this case I'd used an itunes giftcard to download the new Transformers soundtrack, and thus had to rely on Google to help me find the lyrics.

[tryslora]

Ooh how is the soundtrack? I know AAR has a song on it, but haven't seen what else is on it.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I love it! I bought it for New Divide (Linkin Park), but it's got Green Day, Fray, Nickelback, Staind, what's not to like?

[tryslora]

It sounds like they've raided my iTunes! I may have to pick that one up.

[sarcastic-elf.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, I've found it's best *not* to be able to understand the lyrics. :D I've had a song I really liked ruined by the lyrics.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

:-D

[karen-w-newton.livejournal.com]

The term I have heard for misheard lyrics is "Mondegreen." There is an old ballad that goes, "For they have killed lord Randal, and laid him on the green." Most folks heard it as "For they have killed Lord Randal, and Lady Mondegreen."

When I was young I heard The Ballad of Davy Crockett's line "Kil't him a b'ar (bear) when he was only three," as "Killed in a bar when he was only three."

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Now I'm imagining Davey Crockett as a zombie or revenant--endowed with superpowers after he came back from his early death. Really it would explain so much.

[karen-w-newton.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the coonskin cap gave him powers beyond that of mortal man? -)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Wearing the skin of your enemies is indeed powerful shapeshifting magic.

And yes, I think we can now make a decent case for Were-Crockett.

Lyrics

[(Anonymous)]

It took me 30 years to realize Jimi Hendrix was saying "kiss the sky" and not "kiss this guy". Would you say I'm a little slow?

Is there an option G? ...

[teshilaire.livejournal.com]

all of thee above... but, when i doubt, choose ... f? okay, so I often 'THINK' i know the words(f)... when really what i'm doing is making up my own words(d) which doesn't bother me at all (e) until someone tells me i have it wrong, at that point I stop singing the wrong words and start just humming along (c) until it really begins to drive me nuts that i DON'T know... so i (a) listen to the song over and over and over again... but often, i still don't get it, or just don't believe those COULD be the words so i then have to (b) google the song so i can figure out WTF the lyrics are really supposed to be...