Music
Remember back before my leave when we were discussing misheard song lyrics? And some people would comment and insist that people were just gleefully making up their "wrong" lyrics, that no one could be so dumb as to get that confused?
Readers, I am here to assure you: I am that dumb.
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It seems that it's easy to mishear a lyric in almost any song out there. But some songs, and some singers, show up much more than others. Here are some of the songs that just come out as one big mumble. Call them songs in the key of slur, or maybe the misheard lyrics hall of fame.
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The misheard lyrics comments have been hilarious. Two songs especially have started debates -- Keith Urban's "You'll Think of Me" and Toto's "Africa." In Urban's song, he does indeed sing, "Take your CAT and leave my sweater," but a reader comment saying that he hears "take your CAP" has started a bunch of readers buzzing, thinking they've been hearing it wrong all this time. Now I'm no Keith Urban expert, but the "CAT' version is indeed given on his Web site as the correct lyrics for the song. Meow!
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We've been discussing made-up and just plain bad lyrics, death songs, and more, but one topic that keeps cropping up is the lair of the misheard lyric (as in "wrapped up like a douche"). From the numerous versions of popular songs that exist only in our heads, you'd think we were all half-deaf.
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While we're on the topic of wacky lyrics, let's talk about death. Specifically, the spate of teen death songs that had a real heyday in the 1950s. I wasn't around then, but I remember in the 1980s I bought a great Rhino Records compilation of them -- yes, on vinyl. It was called "Teen Tragedy" and the best part about it was that it had a built-in Kleenex box right in the record jacket, so if "Patches" or "Tell Laura I Love Her" made you start bawling on the spot, hey, at least facial tissue was easily at hand.
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Steve Miller's line about "the pompatus of love" is far from the only lyric to confuse readers. One of the songs that comes up over and over is "Blinded by the Light," written by Bruce Springsteen, but famously performed by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. You know the confusion: Wrapped up
like a douche? Little Early Pearly
with his anus curly wurly? A
Nutter Butter in the night? Just what the heck was going on in that song, anyway?
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The post on awful song lyrics garnered so much discussion while I was off for Labor Day that I'm not quite ready to leave the topic yet. Certain songs came up over and over again in your comments, one of which featured readers arguing about whether or not Steve Miller made up a word. Let's dig into the mystery of "the pompatus of love," and in the meantime, you can call me Maurice. Some people do.
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We've just discussed the best and worst commercials, but how about spending a day on another "worst" -- worst song lyrics? A friend sent me this link from Spinner.com, which is chock full of fun music lists -- saddest songs, monumental flops, best opening lyrics, worst band photos and more. But the list that caught my eye was their list of the 20 worst lyrics ever.
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