I recently heard a song on KXCI that I had not heard since I was a child. My parents were Johnny Cash fans, and I often heard this song, "The One on the Right is on the Left." When I was five years old, I thought this was a silly little song. In my mind, I pictured the "one on the right" running over to then be the "one on the left" - kind of like a musical chairs games. Even if I knew that "right" and "left" referred to political views, I would not have understood the lyrics to this song. When I heard this song after so many years, it was like a revelation. I was laughing out loud in my car, as I heard these lyrics from a new, adult perspective.
This experience made me think about misunderstood lyrics as a result of mishearing words. When you google "misheard lyrics," the commonly listed songs are not the ones that I have misheard. For example, I never thought Jimi Hendrix was saying, " 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy." I have misheard the lyrics to many songs over the years, none of which appear on these lists. Once I learn the real lyrics, I always wonder how I got it so wrong. Sometimes the words I think I hear do not even make sense (not that lyrics need to make sense). Here are a couple of examples.
The band 311 has a song called "Come Original." For months, I did not know the title of this song. Had I know the title, I would not have thought he was singing, "drummer in denial."
System of a Down's song "Chop Suey!" has a line that says, "Father into your hands." Don't ask me why, but for years I thought he was singing, "Falling deer heads." That's a disturbing image that I can't get out of my head when I hear this song, even now that I know the real lyrics..
We have all misunderstood and misheard lyrics. Does it say something about our personality? I hope not, or I might need to go to therapy for the "deer heads" thing. What are some of your misheard lyrics?
Sandy
Sunday, October 28, 2012
2 comments:
What can I post on your wall?
Commenting & Posting Guidelines
Welcome to your library on social media!
Pima County Public Library (PCPL) offers blogs and other social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for educational, cultural, civic, customer service, and recreational purposes. They provide a limited (or designated) public forum to facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions, and information about library-related subjects and issues.
By choosing to comment or post on our social media accounts, you agree with the following:
Comments and posts are moderated by library staff, and the library reserves the right to remove any that are unlawful or off topic. Posts containing the following may be deleted:
Copyright violations
Off-topic comments
Commercial material/spam/solicitation
Sexual content, or links to sexual content
Threatening or harassing postings
Libelous or other kinds of personal attacks
Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity
Content that reveals private, personal information without permission
Vulgar language or content
Comments in support of or in opposition to political campaigns or ballot measures
Content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability or other classification
P.S. Protect your privacy. Don't post personally identifying information in these public spaces, including details like your library card number, phone number, or medical information, etc.
Young people under age 18, especially, should not post information such as your school, age, phone number, and address.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In the Sam Cooke song "Twistin' the Night Away," when he says "Dancin' with the chick in slacks," I always thought that he was dancing wearing "chicken slacks," a fashion style that remains entirely unfamiliar to me.
ReplyDeleteThere's a great Miike Snow song called "A Horse is not a Home" that features the line: "And that golden vampire fortress side"... which I know is not the lyrics but I do not want to look them up and have them change!
ReplyDelete