'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy...

[sisabet]

So when I was a kid I never really cared about learning the right lyrics to a song. Oh, I'd sing along for sure, but I never worried that I was singing the wrong lyrics.

Hell, for a good 5-8 years I thought the AC/DC song that my uncle always played in his Trans Am was Dirty Deeds, Gunga-Din. I thought when Steve Perry of Journey sang about his Open Arms he said And now that you've come back, to-mah-toes today, I need you stay and really - tomatoes today make just as much since to a nine year old as turned night into day. I figured he really liked salads. Maybe they were vegetarians together. I grew up in Kentucky. I thought California was full of vegetarians and I was always confusing Journey and Foreigner because Dawn stole a Journey album from the afore-mentioned Trans-Am driving uncle and it was called Frontiers and that looked a lot like the word Foreigner to me. Sadly, Foreigner never released an album called Journals or anything so this really is only related in my head. Hey! Did you know that Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln? Freaky, huh?

Side note: drdawn always said "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" and "Two More Bottles of Wine" were about her. I knew this was not true, though, the moment I heard "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) because dude - I figured someday love had to find her and break those chains that bind her because she was one scary and mean kid. That was the first time I ever felt a song I heard on the radio actually applied to a real life situation as at that time I had never met a Jesse or his girl.

But life was simpler back then - albums didn't typically come with extensive liner notes and when we made the technological jump to cassette tapes, it was a very big deal for the liner notes to have lyrics. We'd pass that shit around study hall. There was no elyrics or whatnot - there was you and your best friend and a note pad rewinding certain parts of a song until you broke the freaking tape.

Life was good.

On that note - I have no idea what the hell the lyrics to Radio Free Europe are and I don't want to know. I cherish my not knowing and I think part of my love for "What's The Frequency Kenneth" comes from not understanding more than a few words of the song. Oh Michael and your marble mouth, how I loved thee.

::sings::

What's the frequency Kenneth the shhhhh uh huhh, uuhh,humm
The smile, lalalala that you captured from mahahahaaa
Uh, huh

I hear it is about Dan Rather. I think that is precious.

So lyrics are what you make them and they tend to only intensely matter to music geeks and teenagers. And teenagers that will one day become music geeks. Back when I was in high school, the lyrics to Pearl Jam's "Black" were debated back and forth between my friends, because it sounds like Eddie Vedder is singing I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be the sun in somebody's else's sky but the published lyrics said the line said "star" not "sun" and while I am will always be on the side of "sun" (because it is more singular and special - and also - he totally says sun) I had sever pro-star associates that pointed as proof to the published lyrics and a live MTV special where it sounds like Eddie could be singing star. To be fair - dude changed a lot of lyrics in that live performance, so who knows. I had very little lyric credibility with my friends as I thought the line in "Jeremy" was knashed his teeth with the recesses they expressed, but I still maintain that I thought that only because I just totally never expected the line to actually be knashed his teeth and bit the recess lady's breast. I mean - come on. I should have been waiting for this lyric or something?

Recently, I was reminded of this phenomena again when I visited the Jay Farrar Boards. I was looking for a lyric that was kinda unclear and since I was vidding the song, I decided actually knowing what the song said might be a smidge important, and I discovered a freaking kerfuffle on the boards over whether or not Jay is singing about a "Mother road" or "Another road" in a song. Turns out - once the lyrcis were published - the "Mother road" people were right - but I know the song and I thought the another road people had a point and you know... it just isn't nice to gloat.

Fandom is really all the same and it is just all about the world. You can find microcosms of society and civilization all over the internet and it all follows a pattern and that pattern is very very set and the only thing different from this and ancient Greece is that the internet moves faster. But that is not the point of this post.

No, the point of this post is that I typically think a lyric is one thing and get attatched to what that is and then I am disheartened when I find out otherwise. And I wouldn't find out otherwise, except a small part of me believes that if you are going to vid a song, you at least should know what the lyrics say cause believe you me, someone else will go and look them up.

::nods::

And half the time, internet lyrics are as wrong as I was when I sang an ode to Gunga Din's Dirty Deeds. But sometimes I have to give the devil his due. And bet my soul against a fiddle of gold. Or something. And now is one of those times.

For the past week I have been rather morosely immersed in Richard Ashcroft's (shut up! I am obsessed) "On A Beach" mainly because I think the song would be really beautiful and moving visually -- I am a big fan of singing in the round (probably because as children it was the one thing Dawn could never do and I always was good at it - She still can't round without closing her eyes and covering her ears and just *singing* and heee!! I love it!) and the end of the song has that *feel* -- the lyrics -- well they are malleable. Obstensibly the song is about a man castaway on an island -- but metaphorically it works as a man isolated in his heart, as he is figuratively stranded and alone. I have a list of characters that fit this song and hell, Lex fits it metaphorically *and* literally, so already I like this song.

And I loved, loved, loved a line in the chorus that I thought went:

Saw the devil's servant
Sent her home
Said bring me your master
I don't want his dog

And dude. I can do so much with that. That could totally be Angel. Or anyone. But probably Angel.

And now I find out the line is actually supposedly

Saw the devil's servant
Sent her home
Said bring me a message
I don't want to starve

This crushes me. And yes - I am willing to admit that in some places in the song Ashcroft is singing the word "Starve" but!! He sings it all weird and does not pronounce the "r" and while that may just be because he is English, I think a small part of him knows that the song would be stronger if it was "I don't want his dog." I love the cockiness and the willingness to deal this line implies. The narrator is really and truly at the end of his rope and he still turns away his one offer of help because he does not deal with underlings. If the Devil wants to play, he needs to make the offer himself. So freaking cool. And I really think that in some parts of the song, Ashcroft is singing "Bring me your master" - this is a repeating line and I swear I hear a "t" in there. Also - at one point he refers to the devil's servant as a "he" (which I like cause it would allow for some gender neutrality in a vid) and the online lyrics do not address this gender change.

So they are wrong. And now I am happy again.

::sings::

Dirty deeds, Gun-Ga-DIN!

Comments

Re: oooh, mondegreens!

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think you are right on that one. I've heard Rather talk about it on Letterman before.