I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”.
OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.
ART NOTES – an exhibition entitled Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through January 4th.
THE HARD-RIGHT WING in France dislikes both social change and racial minorities. When they get both together (especially in a female) they go off-the-deep-end … which happened last to the French Guiana-born justice minister, Christiane Taubira (who helped legalize same-sex marriage). Now it is the Moroccan-born education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem – whose appointment has been attacked as a ‘provocation’, with racist/sexist comments and malicious rumors on social media.
CHEERS to the six people still alive who were born before the year 1900 – at least, those whose date of birth can be verified.
THURSDAY’s CHILD is Quasimodo the Cat – a Swiss kitteh who lost both ears in a bizarre auto incident, but has otherwise recovered … and has been adopted by an animal clinic staff.
THEATER NOTES – to mark the 100th anniversary of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas – the actor Michael Sheen will direct and also perform (along with Richard Burton’s daughter Kate) in a production of Under Milk Wood in New York (where Dylan Thomas died in 1953).
HAIL and FAREWELL to the jazz singer Jackie Kral – part of the long-running duo “Jackie and Roy” with her husband, Roy Kral – who has died at the age of 86.
IF YOU WERE PUZZLED as to why a financial firm was concerned about whether Olive Garden salts its water to boil pasta: an essay by David Dayen – whose old handle of dday appeared on DK in the past – explains why the hedge fund is so eager to take-over Darden’s chain restaurants (and it’s not the breadsticks).
Mistaken SEPARATED at BIRTH – China’s state broadcaster welcomed visiting US National Security Advisor Susan Rice ……
IN A CATEGORY that no country wishes to lead: the South American nation of Guyana has the world’s highest age-adjusted rate of suicide – with the highest rates belonging to those in rural areas despondent over not being able to be a provider.
MANY AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES are eager to accept money from China to establish cultural centers on-campus (primarily to teach Mandarin) entitled Confucius Centers – especially in the face of budget cuts – but faculty are upset over their influence (objecting to visits by the Dalai Lama and remembrances of Tiananmen Square).
FRIDAY’s CHILD is Matt the Cat – an English kitteh who was found abandoned in a box and emaciated … and who needs to wear a jumper after his fur had to be shaved …. yet has since made a full recovery (and been adopted by the clinic’s vet).
BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.
TV NOTES – replacing the late Don Pardo when Saturday Night Live begins its 40th season this coming Saturday will be former cast member Darrell Hammond – who was the longest-serving cast member in the show’s history, at fourteen years.
SEPARATED at BIRTH – actor Steven Seagal as well as Kurt Elling the jazz singer.
…… and finally, for a song of the week ………………………… one fun category for musical discussion is that of misunderstood song lyrics – where for one reason or another, listeners confuse the actual lyrics being sung for what they think they are hearing. As it turns out, seventy years ago the word mondegreen was coined to describe this phenomenon – and just in the past few years, dictionaries have adopted this awkward-sounding term.
This began with an essay by the writer Sylvia Wright that was published in Harper’s Magazine in November, 1954. Entitled “The Death of Lady Mondegreen”, she described how her mother used to read poetry to her as a young girl, when she misheard the last line (of the first stanza) of the ballad The Bonnie Earl of Moray from the 17th Century.
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Moray
And laid him on the green.
However, Sylvia Wright explained in her essay that she heard the last line as:
And Lady Mondegreen.
She added, “The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens – since no one else has thought up a word for them – is that they are better than the original” – and she went on to list other examples, such as from the 23rd Psalm:
“Surely goodness and mercy (surely good Mrs. Murphy) shall follow me all the days of my life”.
Yet it is in the world of music that most examples of mondegreens have come – and most notably in the genres of pop/rock music. This is especially true due to many such singers (a) not having had formal voice training, (b) having to sing over louder music than is (usually) the case for folk or classical music singers, and (c) the (often) poorer recording studios/techniques that were the norm back in the 1950’s – 1970’s (where many of the examples that follow came from) than would be the case in the digital age.
A prime example of reason c) was the song Louie Louie – which was the focus of a previous profile in this space. The short version: an R&B singer named Richard Berry had recorded a 1958 song he wrote about a sailor missing his true-love while at seas, and is telling “Louie” that he looks forward to seeing her. That single appeared in a Portland, Oregon record bin, where a white rock band named The Kingsmen listened to it and recorded it. Richard Berry told the writer Bob Greene the rest of the story:
“They were singing the same words exactly the way I wrote them,” Berry said. “And they were not dirty lyrics. There was not one dirty word or suggestive phrase in that song.”
Berry eventually met one of the Kingsmen (lead singer Jack Ely) who told him that the band had recorded “Louie Louie” in an inexpensive studio, and that the microphone was way up in the ceiling, which is why the vocals could not be heard clearly (and so people heard what they wanted to hear).
Before we look at some of the top choices in the field of misunderstood pop lyrics: it might do well to look at two mondegreens from the pre-pop era.
One did what Sylvia Wright thought they should do: actually replacing the original lyrics due to common usage. And this is the familiar Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas – in which the original line dealing with four gifts was four colly birds – which means four blackbirds. By the dawn of the 20th Century, listeners heard it as “four calling birds” – which is what the definitive 1909 version by Frederic Austin used.
The second is the 1943 novelty song Mairzy Doats – written by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston. A dozen years before the term mondegreen was coined, the published lyrics to this song have a chorus of nonsense words – which replace actual words:
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe.
The bridge to the song gives away the scheme:
If the words sound queer, and funny to your ear
A little jumbled and jivey:
Sing “Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy
A kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”
And now for the feature attraction: possibly the four most noted mondegreens in popular music (although at this link there are others).
The first would be the classic-rock staple Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. Admittedly, this one is caused by some rather awkward-sounding lyrics written by Robert Plant. The actual line is below …. and you can find all sorts of other interpretations …..
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now
It’s just a spring clean for the May queen
A second (and possibly the most misunderstood lyric of all time) would be one from my college dorm-room days (of 1976-78). Earlier, Bruce Springsteen had recorded Blinded by the Light – with the line “Cut loose like a Deuce” – referring to a slang term for a 1932 Ford hotrod. In the mid-70’s: enter the South African emigré to Britain, Manfred Mann (of Do Wah Diddy Diddy fame in the 1960’s). Now with a more mature sound – and now backed by his Earth Band – he sang the lyric so that it sounded like “revved-up like a …..” ….. well, like a type of feminine hygiene product. Springsteen himself has had a laugh, noting that the song had never been popular until “Manfred Mann re-wrote the song”.
The last two examples are songs whose composers – noting the misunderstanding on the part of listeners – decided to join-the-chorus and in public sing the misheard lyric from time-to-time.
Jimi Hendrix burst onto the scene at the tail-end of 1966 with his hit Purple Haze – part of his game-changing debut album Are You Experienced? – with the line “Excuse me … while I kiss the sky”. Many listeners heard this as “Excuse me … while I kiss this guy”. And though he only lived 3+ more years: while singing this onstage, he sometimes walked towards his bassist Noel Redding and feigned a kiss. At the landmark 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, he blew-a-kiss to the soul singer Otis Redding, standing just off-stage.
Finally, one that still receives such treatment today is the Creedence Clearwater Revival song Bad Moon Rising – whose composer John Fogerty ended the tune’s chorus with the line “There’s a bad moon on the rise”. Except that so many listeners heard this differently – and so John Fogerty often sings (as a solo performer) the lyric as “There’s a bathroom on the right” – and pointing for effect.
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