Sunday, 18 October 2009

Misheard Lyric/s


A friend of mine is compiling a list of misheard lyrics. He once showed me a teletext version of a song he loved, having videoed it with the text facility turned on, as he genuinely enjoyed its inventiveness. It was incomprehensible. I cant remember the song or the mistaken lyric, but I`ll reproduce it here if said friend sends it to me. One of which I have always been fond (misheard lyric, not the song): Tina Turner`s Steamy Windows, where `radio blasting in the front seat` becomes `randy old bastard in the front seat`. This appeals because it is 1) neat, and 2) plausible.

Late Friday evening, BBC4 were showing one of those music programmes they seem to be fond of, which are actually tests of endurance. They`re very interesting, but always overlong. Anyway, having seen this programme was a potted (hah!) history of Brit synth pop, or maybe it was music, (by the end of the programme I`d forgotten, it was that far back in time) I was all agog. The programme started out with Emerson Lake and Palmer, shot through Roxy Music to Human League, passing through Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, halted at Gary Numan and Heaven 17, sped on through Depeche Mode, calling at Georgio Moroder, Soft Cell, OMD,
Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Yazoo, Ultravox, New Order, oh I was pretty tired by now and heading for the sleeper carriage. The end of the line should really have been La Roux. But it ended somewhere in the 90s, I think. (I`m already confusing two programmes with each other. They were shown `back to back`, but it was the same topic.)

The upshot of this night`s futuristic sound wobbling off and on was a deep deep desire to drag out all my old vinyl and cassettes and indulge in a mammoth nostalgia fest. Instead, I dragged myself to bed. In the morning, I dragged out all my old vinyl and cassettes, and indulged in a mammoth nostalgia fest. It was bloomin ace.

On Human League`s Travelogue there`s a track with a lyric that sounds like a cut-up, or else Messrs Ware and Oakey were on something nasty. I`m talking about Crow and A Baby. Listening intently was VJB, who missed a lot of John Peel`s demo babies growing up (or dying young, as the case may have been, and often was). His excuse for having no knowledge of The Slits or New Model Army being he was somewhere far more healthy during the late 70`s - early 80`s. When it came to the bit about `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn carrion bird` what he actually heard was `mushrooms growing from your back/feeding some damn Carry On bird`. His ensuing look of bewilderment, priceless, while trying to place Babs or Hatti into the story.

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