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Misheard Song Lyrics
23 June 2013
I am absolutely famous for
singing along loudly to songs. Quite
often, I indulge in the car, and give my kids my own personal renditions of
truly awesome songs (I do a fabulous Bohemian
Rhapsody, complete with all of the voices). Which strangely enough they don’t seem to
enjoy all that much (bunch of weirdo’s – they just don’t appreciate true
talent!). I get such enjoyment from
it. And never let it be said, that my
lack of conviction about what the actual words in a song are, puts me off
singing at full volume. Why would I let
it bother me at all? As long as it
sounds vaguely the same, I’m happy. My
family however does sadly not agree. As
mentioned before – bunch of weirdo’s!
For many songs, the lyrics seem
so garbled, that it is quite possible to mistake the actual lyrics in the song,
and use similar sounding substitutes instead.
To be none the wiser, until years and years later, when you accidently
read the inside cover of a CD and see the real words. Sometimes rather surprising. It can even change your whole opinion about a
song completely.
I remember my Dad always
commenting that irrespective of where they played a gig, at some or other point
some drunk guy would stumble up to the stage with a request for them to please
play, “Hasie”. Now South Africa being in
possession of a large number of Afrikaans speaking people, I do believe that
the first time they got this request it baffled them quite a bit. A song about a rabbit? Seriously?
“No, sorry mate, never heard that one.
How does it go?”. To which they
inevitably got an off key rendition of “I see a bad moon a rising…”. Right!
It actually makes perfect sense. Kinda. In a weird and twisted way.
I suppose the same logic applied
to ABBA, when they had to learn their own song lyrics, what with them being
Swedish and all. And not being
proficient in English when they first hit the scenes. Phonetically learning the words was actually
rather ingenious.
My foray into misheard song
lyrics actually happened quite by accident, when I say that someone posted this
little nugget onto Facebook. Do yourself
a favour and have a look. It is sure to
entertain you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnlveKfDuyk&feature=player_detailpage. The problem is that once I had a look at this
clip, I found myself off on a little bit of a youtube-style-fest. A tangent if you please. I gorged myself on a whole bunch of clips. All related to misheard song lyrics of
course. There is just SUCH awesome
material out there. And some gave me a
really good laugh., http://www.youtube.com/watch?,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3JEfnXGKwd4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nVvRwrgsGU&feature=player_detailpage. Enjoy!
It is worth the indulgence. You won’t
be sorry.
Amongst others, there was the
Rihanna song, “Don’t Stop The Music”. There
is a catchy little phrase in the song, which goes like this, “Ma ma say, ma ma
sa, ma ma coo sa". It is rather
infectious little ditty and chances are, once you’ve heard the song, you’ll
find yourself singing along to it, every single time thereafter. But on my foray into misheard song lyrics, I learnt
that it has become a bit of an anthem to those obsessed with Bill Gates and his
wonderful Microsoft. As many people out
there sing along too, but with them the words are: "I'm insane, I'm the sound of
Microsoft." And I must confess, I am
clearly a Microsoft convert too, and will sing these same lyrics from now on
too. How can I not?
But perhaps, nothing will ever
compete with the confusion of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody in terms of mistaken
lyrics. My hat! The sky is the limit. Pretty much anything you can imagine, has
been substituted for the actual real lyrics.
Well, perhaps they’re not the limit.
Nirvana is also vying for top spot.
So perhaps give this a thought,
the next time you sing along loudly. Are
those really the right words? And does it
really matter?
Take it from me – poutaytou,
poytahtou…
As long as you’re having fun and
enjoying yourself, that’s all that’s important.
Who really cares? I bet Bill
Gates doesn’t.
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