Saturday, March 6, 2010

Hit Me With Your Pet Shark

   We have all at one time or another fallen prey to misheard lyrics. You know, when you hear a song and you sing the words wrong...for a very long time, sometimes for years.

 My daughter was shocked when she found out that Huey Lewis did not 'want a new truck' but 'a new drug'. And a friend of mine thought surely Billy Idol could not be singing "eyes-without-a-face"...so she sang, "how's-about-a-date".

  My father-in-law and I were riding down the road and "Rock The Boat" was on the radio, he looked at me and said in a totally confused tone, "I'd liked to know where you got the nose job?" I busted out laughing, he of course didn't know that it was 'notion' not 'nose job'.

  I'm sure at this point you are remembering the lyrics that you've heard sung wrong. How about...'baking carrot biscuits' instead of 'taking care of business' or 'hock the cat box' in place of 'rock the casbah'. I don't know why we sing them that way when we know it cannot possibly be the words we are singing, but we do. We don't care, we just want to sing.

   Especially now with access to the internet like we have, we can look up any lyrics to any song, even then, I've seen them misprinted. Whoever it was typing the words didn't take the time to investigate the correct information. But you know...that's how it goes when I repeat something that I am not sure of. I get what I thought I heard and then I sing it...wrong, usually. 

   Singing stuff...saying stuff it's still the same, I'm opening my mouth and letting words out that a lot of times are misinformed words. I don't care, I just want to sing. I've been embarrassed more than once to find out that I sang some information incorrectly.
 
   Words are pretty powerful intangible things. For them to be so invisible, they can really cause a huge effect. Explosive anger on one side and hysterical laughter on another. They can be gut wrenching and sobering, giddy and gleeful. They can cause disappointment and exhilaration, they can wound and they can heal.

   How can words have such a powerful potency? I guess it's because we humans are the only ones that use them. Plants and animals do not. It is our primary form of communication, so it is important how we use those invisible, power-packed, poignant words. I sure know that sticks and stones hurt and so do misused words.

   I don't know who sang the first song, maybe Cain and Abel had the first rock band. If so, this is probably where all of the tension started between them. You know, one was the musician and the other was the lyricist. Abel, the musician, kept singing the lyrics wrong, till one day Cain, the lyricist, couldn't take it any longer and he sat down and wrote his big hit, "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" and the rest is history.

    Careless words have caused chaos. Loose lips have sunk ships. Let it not be so with life's very important songs that I'm supposed to sing to encourage and inspire others around me in hearing range.

   So...like the 80's group Til Tuesday sang...'oh-so-scary', I'm sorry, I mean, 'voi-ces-carry', they do, and people are listening and ready to tell other people what you said...funny or not.

   So come on...guess how misunderstood the title of this blog is...look at it...come on...think...you are right...'hit me with your best shot'!! Fire a-way!

1 comment:

  1. After reading this, I can't help but think of that song we danced to, I can't remember the name but I can remember the exact dance step to the part in the song where it says "Holla!" and we found out it was really saying "I know!" Or maybe it was the other way around? Obviously I still don't know the exact word haha Love ya!

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