OK, one more thought
Posted: January 15th, 2009 | Filed under: Bruce | 82 Comments »
I was going to use this as an italic at some point but it has never fit, so I’ll throw it out there.
Have you ever heard a song where you misidentified the lyric? Sure. But have you ever misidentified a lyric and, after you discovered the real lyric, found that you liked your own lyric a whole lot better?
I had that moment with Bruce Springsteen’s The Wrestler. I love the song, of course … there really was never any doubt about that. It’s Springsteen and a guitar and something about loneliness … that’s a slam dunk every time. Only thing is, my absolute favorite line in the song — the line that REALLY made the song go to a whole other level for me — was this one:
“Have you ever seen a scarecrow in a field with nothing but dust and weeds?
If you’ve ever seen that scarecrow then you’ve seen me.â€
Man, I love that line. That’s an image for me … I see it in black and white, a dusty field, weeds, broken glass, nothing green, nothing alive, and a broken down scarecrow, just the remains really, and if you’ve ever seen that scarecrow then you’ve seen me. I love that image, I can FEEL that hopelessness, that deep sense of uncertainty and loss. What’s the point anyway? Haven’t we all felt that way at some time in our lives, like a scarecrow standing guard in a field of dust and weeds and emptiness.
But, as you probably know, that’s not how the line actually goes. I heard it wrong. I read the lyrics. And it goes like this …
Have you ever seen a scarecrow filled with nothing but dust and wheat?
If you’ve ever seen that scarecrow then you’ve seen me.
I obviously never would second-guess Bruce Springsteen. But I like my line better.
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The shortest hiatus ever. Two hours, maybe?
The Billy Martin of bloggers.
Just wanted to comment on the President’s Hall of Fame item. Its amazing how much I didn’t want to give FDR or Abraham Lincoln the vote (and yet I had to because of what they accomplished), mainly because I think they are popularly miscontrued for being more idyllic than they really were. The New Deal wasn’t really the great savior that people make it out to be and many people just don’t remember the Tennessee Valley Authority incident and some of the more constitutionally questionable things that FDR did (a.la Andrew Jackson). Furthermore, I think many people misallocate some of the present social programs to FDR – LBJ was the driving force behind the Great Society (social security, medicare, medicaid, education funding, infrastructure), not FDR. Even more, the New Deal would likly have failed in the Senate were it not for the influence of LBJ. And, when looking at Abraham Lincoln, he was a pretty ruthless president when imposing his will and his management of the War led to quite a few hairy moments and the massacre of a lot of soldiers at the hands of Ulysses “I don’t care how we win as long as win” Grant.
So, I have to say this, Lyndon B. Johnson has to be on the list. While he wouldn’t win, the man was an incredible president who lost in an unwinnable political situation. Also, he really didn’t do anything irrational regarding Vietnam in that he didn’t break with the foreign policy stance set by earlier presidents and by Congress regarding U.S. intervention in communist affairs. Furthermore, you can make the case that the Civil Rights movement owes much of its success to LBJ and his own actions in intervening on the Senate floor.
James K. Polk was and will be, probably, the greatest one-term president ever. Expanding the country, securing political sovereignty in the western hemisphere, building the infrastructure… Similarly, James Monroe did more to establish global respect for a young United States and through his diplomacy, secured the U.S.’ place as a regional political and cultural power.
And Woodrow Wilson deserves more respect because he got the idea of a global society out in the open, and he managed to force it through Congress when he pulled America into WWI. Trying to start a League of Nations and futilely urging the Allies to take it a little easy on a weak Germany demonstrated his foresight and, in hindsight, we can see how he was on the right track in terms of getting international cooperation on the priority list.
Now, Joe – for more presidential trivia – name the only four presidents whose last names end in vowels?
I once misheard a Bob Dylan lyric. I thought it was “Still got the scars, but the wounds they may heal.” The real line was “Still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal.” I like mine better.
I agree. How about Robert Palmer? “You might as well face it, your a dit dit do love!”
Then I found out it was Addicted to Love. so disappointing…
Or Bone Thugz singing Crossroads…
I thought “…and I’m cinnamon straight to heaven”
but actually, it’s “…and I’m sending them straight to heaven”
Again, so disappointing…
I think these misheard lyrics are called amanda greens. I have a few and often I think my version sounds better. Especially from Tangled up in Blue. I thought it said “splitting up on a dark sad night”, which is way better than what Dylan really wrote/sings.
My 5th vote went to “one of the others,” and I too was thinking of Lyndon Johnson. Vietnam is obviously a big negative, but man, there are so many positives. I tear up every time I read or hear his magnificent “we shall overcome” speech to Congress in favor of his Civil Rights bill — standing up there in opposition to his own state, his own region, and his own upbringing and basically saying “I stand with Martin Luther King. I stand with his movement.”
Lincoln … 92%? Dang.
we would have elegantly sidestepped the whole red-state/blue-state problem if Lincoln hadn’t been so insistent.
Voted for Teddy and was very surprised to see the love he is getting. I always thought he was underrated as a President, guess not.
I like the Presidential poll (voted for Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Teddy, and Polk, the last largely as a shout out to They Might Be Giants), but I have to ask: Don’t we already have Mount Rushmore? Isn’t that the same thing, albeit with 4 instead of 5? I’m just saying.
I used to like the chorus to John Fogerty’s “Centerfield”: “Put me in cold / I’m ready to play today.” Now that’s desire! Then I found out it was the bland “Put me in coach.” Such a let down—like finding out that the beautiful, intelligent girl you’ve been dating is a Mets fan.
My vote for one of the others was for O’bama. Kind of like how the new Lions coach has the inside track for Coach of the Year.
JasonL: My Dylan misfire was hearing, “Old, young, aged or carrying weight/it doesn’t matter in the end” instead of correctly hearing, “But old, young, age don’t carry any weight/It doesn’t matter in the end.” I have a few others like yours from Time Out of Mind as well.
I think hearing the real Dylan lyric is an accomplishment in a class all its own.
Regarding the presidents poll, they are all Americans, so I can’t really get excited about any of them. I wonder which one is responsible for the greatest number of deaths.
I think this is a Dave Barry bit from the late 80’s.
A real common misheard lyric is “purty little love song” instead of “heard it in a love song” by the Marshall Tucker Band. I’ve also known several people who thought that Eric Clapton was saying “Way down south” instead of “Lay down Sally.”
Years ago, I thought that the lyrics to a song from Grease went “Those summer day night” (which really makes no sense) and I insisted that my younger sister sing it that way…but of course, she was right, and the lyrics went “Those su-u-mer nights.”
If we think about who had the most impact as president, who radically changed how the presidency operated. It’s interesting to hear the LBJ sympathies, of which I am in agreement in regards to his civil rights action. However, losing an unwinnable situation will not make one great. Nor will not straying from typical protocol in foreign affairs, as someone mentioned. LBJ wished to be good, but was taken down by events outside of his control.
George W, Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin all changed how the presidency operated.
Jefferson was not a great president, he was a great American. Can we consider buying land great? Most any president would have done that. I have to feel that a great president is someone who was greatest when they were president. Washington as president was greater than Washington as general, because everything he did set a precedent. Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Madison, Grant, & Eisenhower are the only presidents who come to mind who may have been greater in the life before their presidency. Likely no Eisenhower.
Jon Carroll, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, used to gather mondegreens from readers. Those columns are archived here. For what it’s worth, the one of mine he published was from Hole’s “Doll Parts”. Instead of hearing the real lyrics, “Some day, you will ache like I ache,” I heard, “Some day, you will lick what I ate.”
Lyrics thing too.
There’s some Moby song that I had on a mix tape (not a fan, but I don’t hate him.) It’s the album with the old blues song samples.
I thought the lyric was “Don’t nobody know my troubles with god. Nobody knows my troubles with god.” I thought this to be such a profound idea of Man against God, and was disheartened when I realized shortly thereafter that it was simply “Nobody knows my troubles but God”. Which has its own profoundness, I guess. The idea of someone singing about their trouble WITH God seemed powerful and out of the ordinary, without falling into the “why do bad things happen to good people” easiness of XTC “Dear God”.
My favorite alternate lyrics were inspired by the U2 song “With or Without You.”
The real words, “And you give yourself away, and you give yourself away, and you give, and you give, and you give yourself away.”
My briefly misunderstood lyrics: “Andy Gibb has passed away, Andy Gibb has passed away, Andy Gibb, Andy Gibb, Andy Gibb has passed away.”
As for you Hall of Presidents, 41 votes for Dubya? Really? REALLY? Come on. Even those 20 percent blind faithers can’t believe that.
-Ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb to end WW2.
-Involved in the charter of the UN.
-Historic expansion of social security.
-Doctrine that halted Soviet attempt at global domination.
-Marshall Plan that successfully stimulated war-torn western European economies.
-Created CIA and National Security Council.
-Key role in establishing Israel.
-Established NATO.
-Desegregated the US Armed Services.
-Intervened in Chinese Civil War
-Kept China and Russia from escalating the Korean War.
All presidents whether Republican, Democrat, or Whig have reason to be jealous of Truman’s work.
I hate Lincoln, no way was he a top 5 president. He is way too romanticized.
He didn’t get my vote.
Great to see a post about Bruce because I was just thinking today that this site needs some kind of contest to see if anybody can guess Springsteen’s Super Bowl halftime set.
Very tough challenge, as there are dozens of credible options. Anybody with a passing knowledge of Tom Petty could have called last year’s set, or at least picked 3 out of 4. Totally different story with Bruce.
My favorite misheard lyric comes from my wife, who as a girl misheard Kiss thusly:
“I want to rock and roll all night and part of every day”
I love it because it suggests a certain moderation that would make sense to a kid. Just PART of every day. A guy’s got to get some sleep.
This is how I first heard the opening verse to The Hold Steady’s “Constructive Summer”:
Me and my friends are like
The drums on “Lust for Life”
We pound it out on four tops
Our psalms are sing along songs
I envisioned four friends at a diner or bar pounding out the rhythm on a table top, but it’s actually “floor toms” not “four tops.” Though one should never really doubt Craig Finn, I liked mine better
I’m a “purty little love song” guy. Also just found out that No Doubt was “walking into spiderwebs”, not “walking in the spiderwebs”.
Personal favorite is Lucinda Williams’ Six Blocks Away. The chorus is “Six blocks away, dirty old street”, but I heard “Six blocks away, 30 Oak Street” and that’s still how I sing along.
When I was a kid (okay, until I turned 40,) I mangled the lyrics to Smoke on the Water. I thought it said:
We all came out to mount her
On a rainy evening flouride…
There is a really bad song from the late 80’s or early 90’s called “Voices Carry.” For the longest time, I thought the lyric was, “Hush, hush, keep it down now, ’cause you scare me.”
Then I found out it ended “voices carry” and gave up on it.
As for the president poll, I say you have to put Jefferson and Madison both in as the intellectual architects of our nation. That was not part of their administration, but I give them the credit anyway. Certainly, there are flaws in both, and they are products of their times.
Washington and Jefferson deserve great credit for their restraint. Certainly, much of the new nation was willing to give far more power to Washington than the Constitution allocated the president, and he refused. Similarly, after John Adams had abused the power of the presidency, Jefferson undid those abuses.
I don’t see how anyone could leave Lincoln off the list, and so for the fifth one, it came down to a battle of the Roosevelts. I could have gone either way, and voted Franklin tonight, but tomorrow from work, I will probably put in Teddy.
I thought, in Soul Asylum’s Runaway Train he was singing “promised myself I wouldn’t be/one more promise I couldn’t keep” and it was “I wouldn’t weep/one more …” I totally liked mine better. So much less crying!
My favorite mondegrene is Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right”. I still sing “You make the rice, I’ll make the gravy”…
“Voices Carry” is definitively not “a really bad song from the 80s.” That’s Aimee Mann before she went solo, I’ll have you know!
My favorite misheard-but-it’s-better-this-way example is from Dire Straits’ “Tunnel of Love.”
The real line is:
“Well it’s been money for muscle, another whirligig
Money for muscle, another girl I dig”
I always thought it was:
“Well it’s been money for my soul, another whirligig
Money for muscle, another girl I dig”
As folks have said above, Mark Knopfler isn’t someone you can really argue with, but I always liked mine better.
There’s another phenomenon common to loud punk and soft bedroom-indie-rock (both of which I love) where you can only make out about 40% of the words. You don’t mishear them, but you get them totally divorced from context. Sometimes that means you hear bits and pieces that sound haunting and detached, like real poetry. But then you look at the full lyrics and it’s totally boring and prosaic.
What about The Killers’ “Human”?
“Are we human, or are we dancer?”
“Are we human, or are we dancers?”
I can’t hear the “s” but I think it would sound better if it did.
Great points about LBJ. Never stopped to think…about those points. Will look into them more in the future. And Polk! The only one who refused to run for a second term because he accomplished each of his goals in his first term. If only that was precedent each following president followed instead of the two terms Washington set.
But just in the way Jackson (refused to renew the privately owned central bank charters), Lincoln (simply printed more money to pay soldiers rather than borrow) and Kennedy (issued silver backed notes) did their damnedest to continue the true spirit of the original Revolution alone–independence from the banks of Europe–qualify them for a vote.
Wilson (signing the Federal Reserve bill in 1913) and FDR (recalling all the gold in 1933) on the other hand, don’t deserve a fraction of their weight in gold. And likewise wouldn’t get it, thanks to their legislation.
All presidents, like all humans, have their flaws. And they each have theirs no doubt. But some had the interest of the imperfect people they were voted to represent and at least deserve respect for that.
Last but least, let us not forget Franklin Pierce who, after losing the Democratic nomination, reportedly quipped “there’s nothing left to do but get drunk.” Then died twelve years later from cirrhosis of the liver. At least he was a politician who kept his word.
This is the most hilarious collection of comments ever.
I think we need to do the Bill Simmons thing of comparing presidents to sports figures. I.e., FDR = Nolan Ryan.
My favorite misheard lyric is some stupid “As I lay me down to sleep” pop song where it sounds like someone is saying “I like tacos” and “Who likes tacos?” in the background.
When I was younger, I thought that the lyric in For What it’s Worth (the Stop, hey what’s that sound song) that the lyric that begins “Paranoia strikes deep” was actually “There are lawyer tracks, deep”
I was disabused of this mistaken notion by my sister in front of a large group of people I was trying to impress. I hate my sister. Although, her version of the song does make a lot more sense.
There were 53 people that voted for Dubya? Seriously?! Those votes had to have been made in jest. I mean, two quagmired wars, two recessions, 2x the debt. Yeah, PHENOMENAL job Dubya has done!!!
Surely one of the greatest lyrics to mishear is REMs The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight. I was only 6 or 7 when I first heard it and though the line was
“Colouring Jamaica in, colouring Jamaica in”
Then for many years my brother insisterd it was
“Coming in to her wake her up, coming to wake her up”
But now one of my friends insists the correct line is
“Call me when you try to wake her up, call me when you try to wake her up”
I still have no idea what the line actually is but will always prefer my young mind thinking he wanted to colour Jamaica in.
In fact another one of my favourites is from my own band Convict Louie and a song of ours called Set Me Free. The actual lyric is
“I’ve been wandering round this crazy insane land”
Although when I first heard it sung (just to mention I had no hand in writing the lyrics) and for a long time after until I eventually realised I thought the line was
“I’ve been wandering round as crazy as St. Lan (or Lamb)”
There I was thinking who the hell is St. Lan(Lamb) and what exactly is he the patron saint of? I never thought of actually trying to look it up though. Now every time we play that song I still think of that way, I mean St. Lan could be the patron saint of all kinds of cool things that are relevant to the song.
I understand the FDR – Ryan parallel, but I’d go more for Joe DiMaggio. Someone whose career was almost stopped before it began by injuries, ended abruptly, and for who it’s hard to separate mystique from reality.
New Bruce record in full at this link:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zbgkt0
I don’t advocate unpaid downloading. Think of this as a preview. I’m going to buy the record legitimately when it comes out and if you download from this link you should too.
There was a song from the late 70’s called “Driver’s Seat” (by Snif n’ the Tears – my spelling might be wrong). For months when it first came out I thought they were singing “Travesty” instead of “Driver’s Seat”.
I used to listen to a guitarist in Central Park play on weekends about 8-10 years ago. He might still be playing there for all I know. He would play Rocket Man by Elton John and get to the part that ends below and stop singing but keep playing guitar.
Lyrics
And i think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think i am at home
Oh no no no i’m a rocket man…
He’d then ask people what they thought the words were for the next line. Almost everyone had some lyrics they had made up. Some of them were quite funny; others really good. But I don’t ever remember anyone knowing the actual line….”Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone.”
LBJ is the worst President since Hoover.
And before you start the Bush comparisons: LBJ escalated a war that was a lot more meaningless than Iraq and caused 10X as many American deaths. He expanded the power and the debt of the Nanny state at a time when it wasn’t even needed, which lead to the economic staglflation of the 70s and became the blueprint for what will be the economic stagflation of the 2010s.
And in case you’re curious, my HOF votes were Washington, Lincoln, and FDR.
My favorite misheard lyrics is from Murder of One by Counting Crows. I thought it was “There’s a perfectness inside you” but it’s really “There’s a bird that nests inside you.” I like mine a lot better.
My favorite misheard lyric is anything by Huey Lewis and the News.
“I wanna rub you all over” is “I wanna love you all over”
“The heart of rock ‘n roll is the breathin” is “The heart of rock ‘n roll is still beatin’”
Etc.
Couldn’t vote for Old Hickory (in spite of how cool of a nickname that really is). The massacre of the Native American population under his watch really ruined him for me. Although I do like $20 bills.
Teddy Roosevelt is obviously the most manly of all Presidents. I mean, seriously – the guy got shot and STILL delivered a speech whilst bleeding from the bullet wound. Also, I haven’t been able to verify this so I’m forced to assume it’s true – he defeated all of his political opponents by ripping out their still-beating hearts. He got my vote.
Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson – they’re all kind of no-brainers. I also voted for Grover Cleveland on two non consecutive occasions.
I didn’t understand the abject hatred for
“I miss the rains down in Africa…”
until I learned that (25 years later) the real lyrics are
“I bless the rains down in Africa”
Okay, get it now.
{Toto’s Africa}
She’s Gone – Hall & Oates
Real Lyric: “I need a drink and a quick decision”
My interpretation: “I need a drink and a court decision”
I thought this was one of best lyrics of all time when I wrongly heard it. I Do need a court decision to keep her from breaking up with me. Or I need the court to deny her other dating rights. Or I need the court to not grant her that restraining order.
And it would have made for a great Night Court episode too. Can you imagine Dan Fielding trying to prosecute a restraining order? Hypocrisy and comedy at its finest.
Not a huge Buffett fan, but for the longest time I thought the lyrics to “Come Monday” (real lyrics: “I’ve spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze…”) were: “I spent four lonely days in a brown leather haze…”
I figured he was talking about some wild ’70s rock and roll parties that he had grown tired of.
Misheard lyrics begin and end with “hold me closer Tony Danza”. (Elton John’s “hold me closer tiny dancer”)
Then of course there’s the misunderstood lyrics from England Dan & John Ford Coley’s “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight”. What most of us hear: “I’m not talkin’ bout the linen, and I don’t wanna change your life”. In reality, it goes like this: “I’m not talkin’ bout movin’ in, and I don’t wanna change your life.” Even knowing this now, it still sounds like they’re talkin’ bout the linen.
my aunt was listening to Springsteen’s ” The River” with me when she asked,” why would he wear a unitard with a wedding coat?”
Real lyrics: ” I got a union card and a wedding coat.
I hear that same line too, and I like mine (ours)? better.
Only slightly off topic, but a very good friend of mine, when a little girl in catechism class, misheard the teacher talking about the Holy Trinity. For years afterward she thought the members were “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Sparrow.”
With all due respect to certain of the earlier posters, anyone who thinks Lyndon Johnson was a great president is certifiably insane. Whatever his domestic accomplishments, his conduct with respect to the Vietnam War is more significant by several orders of magnitude. I would argue that, taken as a whole, it constitutes the worst and most destructive set of policy decisions made by a U.S. president in the last century (if not more). He waged an unnecessary, unwinnable war at the cost of over 50,000 American lives and God-knows-how-many Vietnamese lives. Further, Johnson’s exploitation of the Tonkin Gulf incident in 1964, which was the immediate catalyst for the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, is a breathtaking example of creating false justifications for war and the expansion of executive power (compared to which George W. Bush’s similar behavior pales, and I do not say that lightly – I voted against him twice).
I concede that Johnson inherited a difficult situation and that it would have taken significant political courage for him to pull the U.S. out of Vietnam. However, I don’t think political courage and too much to ask of a “great” president.
You know, I read in a magazine the other day re: The Jets; how weird and wonderful they are, and about how keen that Bennie is (turns out, she’s uh-REALLY keen!!). I love her mohair suit, and those Boobs?? ELECTRIC!!
i voted for lincoln, washington, jefferson, fdr and woodrow wilson, with teddy, lbj, polk, and jackson just falling short. let the debate continue endlessly.
and because no one answered the “presidents with lat names ending in vowels” thing, off the top of my head (assuming y is a vowel):
mckinley, kennedy, pierce, and obama is all i got. the last one’s gonna kill me for the rest of the day.
MONROE! just came to me.
I’m Allowed, by Buffalo Tom (about going to a party):
My version:
I could talk to no one
‘Cause I knew one person there.
Real version:
I could talk to no one
‘Cause I knew not one person there.
My version is way better and totally captures a ruined relationship. Take that, Bill Janovitz!
“i guess it rains down in africa”… i thought that was kinda deep, a real comment about western disregard for the plight of african societies. my bad.
Here’s my misheard lyrics story. There was this band Helmet that got a little bit known in the early 90s. Before they got known, the band I was in opened for them a few times and they stayed at our place when they were in town.
They had this one song I really liked that I could only get about half the lyrics to, but I could tell it was about a relationship gone bad, and there was this one line I loved: “Prisons have walls!”
So one time I was talking with the singer about how great I thought that line was because it leaves unsaid that, you know, the difference between the relationship he can’t escape from and prison is that, you know, prisons have walls.
He looked at me and said “that’s not what I say.” But he told me he liked it, and sang it that way the next couple of times I saw them.
My version is way better and totally captures a ruined relationship. Take that, Bill Janovitz!
Bill’s a good guy. His brother is a bit of a putz.
The first time I heard the Eagles “Life in the Fast Lane” I heard the chorus as “Pipe in the Vasaline.”
I think these misheard lyrics are called amanda greens.
Heh – not sure if you’re joking, but kind of hope you are.
They’re sometimes called “Mondegreens” after “Lady Mondegreen”, because of a misheard line of poetry (not sure who by) that goes something like:
Then they brought back his body
And laid him on the green.
“I want to rock and roll all night and part of every dayâ€
That’s great.
I hold LBJ responsible for the deaths of 50,000+ plus Americans in Vietnam (far more than JFK).
And there is some responsibility resting on Truman’s desk for the entrance of the Chinese into the Korean War. If he’d had the balls to stand up to MacArthur the action in Korea would taken place on a much smaller scale.
LBJ? He’d make my list of the bottom five (in my lifetime, at least).
Fred Zeppelin, when I was a kid and that England Dan and John Ford Coley song was a hit, I always thought the line was, “I’m not talking ’bout Bolivia”. Which… of course you aren’t, why would you?
My favorite misunderstood lyric is also from Bruce. “Tenth Avenue freeze-out” always sounded like “Tell the devil he can freeze hell” to me.
As for a more famous misunderstood lyric, a story claims that Bob Dylan got the Beatles high for the first time, then was surprised when they told him they had never done that. He had assumed they had because he thought I Want To Hold Your Hand included the words “I get high, I get high, I get high” (“I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide”)
“Cool to be kind” by Letter to Cleo is better than “Cruel to be kind”
In the Replacements “Bastards of Young”, the consensus lyrics on the web are
Dreams unfulfilled, you graduate unskilled
It beats picking cotton and waiting to be forgotten.
Long before I saw the above lyrics in writing, I crafted my own last line out of Paul Westerberg’s garbled vocals.
With a piece of paper cotten, waiting to be forgotten.
To me, the “paper cotten” was a diploma. It’s an admittedly awkward construction to get to a rhyme. The more accurate “cotten paper” would describe a higher grade paper that a diploma might be printed on.
The diploma reference dovetails nicely with the “graduate unskilled.” More importantly, it Westerbergianly states that no diploma will save you from being forgotten.
Compare this to the consensus lyric, where the unskilled graduate narrator a) will not be doing doing hard labor and b) will not be the one who is forgotten, it’s the cotton-picker that will be. On relisten, I concede that the consensus lyrics are correct, but I like mine better. But who I am to second guess the epistles of St. Paul.
[...] by verywellthen on January 17, 2009 Over on Joe Poznanski’s ostensibly-baseball website, he asks for song lyrics the way you heard them which are better than the actual song lyrics. Here [...]
Chris in Dallas: Funny you like Teddy for giving a speech with a bullet still in him but dislike Jackson, even though he lived with a bullet right near his heart for something like the last 30 years of his life. Just saying, they’re both pretty comparable for toughness I think. Maybe that should be the next president’s poll?
My favorite misheard lyric doesn’t belong to me, but to my brother’s friend. In AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”, there’s the line “Hey Satan, paid my dues”. This guy thought he was singing “Hey Satan, burn those Jews”. My more personal favourite one is Guns ‘N’ Roses Nighttrain: I always thought the line “I’ve got a dog eat dog sly smile” was actually “I’ve got a dog, he doubts my smile”. I don’t know why, but I much prefer my line.
I once heard someone sing Tenth Avenue Freeze out and say “Ten Apples in the Freezer”!
Regarding Bruce’s halftime song selection, I am not a big fan of this. I thought he should have continued to avoid this gig. This is so NOT BRUCE… But, now that he has committed, I suggest he does Incident on 57th Street with the tag ending straight into Rosalita… That would be right at 15 minutes and in my estimation represent everything about a Bruce show. The classic tale from the deep dark Jersey nights, powerful and building to a crescendo at the end then blasting into the joy, party of Rosalita…. I think it would be perfect.
I’m sticking with Jefferson’s biographer, Joseph Ellis, when he called Jefferson the most overrated of the Founders.
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/17/ellis_jefferson.htm
Aside from the Louisiana Purchase, which violated pretty much all of Jefferson’s stated principles, what are Jefferson’s great presidential accomplishments? Really, his greatest accomplishment was keeping in place all of the institutions created by the Federalists and Alexander Hamilton.
Simply put, we don’t live in a Jeffersonian Democracy and the one attempt at it (Articles of Confederation) were a dismal failure. We live in the Hamiltonian Republic of a strong central government encouraging the financial class.
My votes: Washington, Adams, Teddy, FDR, and Monroe/Madison (really Monroe, who gets credit for inventing our foreign policy which still exists today and because of the whole Era of Good Feelings thing).
Oops. I cut Teddy to put in Lincoln.
Washington is really amazing when you stop to think about it. the guy really could have set himself up as a dictator in the same vein as Napoleon, but instead set a model for democratic government. Truly amazing the way he turned down power.
Ending in a vowel: Monroe, Pierce, Fillmore, Coolidge
Anyone thinking that LBJ’s handling of Vietnam is outweighed by the (arguable) value of his domestic reforms needs to read HR McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty. If anything, LBJ was a rather poor president and leader. But, we are all entitled to our opinions.
For me, no band results in more misheard lyrics than Radiohead. I love the band, but I have no idea what Thom Yorke is singing.
@ Anthony (#33)
Actually, the Killers line is really:
Are we human, or are we DENSER?
I thought it was “dancer” at first too.
Also, Lincoln getting 92% while Washington is at 87% and Jefferson doesn’t even have 70% is an astounding illustration of how poorly-educated people are. The man almost single-handedly responsible for holding a young, volatile nation together gets less than the man who almost tore it apart. Right. Look, Lincoln probably deserves it; but not more than Washington. Or Jefferson. Or Madison. Although most of Madison’s contributions were before his Presidential administration. Does that count?
FDR… yikes. He’s almost solely responsible for our long, slow descent into socialism. Yeah, THAT deserves HOF recognition. Like I need a bath in boiling water.
Also, anyone calling for Woodrow Wilson to be on the ballot needs to have their head examined.
I was never quite sure whether the last verse of the Gillian Welch song “Revelator” begins “Leaving the valley, fogging our sight” or “… f***in’ out of sight”.
Another Gillian Welch mondegreen. I always thought the second-to-last line in “Wrecking Ball” was “But the Santa Cruz got ‘em all”, but a lyrics site I just looked at claims that it’s “Hit the Santa Cruz Garden Mall”.
There’s a line in Better Days by Springsteen that goes:
“tonight I’m layin in your arms/carvin’ lucky charms/outa these hard luck bones”
When I first heard it, I thought it said
tonight I’m layin in your arms/carvin’ lucky charms/outa these hard luck poems.
Springsteen’s line is probably better than mine (the metaphor obviously holds up better when he’s carving something out of bones), but when I thought he was saying ‘poems’ the song seemed much more personal and self referential to me. He was talking about himself deriving this great life out of all the “hard luck poems” (i.e., his songs, mostly depressing).
When I found out it was ‘bones’, I was kind of bummed out by the more literal metaphor.
For the Presidential poll I voted Lincoln, Washington, Polk and both Roosevelts, although I gave serious consideration to Jackson, Jefferson and Monroe. Madison’s enormous contributions were really not as President. As for the sports comparisons, I think Polk is probably Koufax, except that he’s forgotten. I would say that JFK is probably Kirby Puckett — great personality overshadowing some fundamental flaws. That probably overstates JFK’s effectiveness. JFK only won because Joe tiwsted arms and the mob stuffed the ballot box in Chicago. He had a colossal failure and a success with Cuba, escalated Vietnam (he was NOT trying to pull out — that is a myth) and failed miserably on domestic policy — the Civil Rights movement almost came to a screeching halt during his presidency. W is probably Pete Rose Jr, and while Bush Sr. wasn’t a great president, comparing him to his son is a blowout…
I always thought the end of the Dave Matthews song Crash was “hike up your skirt little boy and show the world to me” instead of “hike up your skirt a little more and show the world to me.”