I've been included in a Minnesota anthology "Under Purple Skies", now available on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Hit Me With a Wet Sock, or I Don’t Think Those Are The Right Lyrics…

My sister was a small, impish person as a child. She is two years younger than I am, darker skinned and darker eyed, a slender, mischievous girl with a penchant for animals and children. Always bringing home one or the other home for dinner, she was a mystery to us.

She has taught me many things in my lifetime, and some of the things she taught me are even right.

But it is because of her that most of the song lyrics I know are wrong.

“Pearl! Pearl! You know what song I’m gonna sing at the bus stop today?”

I did not know. I never knew.

“Magic Bus!” Karen might’ve been 8, but she was into The Who. “I waaaant it I waaaaant it.”

And this was all fine, except that from there, rather than singing “Too much, magic bus!” she sang “Toothbrush! Magic bus!”

She also insisted that Creedence Clearwater Revivals’ “Sweet Hitchhiker” was “Swedish A’Hiker”. I tried to explain to her that ‘Swedish A’Hiker” made no sense, but she insisted that she was singing it with a Swedish accent.

“Don’t go around tonight” she’d bawl at the top of her lungs to “Bad Moon on the Rise” “for it’s bound to take your life! There’s a bathroom on the right!”

She had a million of ‘em.

To this day, I can’t hear those songs without singing them with Karen’s words.

I spoke to her on the phone the other day.

“You know it’s because of you that I can’t sing most of the Creedence Clearwater Revival songs without using your goofy lyrics,” I said.

“Are you kidding me?” she said. “You’re the reason I can’t listen to most of Led Zeppelin anymore!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Really? You’re going to make me sing it? Fine. Remember “Stairway to Heaven”? You ruined it for me! “And as we wind on down the road, I shout, a-squallin' like a toad...”

“I never said that!” I laughed.

“Oh, you did too you big liar!!”

OK. So I can’t listen to CCR anymore, and she can’t listen to Zeppelin.

We’re about even.

28 comments:

Jodie Kash said...

Kid brother Robert mistaked "There's no need to be coy, Roy" from Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" for "There's no need to be corduroy," which makes me giggle to this day.

Jodie Kash said...

...mistaked???

What the eff?

Pearl said...

You mean it's NOT?! :-)

Pearl said...

"Mistaked" is a perfectly cromulent word, Jodie. :-)

JennyMac said...

haha..this made me smile. Swedish A'hiker.

My little brother used to sing "Last night I dreamt of some bagels" as a great version of Madonna's La Isla Bonita.

L.C.T. said...

Haha this really made me giggle because I do the same thing! I just make up lyrics when I don't know the real ones and sometimes I come out with ridiculous things completely without realising.

Pat said...

I ruined Feelings for my husband with "Felix, nothing more than Felix."

I laughed a lot reading this post of yours, Pearlie!

Unknown said...

Because I read JennyMac's comment now that will be stuck in my head on a loop.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

My sister was the same way. Her and her friend 'Poohy' would go out in the morning perfectly clean and sweet and would come home without shoes or pants dragging whatever large mammal they found or killed for themselves. They frightened me. She was the one who would sing 'Rock the Catbox' for 'Rock the Casbah' by the Clash. Now she lives in Australia and get's busted by her hillbilly children all the time for her Canadian Accent - which I protest since we HAVE no accent. We are the purest form of the language. We don't say EH or ABOOT and made all that stuff up to mock others who mock us. Go ahead..try fitting in by saying aboot around a group of us. First we laugh and then we feed you to the Judgement Bears.

Simply Suthern said...

I sing, I mean I sing all the time. Prob is I know about 5 words to every song so the rest is mumbled or made up. The misconscrewed words to the Elvis song Suspicious Minds Starts out " We're caught in a trap" comes out "We're call'in a trout". It's a gift. When I am singing along at work my work bud here always asked "who sings that song? Well why dont you let him sing it."

Anonymous said...

Love this. My 1st wife was up to the same thing. She thought the old song Poetry in Motion was 'Oh, a tree in motion', and Guantanamara was 'Once on a meadow'. Dave Barry had a hilarious piece on misheard lyrics with one of my favorites being from the BB Help Me Rhonda, which was: "Since you put me down I've had owls puking in my bed."

Anonymous said...

I worked with a guy who would change the lyrics to every song on the radio, he was real funny and good at it too.
His faveorite song was "I Will Dismember(Remember) You"

Secretia

Unknown said...

And it is because of my sister's piano lessons that I always think the Theme to The Godfather is going to stop and start over again and again at the same part...

Angel Of Harlem ~ U2
Salvation Army Blues, sang those lyrics for years

Peace ~ Rene

anon said...

Deep Purple still insists that I've got the lyrics to their "Slow Talkin' Walter, A Fire in His Eyes"

They keep muttering something about smoke and water or the sky burning down, which is just ridiculous.

Pearl said...

Love all the lyrics.

:-)

I used to have a boyfriend who thought Peter Gabriel's "Bring Me a Higher Love" was "Bring Me An Iron Lung".

I've never forgotten that man.

Willoughby said...

I'm still trying to figure out all the words to Blinded By The Light (and have been since the late 70's).

My husband has a gift for picking up the words to any song. When we were dating, I actually thought he knew the words to every song ever written.

Madame DeFarge said...

This is exactly why I prefer ignoring lyrics and believe that every song is just endless dooby dooby doos.

De Campo said...

I hear you.

My Great Aunt Betty ruined any objective interpretation of N.W.A joints forever.

Anonymous said...

Oh that is funny! My oldest has really roughed up some Bon Jovi. I can't even listen to it straight any more.

http://howtobecomeacatladywithoutthecats.blogspot.com said...

Siblings... so many opportunities to annoy each other! Now I can't get those songs & lyrics out of my head. Thanks, Pearl, you little...

Fragrant Liar said...

When I was a kid in the late 60s, I sang these words with full-on straight-faced sincerity: "I'm your penis, I'm your balls of joy, desire."

Made total sense to me.

Jocelyn said...

If you both still get Jimi "Excuse me, while I kiss this guy" Hendrix, though, it's a draw.

Douglas said...

I have been known to mix up a fresh batch of lyrics for any oldie that happens to be playing at the moment. The fresh batch will not be clean...

Jeanne Estridge said...

Let's ride with the family down the street
Through the
Courtesy of Fred's two feet....

(Just in case you were wondering.)

Tempo said...

Oh come on now! Most peoples misunderstood lyrics are much better than the originals...
Id give you some examples from OZ but youve probably never heard of our little bands like Cold Chisel, ACDC, Rose Tattoo, Angels, george Thourogood etc...

Roses said...

It's a Hard Egg, by Bonnie Tyler still makes me laugh.

Kevin Musgrove said...

I'm still convinced there's an old Red Allen song called "Stick Out Your Tongues, Here Comes The Forgotten Man"

Lesley said...

Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, everyone knows the correct lyrics are:

Spare him his life for his pork sausages.

I've never worked out why people always snigger when I sing it though.