Open Questions: Music Edition
By Mitch Berg
In their 1982 classic “This Beat Goes On”, the lead singer of the Canadian band “the Kings” tells some unnamed strumpet “You said to call me up when I was in Tirana”. Now, this being 1982, Albania was run by a paranoid Maoist clacque (sort of like Minneapolis) and among the most closed societies on earth. Was this a toss-off espionage reference? Or was the singer of Albanian descent?
March 5th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Actually, it’s “Toronto”, but you already knew that…
When I was growing up, my sister thought that the Neil Diamond song “Forever in Blue Jeans” was “Reverend Blue Jeans”. My brother thought that in “Ode to Billie Joe” that “Billie Joe Macalaster fell off the Tallahassee bridge”(it’s the Tallahatchee bridge, and he jumped…).
By the way “Switching to Glide” is a great song too.
I wonder whatever happened to other Canadian bands of that time like Baron Longfellow and Harelquin ?
March 5th, 2008 at 8:50 am
My dad loves 60’s music, and he and i always used to listen to the “oldies” station when i was growing up. When i was about 8ish, he realized that i was singing “Down in the boombox” to the beloved “Down in the boondocks” by Billie Joe Royal:)
March 5th, 2008 at 11:52 am
And of course there’s the classic example, with people mishearing Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” as a pre-Stonewall endorsement of the Love That Dare Not Say Its Name – “‘Scuse me, while I kiss this guy.”
March 5th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Coolest mis-heard lyric, though, has to be for the song “Dolphin’s Cry” by Live.
Real lyrics: “Love’ll lead us, all right, love’ll lead us, she will lead us.”
Mis-heard lyrics: “Lolita’s… all right – Lolita’s sheep will eat us.”
March 5th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
For the longest time I thought the Little Feat song was: “If you’ll be my Dixie chicken, I’ll be your Tennessee ham.” Who eats Tennessee lamb.