Misheard song lyrics blamed on technology
"Oooo-oooooh my ears are alight"
If you don’t know the words to your favourite songs, then don’t blame your hearing because a survey’s found that music download sites and declining CD sales could actually be the cause.
The National Year of Reading, a group created to celebrate reading, recently surveyed 4000 Brits aged between 18 and 65. It found that 62 per cent claimed not to know the words to their favourite tunes because the lyrics were inaccessible online.
Although many websites exist where music fans can download the lyrics to tracks, many respondents said that such sites were “unreliable and often incorrect”.
Half of those questioned said lyrics were less accessible than they were five years ago, with one of the most popular excuses being that lyrics aren’t printed in CD covers anymore.
One website that’s dedicated to song lyrics has also printed a list of some of the most commonly misheard lyrics. For example, Robert Palmer apparently sang that “You might as well face it, you’re a d**k with a glove”. Whilst some seem to believe that REM suggested “Let’s pee in the corner”.
But, if you’re not willing to admit to being a Spice Girls fan then we’ll tell you now, they aren’t singing “If you wanna do my mother, you gotta get her a Benz”.
COMMENTS
Shortchanged consumers (edit at will)
No one mentioned the ability of MP3 and other compression techniques to remove "artifacts" from the music and make it fit in a smaller box. Many very subtle soundings of the human voice are cheerfully removed, recognized as sybilence, or other unwanted sounds (by those doing the compressing) in the name of better utilization of their bandwidth. Never mind that you paid for the whole thing > you still get an abbreviated version under the auspices that the public is uninformed and can not tell the difference! Maybe when an artist or a class action group sues over misrepresentation of product (over a few key words) being changed, or as on TV, a few key scenes being cut (for the sake of fitting in the allotted time slot) and thus completely changing the jest of the show, will the providers of truncated products and services find it is not worth it to shortchange the public and even the artist. As a sound/lighting/stage Tech, I no longer want to work for an industry that can not run a artistic work without cutting out completely or running credits so fast one can not read it, and thus "Give credit where credit is due" Wake up! Demand the best quality, and the entire product!
@Rob Kirton and @Alex
Rob - the line is "Nants ingonya mabagithibaba" - roughly translated means "Dad, there's a lion"!
Alex - yes, he does sing "Fried chicken", that's the lyric. In one abandoned take during a bit of a mess-about in the studio, the lyrics included "One horn, two tits, John Deacon"...
Those were the days...
I used to read Smash Hits, and enjoyed it most when they were happy to print lyrics. I don't remember many of my albums having lyrics printed, The Farm's "Spartacus" being a notable exception in doing so for every track (I had a Dansette style player which I distrusted with a passion and consequently bought most things on tape; the vinyl editions, of course, may have been different).
PS. Madonna "Ray of Light", "Anna Friel...".
PPS. And don't get me started on George Michael.
RE: Was it just me...
Always sounded that way to me too. Still does. I don't think it's a mishearing either.
