Aha! (or Duh!) moments

The other night a friend of mine explained to me that the narrator of New Order's "Love Vigilantes" was the ghost of a soldier killed in a war. For 20 years I'd just assumed that he and his wife were the victims of some sort of bureaucratic error. I'd always thought that seemed like sort of a silly topic for a song, but there you go. It's not as if the lyrics of any other New Order song are particularly deep.

It was only about five years ago that it dawned on me that Major Tom turned off his own communication gear in "Space Oddity."

It was more recently than I care to admit that I got the joke in the title of Dr. Hook's (I think it was Dr. Hook, though who really cares?) "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold it Against Me." (In my defense, I've just tried to ignore the existence of that song altogether for 30 years, so I can't say I ever put much thought into it.)

Jeez, Reno, get a clue! Of all the silly ways to misunderstand a song lyric.

Now 'scuse me while I kiss this guy.

OK, i've got one. i wrote a small review online (not here) of a They Might Be Giants record, and said something i no longer recall about the song "Ana Ng" having a nonsense lyric. Last week, a writer friend of mine wrote me to explain -- in humiliating detail -- exactly what the song is about and what each line contributes to that notion.

I thought it was about the World's smallest woman (from the WF) having a lover on the other side of the planet. is there something wittier going on?

The Walrus was Paul!

I just heard it as unrequited love but since someone asked, other takes

[www.tmbw.net]

[www.tmbw.net]



Make a hole with a gun perpendicular
To the name of this town in a desk-top globe
Exit wound in a foreign nation
Showing the home of the one this was written for
My apartment looks upside down from there
Water spirals the wrong way out the sink
And her voice is a backwards record
It's like a whirlpool and it never ends

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

All alone at the '64 World's Fair
Eighty dolls yelling "Small girl after all"
Who was at the Dupont Pavilion?
Why was the bench still warm? Who had been there?
Or the time when the storm tangled up the wire
To the horn on the pole at the bus depot
And in the back of the edge of hearing
These are the words the voice was repeating:





Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge:
"I don't want the world, I just want your half"

They don't need me here, and I know you're there (don't need me)
Where the world goes by like the humid air (world goes by)
And it sticks like a broken record
Everything sticks like a broken record
Everything sticks until it goes away (it goes home)
And the truth is, we don't know anything (don't know)

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

And the Seether's Louise.

last year, i was told that the doobie brothers didn't really share the last name of doobie

Oh jeez, the things some people will say!

Next thing, you'll be telling us the same thing about the Ramones.

I think I was the first person to refer to Rivka as a guy back in the original thread.

That's what bugs me about the relentless pursuit of hipness: Someone else is always claiming he or she was the first to do something ...

Funny - I was just saying that exact same thing the other day.

Nicely done, Reno.

a lot of duh-uh moments for me.
when i canoed with my friend, she made me memorize silly camp songs which i soon discovered were ramone's (my mom read 'ra MON ess') songs when took me to see them play. after the concert, the same friend talks to the ramones who were mentioning that they needed a name for the next album. then deedee asks me, do you have a name?, i reply 'carmen,' and received a 'you are so dumb!' kick from my friend.

When I was 9 years old I found out the real lyrics to Stairway to Heaven were not 'And there's a wino down the road". Course no Zep fans (online) have yet to figure out the correct lyrics to The Ocean (re: the hell hounds).



Post Edited (08-08-05 16:56)

My older brother gave me a copy of "Astral Weeks" when I was about 15. It took me about 2 years and literally hundreds of listens to "Cyprus Avenue" before I realized what that song was about. I was always sort of mesmerized by the sound of the song without paying attention to the lyrics until one day the full "Oh the girl is 14 years old" moment hit me. At the time, I fancied myself a genius for figuring it out rather than being an idiot for not figuring it out sooner. A couple years later I read Lester Bangs analysis of the tune (maybe in "Stranded"?) and thought to myself "This Lester Bangs guy and me are like the smartest people ever".

i like that lyric misinterpretation. i almost sounds to me that westerberg sings "laura!" in the refrain of 'unsatisfied,' and "santa claus is dead" in the refrain of 'red, red wine.' i wish pearl jam would change their words to "hearts and farts, they fa-a-a-ade away."

What do you mean, "change their words"?

Post Edited (08-11-05 01:30)

Re "amigo" How do you know i'm a guy????
Re Chicago pedagogical practices--UGH! but i can assure you in Ohio earlier than that we "looked" at "Eleanor Rigby" and some Simon and Garfunkel in English "class." those were the daze! Pot head teachers, groovy idealism, and no school work!

yrs,
Michelle

i was refering to michael neff, who i saw last night. i mentioned the wino lyrics to him and a couple other friends. we were laughing.

duh! moment:
i had problems with my log in and to make this message short i switched forum names, from carmen to josefina to crmn. i couldn't go back to carmen since it is already 'taken,' and instead of talking to trouser press site tech, i tried these other names.

paganizer, this is a fun fact. mi amigo, michael, in 1978 chicago subub 7th grade was asked to write his/her version of the lyrics of s to heav.

I know a woman whose grandmother always HATED the Angels' song "My Boyfriend's Back." It took decades before the old lady realized that the Angels *weren't* singing, "My boyfriend's black."

1) i explained to my french friend that the lyrics to the police song that she was singing along to weren't "working on the moon" but...
2) another friend of mine leaned toward an interpretation of love tractor's 'queen of the cesspool' as a song about an indecisive female since a cesspool contains both good/bad, contrasting ingredients. i just read the author's explanation as:
"Queen of the Cesspool" is a song about the music industry itself and
specifically about Madonna.  Britney Spears and Christine Aquilara are at
some award show, M is kissing, passing the torch to these future Queens of
the Cesspool.  The music industry is seen as a Cesspool of corruption now
populated by Whores Pimps Strippers and Junkies.

Heard "Maggie May" on the radio this morning and for the first time in years remembered that as a kid I thought Rod was mad at Maggie because she was a bed-wetter. i think I even mentioned it once, and my mother - who took time out from her Porter Waggoner worship to be a huge Rod Stewart fan - must have preferred to let me keep thinking that as opposed to explaining what the song was actually about to me at that tender age.