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Lyrical Engineering.

paranoidwriter waves hello

01:15 / 11.07.05

Inspired by Stoatie's comments here about Jim Steinman, this thread, and my old man's brand of Dad-humour, I thought I'd ask you if you shared my annoying habit of changing song lyrics by accident or on purpose.

For example: do you remember "I miss you like crazy" by Natalie Cole? My Dad used to sing, "I know you love gravy", and a few weeks ago I was talking about this particular piece of editing with a colleague / friend, and we came up with the following:

"I'm leaking bum-gravy
My sphincter's gone crazy
Since I left the navy..."

Silly, infantile and bordering on homophobia, I know; but it helped us get though a day of heaving office furniture around London.

I have loads more examples from my dance music days.

e.g. "Bass-line kicking, Bass-line kicking..." became "Bast my chicken?!"

As a side-note: I've always wanted to do a dark and listless cover of 'Wonderful World', changing all the lyrics to negative statements about the modern world:

"I see baby's starve. I watch them "go". They hurt much more than I'll ever know..."

I'll stop now. Over to you pop-pickers....

02:06 / 11.07.05

my friends like my reworking of the entirely evil looking billy jo-el's 'piano man', i dub 'porno man'

show us you cock, you're the porno man,
show us your cock tonight
'cause we're all in the nude for a novelty
and you're cock is just about right...

othewise, i re-assign lyrics all the time to songs, sometimes to great embarassment when i am overheard..!

02:24 / 11.07.05

'I was wanking off a waiter in a cocktail bar
When I met you...' etc.

Karaoke at a wedding in 2001.

Cards, letters, phone calls, flowers and everything, but... oh well there you go anyway, I'm still excommunicated.

18:33 / 11.07.05

Used to have an incredibly puerile (and actually quite limited) drunken 'game' which involved singing songs but changing the word 'dance' to 'wank'. This thread up such delights as

Lionel Richie
Ohh, what a feeling
When you're wanking on the ceiling

Tina Turner
Private Wanker

Irene Cara
Flashwank

and Liquid Gold's incomporable
Wank yourself dizzy

This was largely an '80s phenomenon, as you can see.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:44 / 11.07.05

Ah, used to do a similra thing myself with "heart" and "arse".

"A good arse these days is hard to find, so please be gentle with this arse of mine..."

"Put your hand on your arse and tell me that we're through..."

"Too far away, too far apart, she couldn't wait another day for... the captain of her arse"

etfuckingcetera.

Alex's post has reminded me of the Aled Jones classic "We're wanking in your hair". But it would probably be best for all concerned had it not.

paranoidwriter waves hello

18:45 / 11.07.05

Excellent!

I also used to put colleagues names into songs. For example: I once worked with a talented graphic designer called "Gabi Noye".

Whenever she came into my room I used sing her name instead of the lyrics:

"Tell me lies, tell me sweat little lies. Tell-me-Tell-me lies.." (what was the name of that 80's song again?)

i.e. "Gabi Noye, Gabi-Gabiiiii Noye. Gabi-Gabi Noye!"

She must have hated me.

00:06 / 12.07.05

I remember being disappointed as a child to learn he was, in fact, not a 'Secret Asian Man.'

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:14 / 12.07.05

(what was the name of that 80's song again?)

"Little Lies". Clue's in the question.

09:44 / 12.07.05

I remember being disappointed as a child

What if his beard concealed a secret asian face?

Jack The Bodiless

21:34 / 12.07.05

The new Coldplay CD has a song entitled 'Fix You', wherein sensitive Chris Martin describes the helplessness felt by the male of the species when his SO has a genuine reason to be crushed by life (eg Gwyneth Paltrow losing her father) and he, being male, is left wanting desperately to make it all better, but not knowing how. Some of the sensitive lyrics include...

"And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you"

...as sensitive Chris Martin attempts to articulate the aforementioned helplessness.

Not quite so sensitive when you replace the word "fix" with "fist", is it?

22:06 / 12.07.05

Well it depends on how you want to look at it, J the B.

I think Cole Porter's song 'I Get A Kick Out Of You' is in many ways a much more positive, upbeat and realistic number if the 'no' in the lyric, in the original version, is replaced by an 'a.' 'But' would need to be 'and' in the chorus also, but I think it'd work. More romantic somehow, let's face it.

Jack The Bodiless

22:10 / 12.07.05

"And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fist you"

I am still giggling. I am thirty years old.

paranoidwriter waves hello

22:49 / 12.07.05

Oh yay, praise be to such silliness! It just keeps giving and giving!

My aforementioned colleague / friend spent an entire week picking on my unkempt appearance and singing his version of Aqua's 'Barbie song'*:

"---- won't brush their hair"
Can't take 'em any-where-airrr...
-----'s fantastic
It's so tragic"

I laughed thoughout the first two dozen renditions, but warned him that I'd come back with something if he continued. And of course, sure enough, my eventual response triggered a violent response, causing him to chase me around Soho every time I used it; my version of 'Gordon is a Moron':

"---- is a ball-dee
---- is a ball-dee
He's got no hair
Oh yeah, yeah,
It's so "unfair"
Losing ya hair"

I warned him. He should never have messed with me. My old man is the Master of Lyrical Engineering (Praise him), and some of the magic was sure to be passed on to his natural and would-be successor. Hear my silly roar!

_________________________________________________

*Note: all names removed for obvious reasons.

05:03 / 13.07.05

"Our lips are sealed" always sounded like "Alex the seal" to me. But then, I think everyone had that.
AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" sounds like "Dirty Teeth Stunted Sheep". Or, if you prefer, "Dirty Deeds Done With Sheep".

06:24 / 13.07.05

The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind

There´s a whole site dedicated to misheard lyrics. For some reason, it´s called kiss this guy.

lonely as a cloud...

06:31 / 13.07.05

Mistoffelees - the site's title is from Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze - the lyric "'scuse me while I kiss the sky" is very often mistaken for "'scuse me while I kiss this guy".

Brigade du jour

07:10 / 13.07.05

David Bowie's 'Quicksand' -

'Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with debt relief
A-ah-ah-ah'

The first couple of dozen times I heard it, I honestly wasn't sure that wasn't correct.

paranoidwriter waves hello

07:16 / 13.07.05

"It's a long, long road, with many a whining turd ..." (reminds me of poor, little Cwaayg from Big Brother).

If you remember the song and the way he sings that first word, you'll get what I mean -- although I do actually love The Hollies' lyrics (etc) and the original sentiment.

11:08 / 13.07.05

Zydeco Jump once performed "Purple Haze" as "Excuse me while I eat this pie", then the lead singer proceeded to devour a rather LARGE baked good of that description during the guitar solo, bombarding the front row with crumbs and bits of filling. Mmm.

paranoidwriter waves hello

12:34 / 13.07.05

I've just remembered an excellent example from a children's TV program years and years ago; the masterful lyrical engineering of a pair of musical, stand-up comedians (possibly a younger Bill Bailey with sidekick):

"It must be hard to be a beaver, giving all your love to just one dam."

Damn straight, now aint dat da troof?

13:20 / 13.07.05

My wife and I went through a strange phase where we replaced random nouns in popular songs with "grape." Ironic was a favorite:

"An old man... turned into a grape..."

"It's like a graa-aa-ape on your wedding day,
It's like a free graa-ape when you've already paid..."

We were never able to make it through the bridge without breaking down:

"Well grapes have a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right..."

We do stuff like this a lot. It makes for a stronger marriage, I'm convinced ('cos who else are you going to do this shit with, really?).

13:29 / 13.07.05

My dad used to do this all the time.

I married a man who does this all the time.

There's no escape.

13:30 / 13.07.05

It was about time someone brought stealth grapes to the attention of the nation.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:38 / 13.07.05

('cos who else are you going to do this shit with, really?).

John Tickle?

13:44 / 13.07.05

Besides him, I mean. Obviously.

paranoidwriter waves hello

13:47 / 13.07.05

Come on Haus, give me a silly....you know you want to...

13:55 / 13.07.05

I am still giggling. I am thirty years old.

"Fist" is a great word for substituting in song lyrics; it has a long and distinguished pedigree. "Let's fist again like we did last summer ... fisting time is here." "Fisting by the pool." The list goes on.

13:57 / 13.07.05

Hee, I do this all the time too.

I'm a loser
I'm a user
So I don't need no accuser
--->catjerome yells instead: I'm a well-known self-abuser

14:20 / 13.07.05

I was doing this all morning yesterday. I usually prefer simple, puerile changes - like the song "your name" becomes "my boobs" - but there are times I'm feeling far more creative and change an entire song to suit the situation, without once resorting to naughty words.

and singing anything as if it were an opera is best.

paranoidwriter waves hello

14:30 / 13.07.05

bitchiekittie, you married? (joke, joke...)

Come to think of it, I also love it when you've sung a song for years, forgotten about it, remembered it, then as the once familiar words leave your lips, you realise how weird they actually taste, a strange, suspect taste you never noticed before...

e.g. Morecambe and Wise: 'Following You Around' -- scroll down the linked page a bit, click, and have a listen.

Ooo...Erm....

Essential Dazzler

14:58 / 13.07.05

There's a great one on the new Nine Inch Nails album.
On "Getting Smaller" Trent Sings:-

But I can still make a fist
You know I still got my one good arm
that I can beat
I can beat myself up with

I always hear it as "beat myself off". They played when I saw them on Monday and I burst out laughing in the pit.

15:57 / 13.07.05

At school, we had this guy we called Lump, because he had a sort of keeled breastbone, like a bird, like he had a wishbone, anyway, apart from "Saluting the Lump" every night at 10 o'clock exactly (thumping ourselves in the chest with a twisted, clawed hand and repeating "Maps" a few times ("Spam" backwards).), we would replace the word "love" in songs with "lump", eg. "Lump in an Elevator". Hilarity would ensue, until the Presidents of the U.S.A. spoilt it all.

subcultureofone

18:26 / 13.07.05

i suppose everyone is already familiar with

'don't let your son go down on me'

' someone shaved my wife tonight'

and "i'll fuck the world and start with you (let's fuck the world!) there's nothing you and i won't screw...

12:06 / 04.08.05

"And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fist you"

I am still giggling. I am thirty years old.

Had to resurrect this. Saw the video (which calmed me down from my "Kill Craig! (or at the very least let Anthony win for his sufferance)" frenzy) last night, and it was the first time I'd heard the song. (I know - where HAVE I been?) I was taken with its simplicity and the way the tune played so perfectly to the touching sentiment of the lyric.

On the way to work this morning, I was internally articulating some rather eloquent thoughts on the song, whilst singing it loudly to entertain people at bus stops, when (as happens relatively often) I realised they were not, in fact, original. I rummaged around for where I might have been reading about the song...

As I remembered Jack's post I actually guffawed (no snort) and very nearly fell off my bike in the middle of crossing Blackfriars Bridge Road on the outside of a large truck. I have been chuckling to myself for the duration of a morning of work grimness. Thank you, Jack.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:40 / 04.08.05

Swapping words in songs is great. As well as the heart/arse thing I mentioned above, when I was at school and we've all just discovered the word "glans" it became the noun du jour for bunging into song titles. I seem to remember we got as far as "The Boy With The Thorn In His Glans" before wincing made any further conversation impossible...