Friday, December 28, 2018

Did You Hear That?


When I was about 11 years old there was a very popular song named "Teen Angel". It was about a teenage boy whose girlfriend was killed in an oh so tragic car accident. Everyone was singing it.

One day my mother came home from grocery shopping chuckling. She had seen a little girl sitting on the curb in front of the post office. And singing at the top her lungs. "Clean Angel, can you hear me? Clean Angel, can you see me?" You can find the song on YouTube. It was sung by Mark Dinning.

Sometimes we hear the words to songs wrong. It is a common thing. There are even web sites dedicated to hearing the words to songs wrong. Some of them are quite funny. Just do a search for wrong words to songs and be entertained.

The Singing Nun was a real nun who had recorded a song named "Dominique". It was a huge hit. A beautiful song sung by a nun with the voice of an angel. My aunt who was a know-it-all teenager at the time insisted that it was performed by The Singing Num. After all a real nun would never make a record.

This song is probably the most notorious song of all time. "Louie, Louie" by The Kingsmen was banned in many cities of the United States. Those in charge of banning things were concerned because they could not understand the lyrics. That meant it must have something "dirty" in it. The more cities that refused to allow it to be played, the more we wanted to listen to it.

I was fairly newly married. My husband and I headed to the laundromat to wash some clothes. As we walked in with our dirty clothes there was a song I had not heard before playing quite loudly.

Imagine my shock when the chorus began "Where were you when the ship hit the sand?" I of course heard something else. I thought they were singing about something distasteful hitting the fan. If you are interested the song sung by Little Jimmy Dickens is on YouTube and titled "When the Ship Hit the Sand". It is still difficult to write the correct words.

I cannot begin to tell you of the number of times while the television is on that my head will whip up at something I imagined that I heard. Usually it is something that I will not repeat. Usually my unclean little mind picks up sounds and scrambles them into something else. Does it happen to you\?

6 comments:

  1. It’s so true that what we think we have heard in song lyrics is nothing like the actual wording. One song that vividly came to mind while reading this post, Emma, was the song by a Japanese artist and ai don’t recall the title or artist but is was a huge US hit. Thanks for an early morning chuckle and I do plan to look up wrong song lyrics online.

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    1. You reminded me of the song Sukiyaki. It was sung in Japanese and I never did get the words.

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  2. Of course it never happens to me! My mind is as pure as the driven slush....

    This post made me laugh and of course it HAS happened to me, but I'll be danged if I can think of any examples right now. If they suddenly pop up into my consciousness aka pea-brain from my apparently archived and dormant long-term storage, I will check back in.

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    1. I have too many to remember. There is one song that is trying to force its way into my mind. Apparently it is so embarrassing that I will not let it through.

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  3. Happens to me all the time! Makes me laugh and that is always a good thing. x

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    1. I have a friend who loved the song Once Bitten Twice Shy. Only she thought they were singing One Spit and Twice Shine.

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