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We Are Spirits; Enema Cereal World

I’m Not Alone In My Lyrically Challenged Lifelong Struggle

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 13, 2007

Brandon, FL - I knock on wood and thank my lucky stars that I've only been accused of misquoting people a few times in my 25 years as a journalist.
That's a pretty good record considering I've written about 3,000 stories in my career.
In one instance I was able to prove to a guy that I didn't misquote him after I got a copy of the Hillsborough County Commission's transcript of the meeting.

In another case, the injured party and I amiably concluded that I hadn't misquoted him; I'd simply "misheard" him.

What I have is a kind of hearing comprehension impairment. It usually doesn't present itself during normal conversation, though. It just tends to crop up when it comes to music.

I'm known for misinterpreting song lyrics. According to my sister, Stephanie, I've done it since I was old enough to sing, and I've been belting out nonsensical songs ever since.

You may have seen the television commercial where the two guys mistake the lyrics of the Clash's 1980s rock song, "Rock the Casbah," for "Lock the Cash Box" and "Stop the Cat Box." They've got nothing on me.

My son has compiled a lengthy list of songs that I've messed up. He turns them up whenever they're played on the radio and begs me to sing along so he can make fun of me.

His favorite is the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden" because I confuse the lyrics twice in that song.
I change "I'll never be your beast of burden" to "I'll never leave your pizza burning." Later in the song, Mick Jagger chides, "All your sickness I can suck it up." I hear: "My friends suggest that I suck a duck."

My sister, older and much wiser, used to get irritated with me when we were kids. Not only would I sing loud and off-key, but I'd sing the wrong words, causing excruciating embarrassment to her in front of her cool classmates including an infinitely tolerant Stone Phillips.

Back at Parkway West High School in St. Louis, Stone (yes, his name was always Stone Phillips and he always had a voice like an NBC anchorman) was the quarterback and homecoming king, and my sister was a cheerleader and homecoming maid. I was just the tagalong little sister helping to stuff tissue-paper roses into chicken wire for the homecoming float.

Stone simply smiled when Shocking Blue's song, "I'm Your Venus," came on the radio and I sang along, "I'm your fetus, I'm your fire, now go perspire," while my sister got red-faced.

She reached her limit when David Bowie's "Space Oddity" began to play and I replaced "Ground control to Major Tom" with "Clown control to Mao Tse Tung." She phoned our mom and announced that her baby-sitting obligations were officially over.

You'd think after awhile I'd get the hang of lyrics but I can only guess it's some type of rare brain deficiency that researchers have yet to explain.

My problem continued into the '80s.

In the song, "Tiny Dancer," I could swear Elton John was telling Tony Danza to hold him closer and "count the head lice on the highway" and then "lay me down next to John Lennon."

I did think it was kind of cool that Bono would pay tribute to an endangered species in the U2 song, "Mysterious Ways," until I realized he wasn't singing "Shamu the mysterious whale;" he was singing, "She moves in mysterious ways."

Nor did I understand what the British band Culture Club would have to say to well-known American TV journalist Bill Moyers until I realized the band wasn't singing, "I'll tell Bill Moyers;" the song was "I'll Tumble 4 Ya." My former managing editor, Rex Davenport, got a big kick out of that one. A few years after he moved back to Indiana, I received an envelope in the mail from him containing a 8-by-10 photo of Bill Moyers.

Steph had forgotten all about my propensity to mishear music lyrics until she visited in 2002. I'd gotten tickets for Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" concert, a tribute to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and had been playing "The Rising" CD in my car. The fourth song came on and I sang along with Bruce at the top of my lungs, "I am the muffin man."

My sister and son looked at one another and burst into laughter.

"He's saying, 'I am the nothing man,' mom," corrected my son, trying to catch his breath after their hysterics subsided.

My sister chimed in: "I can just see you shouting out at the concert, 'Bruce! Sing MUFFIN MAN!'"
I ran into Tampa Tribune music reviewer Curtis Ross at a party shortly after and told him that story. He was probably just being kind but he assured me he's mixed up lyrics, too. He told me there's an entire Web site devoted to misheard lyrics.

I looked it up. It's called The Archive of Misheard Lyrics. The Web site is www.kissthisguy.com, named for Jimi Hendrix's famous confused "Purple Haze" lyrics, "Excuse me while I kiss the sky," which most of us lyrically challenged people interpreted as "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."

I decided to check out mine to see if people heard what I heard. Sure enough, others heard the Rolling Stones sing, "I'll never leave your pizza burning." But they also heard, "I'll never leave your bacon burger," "I'll never leave your obese Roberta" and "I'll never be your big Suburban." And, yes, others heard "suck a duck." I'm vindicated.

But the real test was Bill Moyers. Nope. There were 557 people who thought Boy George was singing, "I'll tell my lawyer," but not one other person thought he was singing about a PBS commentator.

I'm not sure what that says about me.

D'Ann White is editor of The Brandon News.

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