Misunderstood Lyrics

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I was going to title this one "Misheard Lyrics" so it would be consistent with Mal's Corona thread, but I figured I'd allow songs where hearing what was being said wasn't necessarily the problem.

Here's what made me think to add this thread to the board:

I was just singing The Monkees' "Daydream Believer" to Jubboiter, and I caught myself singing it the way I used to when I was a kid. (Side note: I thought the title was "Cheer up, Sleepy Gene" when I was a kid. Yes, I thought it was Gene, and not Jean. I didn't think Jones was gay. I thought the song's persona was named Gene and that he was singing this part to himself.)

There's a part that goes like this:

Oh, and our good times start and end
Without dollar one to spend.
But how much, baby, do we really need?

Here's how I heard it as a kid:

Oh, and our good time starts, and then,
With our dollar wont to spend...
But how much, baby, do we really need?

It's not a huge misunderstanding. I suppose it's weird that I'd hear it this way. "With our dollar wont to spend" doesn't make much sense. You can almost make it make sense if you over-think it, but it's still an odd thing to think someone would say. I took it to mean he was wont to spend his money--that money burned a hole in his pocket whenever he came into it. I thought he was poor because he was blowing his money. I didn't realize he was just poor.

I didn't know "without dollar one" as a concept. I don't know that it would have even occurred to me at the age of seven or eight that you could say "dollar one." That's roughly how old I was when I got to see The Monkees for the first time. It was on Nickelodeon when I was visiting my dad the summer between second and third grade. My Father had cable. My mother didn't. It was new and exciting, and it almost always turned me into a hardcore TV junkie for the month I'd stay with him every year. He was gone during the daytime, and I usually ran out of books to read pretty quickly.

Even if I had understood what was being said, I probably would have been confused by them being syntactically playful and saying something other than "one dollar." I'd also just learned the word "wont" around that age, so I was probably trying to fit it in anywhere I could. I figure my young brain just didn't want to hear a construction it wasn't familiar with yet. (I think we talked about this in Mal's Corona thread.)

I always assumed Jones's thought got interrupted--hence my use of the ellipsis. I thought he was dismissing his expression of money woes to move on to the more important revelation that love was more important than money. I thought he was doing something like what I had grown up thinking Michael Jackson was doing in "Billie Jean."

I always thought growing up that Jackson interrupted his usual "She's just a girl who claims that I am the one!" with at least one instance of "She's just a girl who... Don't think *I* am the one!" I must have listened to "Billie Jean" a thousand times as a kid, and I could swear he was doing this at this point in the song. It's clearer that he says "claims that" earlier in the song. I thought he was subverting it later on, and I was always impressed at how smart a choice that was.

I went on thinking this until I was twenty-eight or twenty-nine. What happened was this: Mal and I were talking about "Billie Jean," and I mentioned this supposed "smart" moment to Mal. He told me he was pretty sure Jackson only ever said "claims that." I went back, looked up the lyrics, gave the song a couple close listens, and conceded that Mal was right. It bummed me out. It didn't bum me out that Mal was right. Mal's right a lot. What bummed me out was that the lyrics became a little dumber for me as a result.

I want song lyrics to be smarter than they are, and I sometimes make them smarter than they are without meaning to or realizing it.

I guess it's amusing that I thought something weirdly specific was happening in two different songs where a guy is addressing a woman with "Jean" in her name.

[Mal Shot First]

Speaking of Monkees songs with the word "believer" in the title, I've often thought that if I had been in charge of writing the chorus for "I'm a Believer," I would have written:
"Then I saw her face, now I'm gonna leave her."

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Neil Diamond wrote it. I wouldn't be surprised if those were the original lyrics. He is, after all, a Solitary Man.

[Mango]

At work they have been playing the "Mirrors" song by Justin Timberlake, the full version with the strange interlude at the end.
Not knowing what the song was I assumed the interlude was some dude singing "Juice box, Juice box, all my life."
I have since learned that I was wrong, but not alone. One of the cosmetic girls thought the same thing.

[neglet]

There's a Tori Amos song I always think has "juice box" in the chorus. I forget what it actually is, because I like singing "juice box."

[Dalty]

Juice box has to be a euphemism for something, no?

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Now I'm curious. I tried "drew sparks," "choose pox," and "Jew Spocks," but I didn't find anything.

[Dalty]

Jew Spocks beings up an especially Nimoy kind of shame.

[neglet]

It's from the song "Martha's Foolish Ginger," and the actual phrase is "If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland." But she takes a breath after "just been," and the pronunciation is so drawn out it sounds like "juice b--," which I heard as "juice box."

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

A friend and I went to see her in concert back in 2002. I spent most of the evening being pretty annoyed at Tori being Tori.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I just gave the song a listen. It's apparently from Beekeeper. I checked out a handful of albums before that. The same friend I mentioned above shook me from my Tori-less reverie in 2001 by having me listen to Strange Little Girls. I thought it was pretty awful, but I was somehow coerced into going to that concert a year later.

Anyway, I don't think I would have gotten "just been" from it if I'd listened to it a couple hundred times.

[Mal Shot First]

Just read somebody's misunderstood lyrics story. This person thought that Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" was about a crocodile named Rock, who was the singer's best friend. The person misheard a line in the second verse as "but the years went by and the croc just died," which made him sad.

I thought it was pretty funny.

[scarletregina]

Damn, I've been missing out on a Tori discussion?

Goiter, you have to listen to Little Earthquakes. Boys for Pele has a lot of layers, especially from a musical perspective. My favorite album of hers is From the Choirgirl Hotel (although if you saw her in 2002, it was the tour for that album).

Strange Little Girls was awful for the most part... well, not awful, but just really contrived - as is most of her stuff post To Venus and Back. To be honest, I think she's quite bitter that she never become a household name. It affected her approach to music.

I used to be a major Toriphile - collecting bootlegs (back when those were a thing), going to see her shows all along the east coast. I've even met her a few times, but that was because I worked for her charity RAINN. In person, she's not at all like her performance persona. It was refreshing.

ON TOPIC: For the most part, her lyrics are impossible to understand, especially live. She has zero pronunciation skills and it's only gotten worse over time.

On a subject other than a fellow redhead: This is a not quite misheard lyric: I absolutely hate the song Pompeii that is always on the radio these days. Of course, it gets stuck in my head and even though I know the lyric is "I'm gonna be an optimist about this," my brain heres "I'm gonna be an octopus about this." Apparently, I always have cephalopods on the mind.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I have Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink. I like them for the most part. Boys for Pele is the album where Tori Amos really started to annoy me. Even the album cover annoys me. I remember it feeling pretty self-indulgent to me. It felt like she knew she knew she now had a built-in audience and was pretty pleased with this feeling. I remember her playing being solid, but it usually is. I also remember some of the musical arrangements being nice, and I remember it being less instrumentally sparse than her first two albums. (I don't think of that as good or bad. It's just a difference I noticed back when.)

I remember one of my friends complaining that the Boys for Pele lyrics were too abstract. I remembered thinking they weren't even all that abstract. I guess maybe they were a little more abstract than they were on Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink. I suppose if you're expecting something straightforward and you get something that's not, it can be a little frustrating. I can't imagine what it must have been like for first-generation Beatles fans to grow with the band.

I'm used to abstract lyrics. I like a lot of the more abstract stuff by Yoko Ono, the Velvet Underground, Small Faces, the Who, Faust, Patti Smith, Wire (it doesn't get much more abstract than "Crooks lay in a weighted state / waiting for the dead assassin / while the rust pure powder puffs / a shimmering opaque red. // Papers spread / no one driving / we hurled direct ahead / the windows dark-green tinted / the hearse / a taxi instead!"), Can (while it doesn't get much more abstract than Wire, it Can), David Bowie, Brian Eno, T. Rex, Stereolab, the Band, Tom Waits, the Talking Heads, Silver Apples, Television, the Raincoats, and Magazine. (I'm making a blatant go of establishing art rock cred. If it's not working, I probably look pretty silly. I'm willing to admit that I might look pretty silly even if it is working.)

I do remember feeling the Boys for Pele lyrics read like bad poetry. They didn't do much to move me toward either annoyance or appreciation.

It's been a while since I've listened to Boys for Pele. Maybe I'd have a different opinion of it if I were to listen to it again. I remember liking her playing on a track or two.

We talked Tori on Corona 2.0, but I think it was before you were posting there. Here's what I said the first time around (with some minor edits for clarity):



This one has been torturing me for far longer than six months.

It's how Tori Amos covers every fucking song. She likes to take guys' songs and "inject" them with her voice. Listen to that sultry sucking in of air between each line! Listen to how she takes "hard" songs and does them "softly"! Listen to how she puts her Tori stamp on them and makes them sound like Tori songs!

Her worst injustice to music is her seven-minute cover of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." That's just what the song needs to resonate more, Tori! It needs more minutes! It needs to be longer and slower! And she makes it "subversive" by adding newscast vocals. And she bangs on the piano. And, of course, the sultry breaths in between lines. "Happiness... " [sucks in air] "is a warm gun." [sucks in air] "Happiness... " [sucks in air] "is a warm gun." [sucks in air]

She put out an entire album of this shit. All songs originally written and performed by guys.

"Hey, guess what, world?! I put out an album full of covers of songs written by guys. Aren't you going to ask me why? Huh? Isn't that strange of me to put out a cover album where I only cover music made by guys? Isn't that kooky of me?! Well? Isn't it?! Bet you never thought *I* of all people would do something like that. Bet you thought, 'Naw. She's a feminist. She'd only ever cover songs written by girls.' Well, I've done the opposite! Aren't you curious to know why? I DEMAND YOU TO ASK ME WHY!!! I'M SUBVERTING GENDER NORMS, HERE!!! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!"

* * *

[I followed the above post with some more links to women doing sultry, slowed down covers of rock songs. Then I continued to complain about Tori.]

None of the covers annoys me as much as the Tori Amos covers. If you played all her covers back-to-back they would sound like one unbearably long, unbearably sultry bit o' Toriness.

And if you're lucky, she may just switch back and forth between two pianos. You may even be lucky enough to get some harpsichord. If you're lucky. (Hint: you will be so, so, so fucking lucky.)

Did I ever tell you about the time I went to a Tori Amos concert and learned to appreciate the finer things in life? (The finer things in life = being anywhere other than a Tori Amos concert.)

Did I ever tell you about the time I was stuck at a Dave Matthews Band concert? Did I tell you about how that guy in the band who sometimes plays the fiddle as though it were a ukulele had just launched into his fourth solo somewhere around the thirty-minute mark of their second song, or about how I was contemplating ripping my big toenail out and using it to pierce my eardrum, flay the skin off my right hip, reach in with both hands, grab my femoral artery and break it in half, when, all of a sudden, it occurred to me that at least I wasn't at a Tori Amos concert, and I felt consoled enough to continue living?

* * *

[At some point, Jakester joined the conversation to champion Under the Pink. Then some other people joined the conversation. I continued talking Tori.]

She's so quirky! So subversive! So cute! So ironic!

I think it's easier to get away with trying to be quirky, subversive, cute, and ironic when you are younger. When you're in your mid-forties, it doesn't work as well. (Future Goiter Notes: Tori Amos is now fifty.)

She's also given to gimmickry these days. I think she thinks she is "reinventing" herself--like David Bowie used to. She had the aforementioned Strange Little Girls with the covers of guys' songs. More recently, she had American Doll Posse, where she had "multiple personalities" (each of whom sings different songs on the album).

Under the Pink is bearable. She's gotten progressively more annoying to me since then. Well, since Little Earthquakes, really.

I dated someone seven or so years back (Future Goiter Notes: more than ten at this point) who really liked her, and I gave her newer music (for then) multiple shots, having already given up on her. My girlfriend insisted that her newer stuff was even better, so I would listen to it to be nice. I didn't agree. It's not like I was ever even that crazy for Little Earthquakes. A friend had it back in the early nineties. I listened to it, I liked it, I made a copy of it.

These days, I keep up with her music the way I keep up with Larry the Cable Guy's career. They both annoy me greatly, and I like being annoyed. Being annoyed gives me fuel for bitching. I like bitching.

[scarletregina]

Her version of Happiness is a Warm Gun makes my ears bleed.

Jake loved Tori (old school Tori, that is.) We played Winter at his service, actually. Julia wanted to use something from Tori, so I picked Winter because I couldn't think of anything else that was remotely appropriate.

I love Boys for Pele, but it's not accessible to everyone. I don't mean it as in "if you don't get it then you are stupid," rather, if you haven't been through certain things in your life it won't resonate with you. Plus, I also just really like hearing the harpsichord.

It is extremely difficult to play two pianos/harpsichords/keyboards at the same time. It's a bit impossible to argue with her talent as a piano player - well, at least it used to be. It'd be rather easy to make a case against her skills now.

Her work is very convoluted now, as you say "gimmicky." Although, I should point out that she made Strange Little Girls because she wanted out of her record contract with Atlantic and didn't want to give them any new material, hence an album of cover songs. She also does a lot of female covers, too, just not an entire album of them. Her version of Hallelujah is great, IMO.

In any case, not everyone has to like the same music, even though I totally think you're wrong

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I think it's entirely possible to have gone through the same things Tori Amos has gone through and still find that her music doesn't resonate.

That said, I admit that my taste in music is terrible. *I* don't even like the music I like.

[Djack Zteelecock]

That said, I admit that my taste in music is terrible. *I* don't even like the music I like.

Thursty, please don't be one of those "that said" people. We already have Dalty.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I was trying to put it back in his head. He's gone a while without using it. The more he uses it, the more I'm reminded not to use it.

[Space Tycoon]

That said, I use it too. And shamelessly at that.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It bothers Jack, so I try to use it as little as possible.

[Space Tycoon]

Which is very considerate of you.

[Djack Zteelecock]

I was just reading a conversation about the current Ebola outbreak in Africa, and it reminded me of how ST got all pissy years ago at Cinescape because some of us made fun of his theory that AIDS was invented by government scientists. I can't remember if he thought they released it by accident or on purpose. I was wondering if he thinks Ebola was created by aliens. He was obsessed with space travel, but I can't remember if he was big into alien conspiracy theories. He also might blame the Russians, though. Possibly they are in league with aliens.

[Space Tycoon]

Good times.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

[Space Tycoon]

I no longer get "pissy" about anything, anymore. Even when I probably should.

I will not defend every single post I've made over the years. But I will defend most of them.

Some of them were kind of bad. The vast majority of them were far from that. A few were great, IMOSHO. Even the bad ones were kind of... spirited, in their own sweet way.

Presently, I shall quote Jean-Luc Picard. I was watching Encounter At Farpoint on Netflix yesterday and I was shocked at the poor resolution available after nearly 30 years, but whatever. Picard's famous statement, "If we are to be damned, let us be damned for who we truly are,"truly resonates with me.

If someone wants to put my previous statements through the ringer, who am I to stop them? Let the chips fall where they may. And other various cliches.

I've been through some changes over the years. In all honesty, I believe I was very messed up for a rather long time. Years, even. I put my personal issues online, I let them invade my daily life. I even allowed myself to accept some fairly dubious ideas that were floating around teh intertubes during the horrible years following 9/11.

These days, I am not always certain of what it is I believe in. Jack is correct in describing my interest in space as an obsession. That is what it is. 100 per cent. I am obssessed with space, our place in it, the possibility of life elsewhere, cosmic evolution, space exploration.

And I wouldn't change that for anything. I will never be free of these compulsions, and I do not wish to be. Ever.