I was in the kitchen the other day cooking and listening to music on my Google Nest Hub when Michael Jacksons’ “Billie Jean ” came on. I like that song, you know the part where he sings
” She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one, But the kid is not my son.”
Well, this is what I heard and gleefully sang for many years
” She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one, the Devil woman’s son.”
This song was just confusing to me because I thought he was in love with someone who went around saying nasty things about him. I mean really, why would he be in love with someone calling him a devil woman’s son. Not nice at all.
It’s funny, isn’t it? When we hear something it’s so hard to unhear it! and then you find out what the lyrics actually say…..Well….. Boom! what a revelation!
You know ABBAs famous song Chiquitita. I read in an article once that the bit where it says
“Chiquitita tell me what’s wrong” Some had been singing “Take your teeth out, tell me what’s wrong”
Well, that’s just ridiculous! they were clearly singing “Chiquitita” but the part that stumped me was when they sang
“You’ll be dancing once again and the pain will end” well, this is what I sang “You’ll be dancing once again like a Pengrilen” and I just assumed that a Pengrilen was a very famous Swedish Dancer. Made sense right?
I’ve also come to realize that many ’70s and 80’s songs were just…..you know…..really really explicit and I sang these songs. Out loud. Very loud. In front of my family.
My mum and I absolutely loved Grease and she took me to see it twice! TWICE! We played the soundtrack over and over. So when my mums’ friends came over with their kids, we all dressed up and put on a concert for them.
and sang Grease Lightning.
Have you READ the lyrics? Lord knows what we sang that day? but bless our little hearts I’m sure we thankfully got the lyrics wrong.
In the Eighties, I just loooved Cyndi Lauper and her song “She Bop”
“She Bop, he bop, we bop,
I bop, you bop, they bop”
I thought she meant she loved to dance. sigh! It’s not about dancing at all. Get my drift?
Fast forward to recently and when Despacito (which translates to “slowly” in Spanish) came out, again I thought it was about taking your time and you know dancing real slow so you get all the moves right. Ahem, nope. It’s not about dancing AT ALL. and you know who set me straight? My mum did. Yep, she did.
I had downloaded the song for her on her iPod Shuffle and I thought she would enjoy listening to a song in her native tongue. That was a mistake.
Well! There you go! So when we hear what our kids are listening to “These days” let’s not forget what we were listening to in “Our days”. And now I’m beginning to think that when I was singing along to
“you can ring my bell, ring my bell”
It’s not referring to a sweet boy ringing your front doorbell. Right?
When my daughter was young she loved dancing and singing to “Bad Reputation” from Shrek, however she would sing “My red T-shirt” instead!!!
She was too cute!!!
I remember with Flash Dance, everyone singing “Take your pants off and make it happen” – instead of “Take your passion and make it happen”
That’s so funny!!! love it