I see many different types of people in traffic every day. I’ve got names for them all.
There’s “Timid Tessie,” the woman who clutches the steering wheel with both hands and peers out of the windshield like she’s expecting an accident at any moment.
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s “Bobbin’ and Weavin’ Bobby,” the guy who treats every other driver on the road like they’re elements of an obstacle course, and he has to navigate around every one of them. He doesn’t like staying behind anyone for long.
I, however, am known as “Singin’ Sam.” I’ve got the radio on or my cellphone music plugged in, playing some great old classic songs and singing along as loud as I can.
I love singing in the car. And the beauty of it is, when you’re alone you don’t even have to know the words. The volume is usually up high enough that you don’t know what you’re singing anyway.
Most of us think we know the words to those great oldies we treasure so much, but we don’t. We’re actually just singing the words we think we know.
For example, I’m pretty sure the opening sentence to The Beach Boys’ “Help me Rhonda” is something besides “Well since you put me down, there’ve been owls poopin’ in my bed.” Yet, that, or something close to it, is what I sang for years.
Believe it or not, it’s actually “Well since she put me down, I’ve been out doin’ in my head.” I like mine better.
I now know that Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” doesn’t contain the phrase “There’s a bathroom on the right.” It’s just more fun to sing it that way.
Most of our struggle with song lyrics goes back to our childhood. I had an aunt who told me once that she struggled with a song she learned in bible school. The words in it went “wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” She thought they were saying “wash me and deischel me whiter than snow.” She cried because she didn’t know what “deischel” meant.
And years went by before she realized there was no “Round John Virgin” in “Silent Night.”
Some other popular song surprises that knock me over with a feather: Paul McCartney, in “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey” isn’t saying “Lid oh lid oh be a gypsy get around (get around), get your feet up off the ground so the lid will get around.”
He’s really saying “Live a little, be a gypsy, get around (get around). Get your feet up off the ground, live a little, get around.” Nothing about lids? Great. I’ve had it wrong for years.
When Percy Sledge sang “When a Man Loves a Woman,” he never said “He’ll give up all his corn flakes and sleep out in the rain.” He was really saying “He’d give up all his comforts, sleep out in the rain.” I’m glad to hear that. I don’t like giving up my corn flakes to anyone.
I’m also glad to hear that a classic Elton John song goes “Hold me closer, tiny dancer,” and not “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.” That one was weighing heavily on me.
There are also entire songs that give me trouble.
I love the song “Along Comes Mary” by The Association, but I know few of the actual words due to the group’s poor enunciation. I knew absolutely none of the words to the second verse until recently, thanks to Google.
Now, I know the group is saying “When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks whose sickness is the games they play.” Silly me. I’ve been singing “When in the fire we desire ziblin’ zaxin’ split some chicken in the games they play” all these years.
Seriously, I could never figure out what they were saying. I owe Google my lyrical life. But I’ll probably still sing it wrong.
So, manglers of music unite. We drive on, still getting it wrong, yet the words still fly through the sky.
Hey, wait. Sounds like there’s a song in that sentence! And someone will mangle the words to it in 45 years.
Kent Bernhardt lives in Salisbury.