Conference thebay::joyoflex

>	"I'm your penis, I'm your fire and joy"  by ???
>		("Venus")

	"I'm your Venus....  I'm your fire and your desire"

	"Venus" by Shocking Blue

	If my Rock Trivia serves me, this was a Dutch group.
	The singer(s) were reputed to not speak English, and
	they are alleged to have learned the words phonetically,
	perhaps contributing to your referenced mis-hearing, but
	perhaps not.
- tom]

    For years I heard a line in a popular country-music tearjerker (I
    can't remember the title) as:
    
    "Please Mr. Clean don't play B-17.  That was his song, that was
            ---------
    our song....."
    
    It's only within the past year that I realized it was: 
    
    "Please Mister, Please!! Don't play B-17..."
    

    Or Michael Jackson's hit, with the line:
    
    "The chair is not my son..."
    

(I thought it was "I'm your Venus, I'm your fire--at your desire"...)

Remember the funk/disco song "Roller Coaster of Love"?  My friend thought
it was--I'm almost too embarrassed to type this--"Roman Cub Scouts of
Love". 

When something's real structure is obscure, trust the human mind to come up
with a solution even more bizarre! 

	@V@

    I once thought that "My Kind of Lover" was "My Current Lover." I
    think mine is lots wittier than the original.
    
    David Byrne, when writing songs with Gestalt lyrics, often plays the
    song for a friend and asks the friend to write down what the friend
    thought Byrne was singing. If what was heard is better than what was
    written, Byrne changes the lyrics. 
    
    	Jon

    one appropriate for the season:
    
    "...one whore, soap and sleigh"

    
    						dd  (before i knew what
    a whore was).

    I knew someone who had to see the record jacket before he was convinced
    that
    
    	LADY MADONNA
    
    was not
    
    	KNEE-DEEP IN DOUGHNUTS.
    

    I thought the the Beatles line:
    
    She's got a ticket to Ryde 
    
    which is a place, apparently, that English folks go to to recover
    from a broken heart...
    
    was 
    
    She's got a ticket to ride
    
    meaning that the singer has given his lady the heave-ho.  Had some
    great arguments over that one.

    	It took me years to figure out what a "deezledown" was...
    
    From ME and BOBBY McGEE
    
    "Bobby thumbed a deezledown..."
    
    _stew-

    
    
    And the confusion
    
    "..killing me softly with his song..."
    
    or "...filling me softly with his song."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    One of my brothers thought that Michael Jackson's (?)
    
    "Tell me I'm not dreaming"
    
    was
    
    "Commin' for my treatments"
    
    John M.

    From Rod Stewart's "Maggie Mae":
    
    	"My love, you didn't need two Cokes"

    
    
    
Lew Lasher

Round young virgins.

On the album Movin', Jennifer Rush sings

"...it's all on my leg, it's all on my leg..."


actually, it is "it's automatic". My wife had to point out that "Automatic" is
the title of the song before I could decode it.

Stephen

    Then there's ol' Willy's famous lines:
    
      Bubble, bubble,
      Toilet trouble
                                                                
    
    And don't forget Harold and Art who dwell in heavenly bliss:
    
      Our father Art, in Heaven
      Harold be his name
    
    
    There is also that famous hero, Richard Stanss. Millions of school 
    children recite praises to him every day as they say the pledge of 
    allegiance: 
    
       I led the pigeons to the flag
       Of the United States of America
       And to the republic of Richard Stans ...
                                               
    
    And we know Don turned up the lights during the Star Spangled Banner:
    
    ...By the Don's early light
                                         
    
    -bs

Let us not forget religious hymns;

	Gladly, the cross eyed bear.

It was a long time before I realized that CCR was singing
"There's a bad moon on the rise", and not "There's a bathroom on the right".

			Tom_K

    When my brother was five, he used to sing along with Jos�
    Feliciano's hit, "One Ton Tomato."

    And then, in _Silent Night_, we're advised that:
    
    "God and sin are reconciled."
    
    Another Christmas carol notes that if you're looking for a ranger,
    you're out of luck, for ...
    
    "Away is the Ranger..."
    [no crib for _his_ bed!] 
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    A friend of mine, unable to decipher "Who Wrote the Book of Love?"
    thought it was "Who Stole the Moo-cow's Glove?"
    
    That Mafia Don is not the only person mentioned in the national
    anthem:
    
    "Jos�, can you see, by the Don's...?"
    
    							Ann B.

.19>    When my brother was five, he used to sing along with Jos�
.19>    Feliciano's hit, "One Ton Tomato."

    When I was twenty-five I knew enough Spanish to recognize the
    lyrics as "�Quanta dinera?"

    
    The song that sticks out in my memory the most,
    although I can't recall who sings it, or what
    the actual title of it, goes something like:
    	
    	`...and she would, would would...'
    
    		sounded more like:
    
        `...and she woo, woo, woo...'
    
    ^PiT^                                        
    	

    My wife sang 'City of New Orleans' for a long time before I convinced
    her there weren't any "...sons of Coleman Porters..."
    

    "Just like I told you, only the lonely get laid."
                                          (can play)
    
    --The Motels (?)  (How appropriate!)
    
    
    
    Re .18--Me too.
    
    

    	There is a sentence in Aretha Franklin's hit song "Freeway of
    Love" which I swear on a stack of telephone books says "Fish are
    gonna poop on my bed."
    
    	But I'm much better now....
    
    	Larry
    

    OK you lyricists - please put me right on something that's been
    bugging me for years.  Remember The Monkees?  Remember Daydream
    Believer?  What are the real words that sound to me like "Cherokee
    beguine"
    
    Also, for a long time, I thought Donna Summer (?) was singing about
    a street light.

    Remember The Monkees?  Remember Daydream
    Believer?  What are the real words that sound to me like "Cherokee
    beguine"
    
Do you mean  "daydream believer and a homecoming queen"?

- tom]

    I think he means "Cheer up, sleepy Jean," but I like the "Cherokee
    beguine" much better! (Goes with "Indian Love Call," right?)
    
    -b

    If that's right, I'll be able to sleep for the first time in 15
    years :-)
    
    Jeff
    

    There was a popular song, which had a line that _sounded_ like
    
    " .. rolling like Bomba, under the covers."
    
    Now, not counting a device used to help crack the German "Enigma"
    cipher scheme, the only "Bomba" I knew of was "Bomba, the Jungle
    Boy," the leading character of several cheap junior-grade Tarzanlike
    films of the 40s or 50s.  Bomba was a bit on the chubby side, as
    I recall; so I had no doubt he'd be prone [or perhaps supine ;-)]
    to roll, but for the life of me I couldn't figure who would want
    to immortalize the jungle boy.
    
    Finally, I was able to discern it was supposed to be "...rolling
    like _thunder_," with a rather odd pronunciation of the uncertain
    word.
    
    The only reason I can think of as to how or why a person should
    roll "like thunder" under anything would be indigestion.  <_burp!_>
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    re .31
    
    That song was "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blue's" by Elton
    John.  The only reason I remember it is because my four year old
    always used to sing it "I Guess That's Why They Call Him Jaboo".
    
    Peter
    

    Also, "Rapture" by Deborah Harry/Blondie has some unintelligible
    sections.  You know the song--the one with the Man from Mars who
    eats cars and guitars.
    
    

    	Does anyone understand ANY of the words in the 1974 song "Blinded
    by the Light"?
    
    	Larry
    

    re .34:
    
    "set up like a deuce, another runner in the night..."
    
    which for a long time I thought was "douche" instead of "deuce".
             
    In "10th Avenue Freeze-out", is "high on the back streets" or "hide
    on the back streets"?
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    re .17, Gladly:
    
    Just read about "Lead On, O Kinky Turtle" in a recent column in
    Time.
    
  --Simon
    

    And of course, there's always the folk anthem:
    
    The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind.....

Listen to the "Doors" first album.  (It's still a great album!)

Listen to the last song, called "The End".

There's a quite-emotional line that says:

	...At the end of the hall

	...there was a door

	...I opened the door

	...and said

	...Father ?  (yes, son?)

	...I want to kill you.  Mother?

	...I want to @!*&%#@&^#%&@^#%^@

Can anyone understand what he says to his mother ?

/Eric

A hymn by another name.

    Maybe 15, 20 years ago there was a country song that my family is
    still divided on its title.  It's either:
    
    "Even Neon Ladies need to Love Someone" 
    
    or
    
    "Even the Young Ladies Need to Love Someone"
    
    or, perhaps, something else
    
    Susan

    The first time that I heard Voices Carry, I thought it said -
    'Even downtown, we're so scary' instead of
    'Keep it down down, voices carry'
    Only when I found out what the title was could I figure out that
    phrase!

    In our house, the opening lines of the first song on their first album
    is always
    
       "Ah...love in a bathroom!"
    
    (It's really "Love in a Vacuum".)
    
    Richard

    
    
    I have a couple... the first Bad Company album by the same name
    had a song called "Movin ON"  which I thought for the longest time
    was "I checked into the Ticket Booth to have another bowl"  which
    still could have been either Corn Flakes or Cannibis,
    
    and another..
    the new Davi and David album has a line that sounds like "I'll kiss
    your fingers, tickle your ass.."  But in reality it is "I'll tend
    to your aches.
    
    Personally, I kind of liked it the first way..
    
    Mark
    

Fleetwood Mack fooled me for years:

You can know your own name, 
You can call it thunder, 
But don't you dare.

instead of, as I learned when I finally read the album jacket:

You can go your own way,
You can call it another 
Lonely day. 

    re:.14
    
    Gee, and all this time I was wondering who Round John Virgin was...
    
    --- jerry

    I often wondered who this guy "Jacob Slatter" was and why we were
    climbing up him, as in "We Are Climbing Jacob Slatter".
    
    Of course, there's the old "Jesus and the Cross-Eyed Bear".

    Re .35:  Note 227.12 in DREGS::MUSIC - there is an approximation
    to one stanza to "Blinded by the Light"...I'll try to think of the
    others...
    
    I think the title is "Hiding On the Back Streets" - probably high,
    though...
    
    Stel
    

    How about DEEP PURPLE'S Smoke on the water....
    ..."OLD COUSIN WALTER....."
    
    JEFF

     < Note 295.47 by VMSDEV::SZETO "Gladly The Cross-Eyed Bear" >
                       -< No, Pete.  .17 had it right. >-
    
    ... but not quite. There was a story based on the misunderstood hymn
    in question: a small child confused his/her parents by insisting on 
    giving the name "Gladly" to a dishevelled old teddy-bear, whose arms 
    were hanging askew, and whose button eyes were falling loose.
    
    After much fruitless questioning the parents took the child to church,
    where the child was triumphantly justified when the hymn 
    "Gladly _my_ cross I'd bear" was sung.


    Well that may or may not be how the hymn was written, but it makes
    a better story that way :-)

    Well, it must've been at least 25 years since I last sang that hymn,
    and it's not in my American hymnals, so I can't check whether it's
    "my" or "the."  (Does someone have an Anglican hymnal?)  Either
    word fits, and hymns are often edited, so I'll not argue which word
    was the original.  In any case, the name is "Gladly."
    
    As someone wrote in the Letters to the Editor of Time magazine this
    week, "I have now enshrined the Kinky Turtle [as in ``Lead On, O King
    Eternal''] as my second patron saint, right alongside Gladly the
    Cross-Eyed Bear."
    
  --Simon
    

  My little brother, upon listening to "The Boys Are Back in Town!"
  insisted that it said, "The Boys of Megaton!"
  
  I always thought the Doobie Bros. song "China Grove" was "Time
  & Love"
  
  another song, just try to pick out the lyrics - "Killer Queen"
  by Queen.
  
  Agreeing with a previous reply about "Blinded by the Light" -
  I would've sworn it was "douche"
  
  ; ) Theresa

    RE: .52
    
    I found out not too long ago that the first line of Killer Queen
    is:
    
    "She keeps Moet and Chandon in a pretty cabinet."
    
    Now if only I know what that line about a man from China was...
    
    John M.

    re:.53
    
    There's no "and"; it's simply: "She keeps Moet Chandon..."
    
    --- jerry

    I used to think _The_Night_They_Drove_Dixie_Down began
        
    	Virgil Cain is my name and I rode on the banjo train
    		(should be "drove on the Danville train")
    
    
    And here are three I still haven't figured out yet.
    
        1) Aretha Franklin's _Respect_:
    		R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.
    		R-E-S-P-E-C-T, ????????????????????
    
    	2) Marvin Gaye's _I_Heard_It_Through_the_Grapevine_:
    		People say maybe half of what you see,
    		?????????????????????????????????? hear
    
    	3) And, of course, _The_End_ by the Doors, mentioned earlier.
    
    --Mike
    

    
  >        1) Aretha Franklin's _Respect_:
  >    		R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.
  >    		R-E-S-P-E-C-T, ????????????????????

     I think this one is:         

  	R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Hey girl, TCB (TLA for "take care of business")


    
  >    	2) Marvin Gaye's _I_Heard_It_Through_the_Grapevine_:
  >    		People say maybe half of what you see,
  >    		?????????????????????????????????? hear

     And this:

                People say that you learn from what you see,
                Na na not from what you hear...
    

  JP

>  >    	2) Marvin Gaye's _I_Heard_It_Through_the_Grapevine_:
>  >    		People say maybe half of what you see,
>  >    		?????????????????????????????????? hear

>     And this:

>                People say that you learn from what you see,
>                Na na not from what you hear...
    

I've gone through life thinking it is:

                 People say believe half of what you see
                 Some or none of what you hear...

John H.

    Oh come, Augie Faithful...

    	The link is a bit slow, so I hope it has not been mentioned
    already, but everyone knows that Round John Virgin is the small
    fat figure in the corner of nativity scenes.

I think what comes next in Aretha Franklin's RESPECT song is:

	sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me
	sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me sock it to me
	. . .

    re:.52
    
    I neglected to answer the other question about "Killer Queen".
    the other line you wanted to know was:
    
    "To avoid complications, she never kept the same address.
     In conversation, she spoke just like a baroness.
     Met a man from China, went down to Geisha Minah
     Then again incidentally if you're that way inclined."
    
    --- jerry

    In "Oh beautiful....." "land where the pilgrims spied, from
    every mountain side."
    
    and one that I still don't know what it means -
   from "Daniel"
    
   "I can see the red tail lights, head'n spagees"  ????
    
    Bonnie

    Re: .-1
    
    " I can see the red tail-lights, heading for Spain"
    
    Dave

    In Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers," he sings the title
    in French: jeux sans frontiers.
    
    When I first heard the song, I was sure he was singing "She's so
    since-ere."  It took a lyric sheet to convince one of my friends
    that it wasn't "She's so popular."
    
    Susie
 

    re:.65
    
    Gee, most people I know thought he was singing, "She's so
    funky, yeah!"
    
    --- jerry

    *I* thought it was "She is so popular," too, until I detected an
    initial "f" - then I thought it was "She is so fatuous."
    
    Oh, well.
    
    -b

    Back in 196?, I used to be confused about Jimi Hendrix's line....
    
    "Scuse me while I kiss this guy"
    

    Re: .65
    
    To be picky, it was Kate Bush who sang the phrase "Jeux sans
    frontieres" on Peter Gabriels song.
    
    Dave

Seriously, I really thought the line was

	Scuse me while I kiss this guy

What is it really ???

/Eric

    Don't know the singer, but the song that goes,
    
    "Fool, if you think it's over..."
    
    I thought it was,
    
    "Cool, if you think you're sober..."
    

(neil diamond's informal clergyman)

and then there's the Israeli Eurovision winner a few years ago which 
contained the deathless line "ah bam ni be a bo na beh", or something, 
Which evryone knew was really "I want to be a Polar Bear".

          And until I heard the diskjockey give the name of the U2
          song, I thought that they were saying:
    
          " Sheets with no name" ( which made perfect sense to me...)
          jc

 >   When my brother was five, he used to sing along with Jos�
 >   Feliciano's hit, "One Ton Tomato."


    Put your bother's version together with mine, *One Ton of Mayo*,
    and you are well on your way to a large BLT!
    

I always thought it was

	"One in the Meadow"

One in the m-e-a-d-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w, dah dah dah one in the m-a-d-o-o-o-o-o-w.

No ?

    
    	How about "Apartheid Lover" (instead of Stevie Wonder's My
    	Part Time Lover")
    
    	Joe Oppelt

    G'day,
    
    The theme music for Footrot Flats - ' A slice of Heaven' has gotten
    corrupted locally as ' A slice of Devon and Cheese' 
    where devon is a meat(?) like spam
    
    Derek
    

    Spot, Spot a lover called Spot
    	      >loveable
    He's soft and furry and he smells a lot
    			      >smiles
    
    b	

	In the summer time, when the weather is fine,
	You can stretch right up, embarrass the sky



Anyone recognize this song ?  What are they REALLY singing ?

/Eric

>       In the summer time, when the weather is fine,
>       You can stretch right up, embarrass the sky
                                  ^^^^^^^^^ 
                                  and touch

Nice interpretation, though.

	Steve	:-)
	

    And then there's that song that sounds like replies in notes
    or subjects in mail:
    
         Re: Re: Re: your boat
         gently down the stream.
         ...
    
    Dan

    "... it's a stack of green tomatoes..." (Carly Simon)
             (the stuff that dreams are made of) (?)

    Speaking of Carly Simon ...
    
        "... you're where you should be all the time, and when you're
        not you're with the wife of a clothespin, wife of a clothespin
        and ..."                      (close friend)
    
    And from Tony Bennett's "I Want to be Around" ...
    
        "... that's when I'll discover that the bench is weak, as I
                                            (revenge is sweet)
        sit there applauding from a front row seat ..."
    
    
    -Craig
       

    Then there's the Areosmith ditty that comments on genteel drawing:
    
    			Doodle like a lady.
    
    					andrew 

     From Dr. Hook and ?
     
          When you're in love with a beautiful woman,
          It's hard.
          When you're in love with a beautiful woman,
          You know it's hard.

Re .34 

If Dr Hook can sing that and get away with it, perhaps that's how Feargal
Sharkie could sing:

	".... a good hard is hard to find,
         so please be gentle with this hard of mine."

Or maybe it's just his Umericun accent.

		Steve

    Any woman can tell you that a hard man is good to find . . .
    
    --bonnie 

    Apologies if this is already entered, but Phil Collins DOES
    sing 'I held her boob so tightly in my hands' on the version of
    "Behind the Lines" on his solo lp 'Phil Collins'. I wouldn't enter
    such a thing in a conference if I hadn't heard it with my own ears.
    
    Richard.

    The Police hit 'Message in a Bottle' I always figured
    Sting was singing 'Massage in a Brothel' !!!!
    

    This goes *way* back, but for a long time I thought the Buckinghams'
    "Kind of a Drag" was a Canada Dry commercial.
    
    len.
    

    Just discovered this note.  It's classic!  Here are several I've
    collected over the years.  If I think of more, which I'm sure I
    will, I'll enter more replies.  For now, enjoy:
    
    A friend of mine thought U2's "With or Without You" was "Wiggle
    Without You."
    
    This is the same person who thought a song by new-wavers General
    Public was "I love you, false handle."  They're really singing "I
    love you, faults and all."
    
    And from a few years back:
    
    - In Culture Club's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," Boy George
    sings "Everything's not what you see."  I thought it was "Everything's
    not a watch, you see."
    
    - AC/DC's "Dirty Deads (and they're) Done Dirt Cheap"  I thought was
    "Dirty Dean and the Thunder Chief." 
    
    - Billy Ocean's "Caribean Queen."  I thought he was singing "Marry
    you quick."  What did you think he was singing the first time you
    heard that song?
    
    - Micheal Jackson's "Beat it."  He sings "Show them how funky, strong
    is your fight" very quickly.  A friend thought he was singing "Show
    your hot monkey."
    
    And finally there's Stepen Wolf's (or however you spell it) "Born
    to be Wild."  We never knew any of the lyrics until recently when
    The Cult covered the song and enunciated.  So we made up the lyrics.
    This is what we've been singing since high school:
    
    "Itch a bolly runnin.
    Ugga bugga highway.
    Lookin for my dentures
    And I eat a milky way."
    

    Heard two good ones last night from friends:
    
    Jimmy Buffet, Margaritaville - "Stepped on a pop tart"
    
    The Eagles - "life in the Vaseline"

    A friend's mother once thought the lyrics "have you seen her?" was
    "emphysema".
    
    Another friend thought the top 40 tune "goin' up in a puff of smoke"
    was "going up in a buffalo show"

Carry a Laser Gun - "Kyrie Eleison"

Islands in the Street - "Islands in the Stream"

and my personal favorite, though it's already been listed here:

Reverend Bluejeans

	- Win

     The lift goes up where we belong - "Love lift us up ..."
     
     Dan

    I'm pretty sure that the lyrics are:  "God, lift us up where we
    belong."

    You don't have to say you love me
    Just because I am [just be close at hand]
    
    This dates me a bit, but the .100 seemed to good a chance to miss.
    
    b

>-< But I though God is Love 8^) >-

If God is Love and Love is blind, Is Stevie Wonder God?

Pete

    Re: .101
    
    I think the correct conclusion from the syllogism in .101 is
    "God is blind".

    Every time I take vaccine, I take it orally.
                                               ( Aura-Lee )

    'and the black bird on the hill singing Aura-lee
    and of course how could he sing, except for orally?'
    
    (camp song)
    
    Bonnie

    Tod Rundgren (sp) in the 70's sang 
    "And I never wanna make that change for me"
    (or is that wrong too) and I always thought he said
    " and that marijuana made a change for me" ;^)
    
    deadhead

Van Morrison's vocal muse is not only more perverse than the fireplug
himself appears to be, but also has more of a sense of humor.  My favorite
subversion of his serious intent by his playful voice is on "Ballerina"
from the "Astral Weeks" LP.  The line goes:

    Try it, fly it, go on and die it.

But since it's (partly) a song about a dancer, I usually hear it as:

    ... go on and diet.

* * *

The Rolling Stones are old masters at slurrring words (which you'll
appreciate if you've ever suffered through a reading of Mick's lyrics). 
"Creem" even ran a competition for readers to figure out the complete
lyrics to "Tumbling Dice" back in '73.  My favorite entries were these two:

    Tumbling dice
    Tumbling dice
    Who are you,
    What have you sacrificed?
    
and
    
    Ooooo whoa, roll them tumblin' dice
    Make ya feel real nice
    Oh baby please go all the way
    I feels so right being with you here tonight
    Blow dat harmonica, Steve
    Shiny metallic purple armor
    All da holes in Albert Hall
    Father
    Yes son
    I want to kill you
    How does it feel
    Aww, how does it feel
    Power to the people
    Right on

(Actually, there are a few other Q&As in this competition which may be of
interest:

    Q. What was the line in `Satisfaction' that everyone thought was dirty?
    A. "When I'm drivin' in my car and a man comes on the radio" - a
    reference to auto eroticism.
    
    Q. What is the Stones' best drug reference?
    A. "My best friend he shoots water rats"
    
    Nah, I can't type in the rest, they're too offensive...
    
Ray

I love these!  My sister and I have been planning to release an album of
misheard songs.  Some of ours:

The BeeGees - "She comes to me on a submarine.."

I've drawn a blank on the singer's name, but the song is Forever Man, which
many of my friends and I heard as

	"Little man, little man.  Let me be your bald-headed man."

Or the Christmas carol 

	"While shepherds washed their socks by night."

My sister heard the Carpenters sing

	"Don't you remember you sold me an ugly baby"

in Superstar.

Mike Nesmith, in his show Television Parts,  did a very funny routine with a 
Mariachi band where the band walks off in disgust leaving Nesmith alone on 
the stage when he starts singing

"one ton tomato.  I need a one ton tomato."

Someone else mentioned "There's a bathroom on the right."  I had to see that
one in print before I got it.  It was very confusing, because that didn't
seem very life-threatening to me.

    There's a key word in a song by Wings that sounds like "jets", but
    it coult be "yet" or "yes".  The song is the one with the line:
    
    "And yet I thought the major was a lady suffragette."
    
    So, what is it?
    
    						Ann B.

  I seem to recall that the child Paul McCartney had a dog named
  "Suffragette," shortened to the phonetic nickname "Jet."

  I may be making this up since I have no idea where I got this
  story.

  JP

�Wotta GREAT topic!!! This is a long-time family source of amusement and  
hot-button...  and it even ties in with some long-time research interests I  
used to have in a "previous life" as an experimental psychologist.

First the (I hope interesting :-) background (in THIS reply), then the fun  
stuff -- Our family's collection of misperceived lyrics -- in the NEXT reply,  
so that those bored with a mini-treatise on perception can "cut to the  
chase..." 

===== begin pedantry =====

When I was an undergraduate I served as a subject in a fascinating experiment  
at the Center for Cognitive Studies that taught me a great deal, though I  
never read the resultant journal article.

A group of subjects was seated before a screen on which were projected various  
out-of-focus slides.  Each slide was projected for a few seconds at each  
"fuzziness level" and we were required to write down what we hypothesized was  
in the picture.  Then, the fuzziness level would be diminished and the process  
repeated, until the picture was perfectly in focus. 

Irrelevant to song lyrics that are misperceived, you say?  Bear with me yet  
awhile...

Some pictures in this experiment were comparatively easy to "dope out" even  
though they were initially very fuzzy -- an example might be a scene of distant
mountains with a stream and mountain hut in the foreground, or a house with a  
white picket fence out front.  Others were strange, and one entertained many  
different hypotheses as the focus was sharpened up.  These were "bogus  
pictures" consisting of impossible juxtapositions of objects, such as one I  
particularly remember -- the Matterhorn with a gigantic frankfurt hanging in  
space above it.  The funny part was that we would cling to our original,  
attempt at reasonable-object hypotheses of what was in the picture for a great  
many "fuzziness levels," all the way until the picture was perfectly clear in  
some cases, before our original MISperceptions would all of a sudden "click  
over" to the "right" perception -- "Omigod, that's not a blue plate with a  
pancake on it -- it's the Matterhorn with a 20-mile-long bratwurst flying over  
it!!".  I don't recall what the exact point of that experiment was, but it  
taught me a LOT about witness reliability and about the power of the mind to  
impose its own structure on ambiguous sense data.

So much for sight... Now for sound...

About 18 years ago, while working as an experimental psychologist at Bolt  
Beranek & Newman, Cambridge, I was principal investigator of a project for the  
National Institutes of Health.  They needed a new audiometric test that would  
help predict how well hearing-impaired folks would do if they were fitted with  
hearing aids.  The tests available at the time could only measure pure-tone  
perception, or at best the intelligibility of isolated words against a  
background of "shaped pink noise."  My colleagues and I set out to develop what
we later termed the "SPIN (Speech Perception In Noise) Test."  We constructed a
calibrated babble of english speech that was on one track of a tape that could  
be played through one chanel of an audiometer.  The other channel contained a  
single trained announcer's voice reading a series of sentences, each of which  
ended with a monosyllabic noun.  The listener's task was to write down the last
word of each sentence.  The noise level was varied such that the hearer would  
miss about half the words, on the average.

The nouns were carefully selected to represent a cross-section of the English  
phonemes, and each sentence was about the same number of syllables long.  The  
phonetic constituents of the beginnings of the sentences were also balanced.    
Then it got interesting, because half the sentences contained no hints about  
the identity of the last word.  "They were discussing the bay."  "I'm glad you  
asked about the crown." The other half of the sentences, randomly intermixed,  
were like "The King word a golden crown." and "The boat sailed across the  
bay."  In the predictable sentences, we controlled for the number of  
"predictor syllables" that gave a contextual cue to the last word.  

Sure 'nuff, those who (a) knew the language and (b) were not irreparably  
hearing-impaired did FAR better on the "predictable" words than they did on  
those SAME words in the "generic" sentences.  The differential between correct  
percentages for the two classes of sentences, coupled with the type of  
signal-to-noise ratio used, was a good predictor of satisfaction after being  
fitted with an aid.  

Or at least that's how I recall the research and its benefits to audiometry,  
after all these years...  :-)  As far as I know, that test and/or its  
descendants are still helping people... :-)

(BTW, I've sent out my last reprint of the article years ago and would like to  
re-read it again, just for sentimental reasons...  So if any reader has access  
to the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America for the early-to-mid '70s,  
I'd appreciate them sending me a Xerox of the article.  Look for me, Ken  
Stevens, and Lois Elliott as co-authors...  I'm in OFO...  Thanks!)

All this is closely related to that wonderful play title (by Neil Simon?) "You  
KNOW I can't hear you when the water's running!" which is because the sound of  
running water is RIGHT in the middle of those frequencies most salient for  
speech perception.  That's why you can only hear the PREDICTABLE things your  
spouse says when (a) the water's running next to your ear, and (b) s/he doesn't
know that it IS so loud for you, and goes on blithely babbling...  It can be  
maddening to have to shush your SO -- we have this system where the masked one,
hearing the other going on unawares that the water's running, immediately  
starts spouting LOUD gibberish...  It's fun (especially when you're brushing  
your teeth!! :-) and it works for us...  :-)

The Moral Of This Story -- The mind does wonderful things when confronted with  
incomplete data, the most fascinating of which is impose the familiar and  
predictable on the incompletely perceived.  Sometimes it can be dangerous -- as 
when ide�s fixes stay fixed for too long in the face of growing evidence to the 
contrary...  and sometimes it can be damn funny!!

(next reply has the Good Stuff)

===== end pedantry ===== (no, NOT pederasty! :-)

In Elvis's song "I forgot to remember to forget" the real words are "The day  
she went away, I made myself a promise that I'd soon forget we'd ever met..."  
Our family's mangled version: ... "...that I'd soon forget with asthma..." 

In "My Country 'Tis of Thee" -- the last few words of the first stanza have  
sometimes been reported to be the gibberish "Levrey Dom Bring."  (for you UK 
readers -- "Let Freedom Ring."  No, I can't explain it either -- but it's a 
slightly "off" construction, the kind of thing that a kid who names a teddy 
bear Gladly might bear...  :-)

A popular song done about 5 years ago, titled "Jack and Diane:"  The real words
are (we think!? :-) "...Let the Bible Belt come and save my soul..." but it  
took us many hysterically funny re-playings to come up with that hypothesis 
after some years of blindly (or should that be DEAFly?:-) accepting "...let the 
Bottle Bill come and save my soul..."

Creedence Clearwater Revival's song "Down on the corner" has a passage whose  
real words are "You don't need a penny just to hang around..." but due to the  
accent differences between the singer and our New England ears, my kids used to
break up because they heard him saying "You don't need a PIN-HEAD just to hang  
around..."

My Fair Lady's "All I want is a room somewhere" -- I went for YEARS thinking it
was slightly odd that Eliza Doolittle wanted "...lots of cow-meat and lots of  
eat..." until my wife clued me in that she was talking particularly Cockney at 
that point and was saying "...lots of COAL MAKING lots of 'eat..."

My wife traveled to Denmark last summer and came back with some jaunty songs by
a folk-rock-singer named Kim Larsen.  She can't understand but a few words (the
traveler's subset she learned for the trip) but likes the style and the  
melodies.  Still, she reports she can't help but fit English words to the  
unintelligible Danish...  She has NO idea what the real words are, or their  
meanings, but can't help hearing him say, at one particular point, "...Come sit
down in our slime..."

And btw we're going nuts here about 295.26 's incomplete posting where the  
WRONGLY perceived words are "Fish are going to poop on my bed..." We can't  
IMAGINE what the REAL words might be...  Would someone with access to Aretha's  
"Freeway of Love" find the "poopy passage," and throw some fresh ears at  
it...??

Thanks for listening!!

Anxious in Natick,

Dan Kalikow

    "pink" noise?
    
    		-John Bishop

    	White noise is, by analogy with white light - noise with a flat
    spectrum over the frequency range of interest. More recently the
    analogy was extended to "pink" noise to indicate noise whose frequency
    spectrum has been tailored in some way.
    
    	I dont think the analogy is taken as far as to indicate which parts
    of the spectrum are emphasised, otherwise we would have "blue noise",
    "green noise".
    
    	The most effective noise to mask or jam a particular signal is one
    which has the same spectrum as the signal. This is why modern military
    communications techniques use either a flat "white" spectrum, or a
    continually changing spectrum. In the first case the enemy is closer to
    his jammer than you are so he is also jamming his own communications,
    and in the second case you hope he cannot match your spectrum changes
    rapidly enough. You can get a good simulation of this by playing
    recordings of television chat shows at cocktail parties ;-)

    re: the Paul McCartney song
    
    I'm pretty sure it's "Jess," a personal name that is also the
    title of the song.  
    
    --bonnie

  Well, here's the song as it appears on the album jacket -- capitalization
  and (lack of) punctuation faithfully reproduced.  I didn't see anything
  about a dog, though, so I still don't know where I got that idea...JP

  Jet

  Jet, Jet,
  Jet, I can almost remember their funny faces
  That time you told them that you were 
                         going to be marrying soon
  And Jet I thought the only lonely place
                         was on the moon

  Jet Jet Jet
  Jet was your father as bold as the sergeant major
  How come he told you that you were
                         hardly old enough yet
  And Jet I thought the major was a lady suffragette
  Jet Jet Jet

  Ah Mater want Jet to always love me  
  Ah Mater want Jet to always love me  
  Ah Mater...much later

  Jet

  And Jet I thought the major was a lady suffragette
  Jet Jet
  Ah Mater want Jet to always love me  
  Ah Mater want Jet to always love me  
  Ah Mater...much later
  Jet with the wind in your hair
  Of a thousand faces
  Climb on the back and we'll go for a ride in the sky
  And Jet I thought
  that the major was a little lady suffragette

  Jet-Jet-Jet
  And Jet you know I thought 
  you was a little lady suffragette
  Jet
  A little lady
  My little lady...yes

    WRT: Paul McCartney and Dogs -- I dunno if "Jet" is about a dog
    but "Martha My Dear" (from the White Album) is.
    
    					andrew

    I will certainly take the word of the album cover over the word of
    a Boston deejay . . . if I were really mean, I'd call the guy and
    hassle him about it.
    
    --bonnie

    We resurrected another one from long-term memory...
    
    ... From the song "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee!"
    
    "Elvis, Elvis, let me be!  Keep that pelvis far from me!  Keep your
    filthy paws off my silky drawers!  Would you pull that crap with a
    net?"
    
    I kinda idly wondered why the fishing metaphor intruded itself onto the
    above delicate sentiments, but never gave it much thought until my
    elder daughter played in the chorus of a High School production...  And
    then it suddenly dawned that I'd forgotten She of those Wondrous
    Beach-Blanket Bingo flix, and Skippy Peanut Butter advertising fame
    (among other famous attributes :-)
    
    "... would you pull that crap with Annette?"  
    
    (Funicello)
    
    boy did I blush... but my kids thought it was REALLY funny... :-)

    This one is supposed to be a song called WET DREAM. I extracted it from
    COOKIE::FOLK_MUSIC, topic 413.0. I think that it deserves to figure
    here for the innumerable possibilities of errors hidden in it, as well
    as for being a likely candidate for the worst song-worst pun contest of
    the century... It says in the folk notesfile that there is a recording
    of it by Dr Demento on a CD called "The Great Novelty CD", which is
    supposed to be a collection of the worst songs they could lay hands on.
    If someone can tell me how to find that CD in France (I've already
    tried unsuccessfully in the biggest disc shop in France, the FNAC) I'd
    be really gratefull.
    				Denis.
    
    
    
    
    
    				WET DREAM.
    
     It was April the 41st, being a quadruple leap year.  I was driving  in
     downtown Atlantis.  My Barracuda was in the shop, so I was in a rented
     Stingray, and it was overheating, so I pulled into  a  Shell  station.
     They  said I'd blown a seal.  I said, "Fix the damn thing and leave my
     personal life out of it.  OK, Pal?"

     While they were doing that, I walked over to a place called the Oyster
     Bar.   A  real  dive,  but  I  knew the owner--he used to play for the
     Dolphins.  I said, "Hi, Gill!" You have to yell--he's hard of herring.

     Gill was also down on his luck--fact is, he  was  barely  keeping  his
     head  below  water.   I  bellied  up  to the sandbar; he poured me the
     usual:  rusty snail, hold the grunion,  shaken  not  stirred,  with  a
     peanut  butter  and jellyfish sandwich on the side, heavy on the mako.
     I slipped him a fin--on porpoise.  I was feeling good.  I even dropped
     a sand dollar in the box for Jerry's squids, for the halibut.

     Well, the place was crowded; we were packed in  like  sardines.   They
     were all there to listen to the big band sounds of Tommy Dorsal.  What
     sole.  Tommy was rockin' the place with a very popular  tuna,  "Salmon
     Chanted  Evening," and the stage was surrounded by screaming groupers,
     probably there to see the bass player.  One  of  them  was  this  cute
     little  yellowtail,  and she's giving me the eye, so I figured this is
     my chance for a little fun.  You know, piece of Pisces.

     But she was saying things I just couldn't fathom.  She was  too  deep,
     seemed  to  be  under  a  lot of pressure.  Boy, could she drink.  She
     drank like a--she drank a lot.  I said, "What's your sign?" She  said,
     "Aquarium." I said, "Great!  Let's get tanked!"

     I invited her up to my place for a  little  midnight  bait.   I  said,
     "C'mon,  baby,  it'll only take a few minnows." She threw me that same
     old line:  "Not tonight.  I got a haddock."

     And she wasn't kidding, either, 'cuz  in  came  the  biggest,  meanest
     haddock  I'd  ever  seen  come  down  the  pike.   He was covered with
     mussels.  He came over to me and said, "Listen,  shrimp.   Don't  come
     trolling  around  here."  What a crab.  This guy was steamed.  I could
     see the anchor in his eyes.

     I turned to him.  I said, "Abalone.   You're  just  being  shellfish."
     Well,  I  knew there was going to be trouble, and so did Gill, 'cuz he
     was already on the phone to the cods.  The  haddock  hits  me  with  a
     sucker  punch.  I catch him with a left hook.  He eels over.  It was a
     fluke, but there he was, lying  on  the  deck,  flat  as  a  mackerel,
     kelpless.

     I said, "Forget the cods, Gill; this guy's  gonna  need  a  sturgeon."
     Well,  the  yellowtail  was  impressed  with  the  way  I  landed  her
     boyfriend.  She came over to me.  She  said,  "Hey,  big  boy,  you're
     really a game fish.  What's your name?" I said, "Marlin."

     Well, from then on we had a whale of a time.  I took her to dinner;  I
     took  her  to  dance; I bought her a bouquet of flounders.  And then I
     went home with her.  And what did I get for my troubles?   A  case  of
     the clams.

Denis, 
	Very interesting you should mention that!  A friend of 
mine works at a scanner/reading machine company, and they use 
the text to 'Wet Dream' (done by the comedian Kip Adotta (sp?)) 
to test the DecTalk that is the integral part of their machine.

					- Hovig

    Re .120: Hi Hovig,
    and what is the result of the tests? If DecTalk doesn't make error on
    such a text, it sure must be better than most people on that respect...
    			Denis.

    What the hell is "the low spark of high heeled boys"?

    It's the title track of an album by Traffic.
    
    					andrew

    Excerpted without permission from the Dave Barry column in the Boston
    Sunday Globe, Feb. 17, 1991:
    ===== begin quotation =====
    ... some questions have been bothering me for years, such as:  What,
    exactly, do the Beach Boys sing in the first line of "Help Me Rhonda?" 
    This is the line that goes, "Well since she put me down (something
    something)."  What it sounds like to me is:
    
    	"Well since she put me down,
    	There've been owls puking in my bed."
    
    But this seems unlikely, I mean, you could imagine owls showing up in
    the beds of some bands, particularly the early Stones.  You could even
    imagine small HORSES.  But not with the Beach Boys.  So this is a
    question I would like to see some rock scholar clear up. ...
    ===== end quotation =====
    
    So howzabout it, petrologists?  I am not an authority on the Beach Boys
    (having spent most of my strand time checking out the beach girls). 
    Cheers, Dan

  I was never confused about this one.  I might be wrong but I'm not 
  uncertain that it is:


        "Well since she put me down,
         I've been out doing in my head."

  "Doing in" meaning killing or wrecking...  In this case, given the
  period and mores of the time, "doing in" probably would have involved 
  alcohol, THC, and LSD.

  JP

    Wow, this topic has been quiet for a while.
    
    Prince has a new song out now called "Cream."  The lyrics sound
    something like:
    
    		Cream...get on top
    		Cream...you will clot   ????
    
    Huh?

    It rhymes (almost).  What more do you expect?  Sense maybe?	;-)

Jon Carroll, a columnist for the _San_Francisco_Chronicle_, has given these
constructions (misinterpretations?) a name.  He calls them `Mondegreens', after
a song which was heard (by a friend of his) as:

	For they have killed Lord (thus-and-something)
	And Lady Mondegreen.

Instead of `laid him on the green'.

    ... the etymology would be ever so much more satisfying to tell, were
    we able to quote the entire verse...  :-)

    Re .128:
>	For they have killed Lord (thus-and-something)
>	And Lady Mondegreen.
    
    It's:
    They've slain the earl of Moray
    and laid him on the green.
    
    The words come from the last two rhymes of the first verse of "The earl
    of Moray" a popular Scottish ballad about the murder of the earl of
    Moray in 15th-16th century Scotland (more details available on request
    after I've checked my references).
    			Denis.

    Prince has a song called "Slow Love" on the "Sign O' The Times"
    tape. 
    
    The first line is sung at a rather high pitch and goes:
    
    "Long is the ni-hight....."
    
    Which I always understand as:
    
    "Your knees are ni-hice...."
    
    helen

    On the radio as I type:
    
      "Nashua's gone funky,
       Nashua got soul."
    
    Alas, it turned out just a funky soulful lisp...
    
    Ray

    Who sang "It's a hard egg, nothing but a hard egg"?
    
    The other one was by the Eagles, I think:
    
    "It's gonna be a hard egg tonight, a hard egg tonight I know....."

    One of my favorites is Elton John's "Balloon eyes. Baby's got balloon
    eyes."
    
    Dwayne
    

    Re:.133
    
    >>>Who sang "It's a hard egg, nothing but a hard egg"?
    
    Marianne Faithfull???
    
    It's sung by a female, a_bottle_of_whisky_and_three_packs_of_cigarettes
    _a_day_voice, and that's the only name that popped up in my memory
    matching that specification. 
    


                                                 - Stoneshop -
    

    Nah, it was Melanie. I think. (I thought the words sounded more like
    "It's a hot day...")
    
    -b

    No, definitely not Melanie. More like a female equivalent of Rod
    Stewart, only with a gruffer voice.
    
    Ray

Kim Carnes?  Some pop singer of about ten years ago.  I remember she also did a 
Dr. Pepper (soft drink) commercial singing `I drink Dr. Pepper and I'm proud' and
a radio personality in Chicago said it sounded like she should be singing about
sulfuric acid instead.

Funny the things that stick in your head...

Back to the topic, there was a song about a guy who called himself `the smallest
giant ever' (the song was called Crush Story, I think) and a friend of mine couldn't
understand why she should be interested in the smallest guy in Denver.

Roy

	Yes, it was Kim.

    Sorry Di,
    
    There's only one female Rod Stewart, and that's
    Bonnie Tyler. She's the one with the heartache. Another
    one of her hits was "Total Eclipse Of The Heart". 
    (A bit lacking in imagination, wouldn't you say? How about
    something like "Love My Liver Or Leave Me", "Your Kidney 
    Calls Me Back" or maybe "Be My Belly Now" :-)
    
    BTW, Kim Carnes was the one with "Bette Davis Eyes", I think,
    so at least it was on the right track...
    
    Hans

    Yeah, Tyler! Not that I remember her doing "Heartache," but I remember
    "Total Eclipse" - one of the relatively few music videos featuring
    female fantasy elements, as I recall. Lots and lots of muscular young
    men in various states of undress, schoolboys, acrobats, fencers, etc.;
    neet stuff.
    
    Carnes did "Bette Davis Eyes," which, to return briefly to the topic,
    was rife with "_what_ did she say" lines. It turns out that most of
    them really were as outrageous as they sounded, but I'm still not sure
    I've got them all right - something about "fill her bathtub just to
    please you"?
    
    -b

    
   >> There's only one female Rod Stewart, and that's
   >> Bonnie Tyler. 
    
   >> Hans

	Ah, Hans, the erudite.  Is there no end to the man's knowledge?
	You're absolutely right, of course - thanks for correcting me.
	I must have swapped out.

	Di

Has anyone ever seen Rod Stewart and Bonnie Tyler together....
Maybe they're just emulating the Patty Duke show...

'Chele

    
    What about the song from about 1963 (Laura?) about the boy who walked a girl
    home from a dance and lent her his sweater.  After seeing her disappear
    through the door, he realized he had not gotten his sweater back.  He
    rang the doorbell, and a very sad father said, "She died a year ago
    today."  Whereupon
    
    "A strange horse threw me to the graveyard..." 
    
    This is what one of my sister's playmates sang.
    
    
  (actual words "A strange force drew me to the graveyard...")

	I had a friend who thought the Lovin' Spoonful were singing
	"you and me and Leslie, groovin'".
	
	I don't remember the band that did this song, but another friend of
	mine thought it was "At the top of the stairs there's a dog mess".

	I was just reading through all of these, and someone quite a while
	ago claimed that the line from "Killer Queen" was "She keeps
	Moet and Chandon in her pretty cabinet", and then someone said
	there's no "and" in there.  Isn't there an "et" though?  Sounds
	like it to me.  Just curious.

	Di

>>	I had a friend who thought the Lovin' Spoonful were singing
>>	"you and me and Leslie, groovin'".

	It was pointed out to me that this was the Rascals.  Sorry about
	that.  Thanks, Lew.

	Di
	

    >	I had a friend who thought the Lovin' Spoonful were singing
    >	"you and me and Leslie, groovin'".
    
    
    What *ARE* they singing?  I could never figure that line out.
    
    					andrew

    >	I had a friend who thought the Lovin' Spoonful were singing
    >	"you and me and Leslie, groovin'".
    
    
    >>What *ARE* they singing?  I could never figure that line out.

	"you and me endlessly groovin'"


	Diane

	This isn't quite to topic, but the other lyric that used to
	get me was the one from the Turtles tune "Happy Together" where
	they say "The only one for me is you, and you for me."  Same
	thing.  Sounds right though, somehow.

	Di

Hey, I too always thought they were saying

	you and me and Leslie


it's always fun to find that I wasn't the only one that got confused about
something in the same way


/Eric

    There used to be many confusions about a variety of lines from Killer
    Queen, of which my favourites are:

    	"spare him his life from these pork sausages"
    				   |    |     |
                                   v    v     v
    	 			 this monstrosity

    	"met a man from China, went down to Geisha Minor"
    					      |
    					      v
    					    Asia�

    	
    � although I've never seen the printed lyric - I just don't believe
    that Freddie would have been interested in Geishas ;-)

    Jon

    There were (and are) male geisha.  The word means a practitioner of art,
    though they became best known for one particular art (one which is not much
    different from what actresses and models have to do in many countries).
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    There's a radio show in Boston that has a contest where they
    play fragments of songs and the contestants try to figure out
    what the words are.  Most of them are totally incomprehensible.
    
    My favorite is the Doors' "inna godda da veda" (?) which I always
    thought was "in the garden of eden"--neither of which makes any
    sense in context.  (This is probably mentioned earlier in this
    note...)  Question:  Does it count if the original was nonsense
    words?
    
    Doug.

    Doug -
    
    Inagaddadavida was not a Doors tune
    
    
    regards...
    ...diane

    I used to wonder where Pomona City was, and why we shouldn't forget it,
    while we were dancin' in the streets. Silly me...
    
    There's a baboon on the right,
    -b

re: .153, .154

It think it was the Iron Butterfly.  And I think the title was four words, 
"Inna Gaddda da Vida".

Clay

    Clay -
    
    Yup - Iron Butterfly it was - I couldn't remember this the other night.
    As for the title - I've seen it spelled all *kinds* of ways.
    
    
    
    
    regards...
    ...diane

    The story I heard was that the title of the song was originally
    intended to be "In the Garden of Eden."  When it came time to
    release the record, the band's manager asked them what the title was, and
    the songwriter (who was apparently quite drunk/high/whatever) mumbled
    "Inna Gadda Da Vida", so that's what the official title became.
    
    -Tom

    "Inna Gadda Da Vida" was correct; it's just some listeners who think
    it sounds like something else.
    
    The band's name was supposed to be "Aian Battaflah," but the manager
    forgot to ask and just wrote what he thought it sounded like.

	Re .159

    
>>    The band's name was supposed to be "Aian Battaflah," but the manager
>>    forgot to ask and just wrote what he thought it sounded like.

	"Iron Butterfly" was correct; it's just some fans who think
	it should have been something else  :-)

    To rathole the rathole, and get back to something like the topic
    (although not all the way), back when bands were called groups, and
    started using odd names just for the hell of it, Jethro Tull
    recorded their first single. The people printing the label must
    have thought the name was even less meaningful than it is, and
    put Jethro Toe.
    
    b

    	Jethro Tull was a famous pioneer of modern farming techniques. My
    history is a bit rusty, but I think he invented crop rotation (spinning
    turnips).

    	>>Jethro Tull was a famous pioneer of modern farming techniques.
    
    You're showing your age...  ;?)
    

    	Just because your history only goes back a couple of hundred years?
    ;-)

    To rathole the ratholed rathole,
    
    re: -< Alas, poor Jethro, I knew him well. >-
    
    Surely that's a misquotation:  shouldn't it be "Alas, poor Jethro, I
    know him Horticulurally, a fellow of infinite juiced carrots....." :*)
    
    Jon

    Jethro Tull may have invented crop rotation, but I think what he's most
    famous for is a mechanical doofer for sowing seeds - the name escapes
    me.
    
    b

    >>	Just because your history only goes back a couple of hundred years?
    
    No, when Tull's methods were described as "modern," I immediately
    thought of the combines used in the U.S. wheat belt.  The new (modern)
    combines have cabs with cushy seats, air conditioning, and CD players
    (so you can listen to Jethro Tull's latest hits).  I'm terribly sorry
    to forget that the inhabitants of other, less fortunate nations still
    consider Tull's inventions to be modern!  And I'm supposed to be our
    site's I18N contact, too!  I think I should immediately resign from my
    position!  :?)
                  

    re: .166
    
    Seed drill?
    
    -Tom

    That's the one. I thought it was `seed <something>' but I couldn't
    get Spinning Jenny (another marvel of the Industrial Revolution,
    but nothing to do with farming) out of my head.
    
    b

This morning, while driving to work I heard some ditty by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart. Not sure of the name of said composition, as my brain was mostly
occupied otherwise, but I think it was called 'Exultate, Jubilate' (spelling?).
Anyway, the first line I heard entered my brain as 'It sure's a party', but I
very much doubt that that was indeed the actual text. 
                                                        
                                                  - Rik -

    Re .170
    
    The work is "Exsultate Jubilate."
    
    Exsultate, jubilate
    o vos animae beatae.
    Summa Trinitas revelatur
    et ubique adoratur,
    date illi gloriam.
    
    Tandem advenig hora, qua Deum colimus
    in spiritu veritate,
    et nomen illius magnum in omni loco est.
    Debitum iam illi sit sacrificium;
    sed ler Mariam
    accedamus in fide ad fontem gratiae,
    ad thronum misericordiae,
    ut magis acceptabile sit hoc obsewuium.
    
    Tu verginum corona,
    tu nobis pacem dona.
    Tu consolare affectus,
    unde suspirat cor.
    
    Alleluia.

    G'day...
    
    or roughly translated...
    
    Exsultate, jubilate                        One-time Middle-eastern emirate,
    							 Be Happy
    o vos animae beatae.                       with your animal trainers.
    Summa Trinitas revelatur                   Your three math teachers revel   
    et ubique adoratur,                        and everywhere adore
    date illi gloriam.                         going out illegally with Gloria.
    
    Tandem advenig hora, qua Deum colimus      Non-stop is here, in two stacks
    in spiritu veritate,                       at wine merchants everywhere.
    et nomen illius magnum in omni loco est.   and our case of champagne is
    					       coming by train.
    Debitum iam illi sit sacrificium;          Paying by Visa is hard
    sed ler Mariam                             if you let the spouse get it
    accedamus in fide ad fontem gratiae,       accidents with the dog and welsh
    					       rarebit fondue
    ad thronum misericordiae,                  make me sick in the toilet
    ut magis acceptabile sit hoc obsewuium.    but packet soup is OK to help
    					       bind it together
    
    Tu verginum corona,                        Park the Toyota by the kerb
    tu nobis pacem dona.                       Watch your step
    Tu consolare affectus,                     Your workstation has a virus
    unde suspirat cor.                         Whose lingerie is that?
    
    Alleluia.                                  Whoopee!

    
    
    djw With apologies

    Incisive, wonderfully idiomatic translation, Derek.  I couldn't have
    done it better!

    I think
    
    accedamus in fide ad fontem gratiae,
    
    should be translated as
                                               accidents with the dog and
                                               the Letter Gothic font
    
    						John Smith

    Only kiddynge...  and obtw BRAVO!!

    re .172
    
    Wonderful!!!!! That's a keeper!!!!!
    
    --angela