Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Completely Conspicuous 124: Listen to What the Man Said

Special guest Jay Breitling joins me on the podcast to discuss misheard song lyrics. Listen to the show in streaming audio or download it directly (right click and "save as").

The show notes...

Topics:

- Easy to look up lyrics online nowadays, but many user-generated lyrics can be wrong

- Mondegreen is term for the mishearing of a lyric or phrase

- Kumar used to mishear Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light"

- Classic example is Hendrix's "Purple Haze" with misheard line "Excuse me while I kiss this guy"

- Kissthisguy.com is misheard lyrics site, not gay dating site

- Breitling: Nobody knew the lyrics of "Louie Louie"

- Kumar: Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

- Teenage Kumar used to mishear a line in Eddie Money's "Shakin'"

- Kumar: Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music"

- In '70s, sometimes profanity was left in songs ("Who Are You," "Jet Airliner") played on radio

- Kumar: Just learned correct version of a line in Zeppelin's "Black Dog"

- Certain singers are hard to understand: Plant, Jagger, Stipe, guys in shoegaze bands

- Das Efx vocals purposely mimicked music

- Mumblemouthed singers: Vedder begat crappier imitators Weiland, Stapp

- Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter" is almost completely unintelligible

- Kumar: Thought PJ's "Rats" referenced Hakeem Olajuwon

- Kumar: Long misheard lines in "Rock the Casbah," "Everybody Wants Some"

- Billy Corgan's singing was hard to understand, but early Smashing Pumpkins rocked anyway

- Breitling: Bad Brains' "Pay to Cum" was 75 seconds long, 10 understandable words

- Kumar: The Knack's "My Sharona"

- Weird Al made his career on jokey lyrics

- Kumar: Stone Roses' "I Wanna Be Adored"

- Amy's co-worker thinks a Natalie Merchant song references dishpan hands

- Charles Kuralt's secret life

- Breitling: J. Geils Band's "Freeze Frame" was "Freeze Spray"

- J. Mascis was never big on enunciation

- Bonehead of the Week

Music:

Dead Meadow - That Old Temple

The Shout Out Louds - Fall Hard

Everyone Everywhere - Raw Bar OBX 2002

Fol Chen - In Ruins

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The show is sponsored by Budget, the country's premier car rental service with 900 locations. Go to Budget.com/CompCon and save 10% off any reservation or $30 off a weekly rental.

The Dead Meadow song is on the album Three Kings on Xemu Records. The song is courtesy of IODA Promonet:

Three KingsDead Meadow
"That Old Temple" (mp3)
from "Three Kings"
(Xemu Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album


The Shout Out Louds song is on the album Work on Merge Records. Download the song for free at Insound.

The Everyone Everywhere song is on the band's self-titled album on Tiny Engines. Find out more at . The band is currently in the midst of a two-week blog tour in which it's giving away a song a day on a different blog. Download this song for free at Can You See the Sunset.

The Fol Chen song is on the album Part II: The New December on Asthmatic Kitty Records. Download the song for free at Stereogum.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blogs Clicky Clicky and Keeping Some Dark Secrets. Additional music used in the show is by Me and Boris the Bull, which is the brainchild of the mighty Mark Campbell. Thanks to Bob Durling for the album art; find out more about his photography at his blog.

Completely Conspicuous is a Tan God Production. Word.

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