“Touch Me” by the Doors
'Till the stars fall from the sky
For you and I."
Till the stars fall in the sea
For you and me."
That “I” has ALWAYS grated on me!
“To the oceans, white with foam”?? Come on.
How about:
“From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the WalMarts, with our phones”
Hotel California:
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of [del]colitas[/del] fajitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night.
At least “fajitas” is an actual word. And they do smell both warm and divine.
So is colitas.
In addition to the above, we have this Straight Dope column getting to the bottom of it.
“Say,” by John Mayer:
Without mentioning the fact that his singing voice is 10 miles of bad road, the chorus could use some beefing up.
“Say what you mean to say.” Fine. But repeated 8 times (the last chorus is 24 times)? With no other change in the accompaniment?
Why not:
Say what you mean to say,
Say what you want to say,
Say what you have to say,
Say what you ought to say.
“Want” and “ought” is a bit of a stretch for a rhyme, I’ll admit.
Carly Simon - You’re so vain
…
You walked in to the party
Like you were walking on to a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf, it was apricot
Famously she pronounces apricot as apree-cott, which is just wrong, wrong, wrong, but we can easily fix this -
*You walked in to the party
Like you were walking on to a boat
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf, it matched your coat
etc*
It gets rid of the offending fruit, but continues and embellishes the natty dresser theme of the verse, and because it was about Warren Beatty, I think that’s what she was really trying to say.
Ms Simon, if you’re reading, your people are welcome to call me to discuss my share of any re-recording you may like to do.
I prefer to think that the scarf was “apres cote,” or, an “after thought,” you know, worn as though it were just tossed on at the last minute, and yet it completed the outfit perfectly, thereby describing the subject’s instinct for topping off an outfit with an exact right thing. If she was more familiar with Quebecois French than the French of France, she might pronounce “apres” “apree.”
RivkahChaya, I think its wonderful and noble of you to try to defend Ms Simon, but even you must admit its papering over a pretty big crack. Let us help her by getting her out of the hole, rather than giving her the impetus to keep digging herself deeper. With our sincere support, she may just rise above this, put it behind her and be able to salvage some credibility and leave on a high note.
RivkahChaya and I believe in you, Carly! We only want whats best for you.
Tom Paxton’s I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler
Original lyrics:
Since the first amphibians crawled out of the slime
We’ve been struggling in an unrelenting climb
We were hardly up and walking before money started talking
And it’s sad that failure is an awful crime
I always sing: We ha barely started walking before money started talking.
I can’t believe Paxton didn’t write it that way.
Well, since this thread lives again…
Cranberries - Zombie
“In your head, in your head, they are fighting
With their tanks, and their bombs
And their bombs, and their guns
In your head, in your head they are crying”
The duplicate words “bombs” kind of irks me. Maybe change the second occurance of bomb to “planes” or “ships” or, if it must be ground infantry, “knives”.
Boney M - Rasputin
Putting aside the fact Czar Nicholas’ consort was Tsarina (Empress as well) and not really the “Russian Queen”, there’s a few places we need to jack up the melody and slide some reworked lyrics in…
“He could preach the bible like a preacher
Full of ecstasy and fire”
This is a bit tough, all the good synonym for preach are 2 or more syllables (exhort, prophesize, relate, etc). Let’s go with “teach the Bible”
“Then one night some men of higher standing
Set a trap, they’re not to blame
“Come to visit us” they kept demanding
And he really came”
Not sure what to do with “not to blame” (“Set a trap, without shame”?), but the last 2 lines I recommend…
“Come visit us” they kept demanding
Until he finally came"
“And so they shot him till he was dead”
Hmm, just go with
“And so they shot him…dead!” (it scans in the song).
Of course, you do NOT mess with that great line
“Ra Ra Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine”
Also, once and for all need to make it clear the correct “Live and Let Die” lyric is
“But if this ever changing world in which we’re living…”
[SIZE=“1”](Don’t give me this “Cerebral rape and pillage in a village…” nonsense - “We will rape and pillage in a village…” is 10x cooler…)[/SIZE]
You Raised Me Up has the lyric “You raise me up to more than I can be.”
Uh, you cannot be any more than you can be. It’s humanly impossible.
I sing “You raise me up to all that I can be.”
It’s a Christian choral anthem, so I think the songwriter means, “more than I can be by myself, but with Jesus, I can be more than I otherwise could be.” At least, that’s my interpretation.
Perhaps choosing this song is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but in Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”:
should actually read/sound
Come fly with me, let’s float down to Peru,
In llama land, there’s a one-man band, and he’ll toot his flute for you.
Come fly with me, we’ll take off in the blue.
All well and good. EXCEPT nobody ever sings “in llama land.” Everybody invariably goes with “in lama land” (which Peru isn’t).
That’s okay. “In lama land” can be accommodated.
Come fly with me, let’s drift off to Tibet,
In lama land, there’s a one-man band with a tune you won’t forget.
Come fly with me, we’ll take my private jet.