Cheap Trick. I Want You to Want Me. Loved if for years, and most of the lyrics are obvious. But I just looked up a couple-
I’ll shine up the old brown shoes,
Put on a brand-new shirt
I’ll get home early from work
If you say that you love me
Never knew those lyrics.
Am listening now to Crazy on You by Heart, realize I don’t know some of the lyrics other than the chorus.
Sometimes it’s better not to learn the lyrics. I really liked the song “Human” by Human League for many years. Thought I might want to try it at karaoke, so I checked out the words, and … ugh, I was totally disgusted. Really ruined the song for me for a while. Although I can now listen to it again, up until the spoken word part by the female vocalist.
“Brown Sugar” by the Stones falls into a similar category. Although I can somehow forgive that one more easily.
Sorry, I’m not trying to highjack this thread…
i just learned the lyrics of “pumped up kicks” a couple of years ago… yeah not a song to sing in public…
The word ‘porpoise’ appears twice in Barracuda, which I found kind of surprising.
There’s a song “Darkness” by the Police where he sings
I wish I never woke up this morning
Life was easy when it was pouring
With thundery sounding drums in the background. And it made sense… LIfe is easier if it’s raining outside, you just stay in bed, you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything…
Then recently after all these years I discovered that it’s not “pouring”, it’s “boring”. Which also kind of makes sense, but dammit I like my version better!
I’ve been on a Fats Domino kick lately. There’s a line from Blueberry Hill that I never was quite sure about. It sounded like “So we’re apart, you bought a new still” or “… you butter me still” but I never really thought either of those were right. I finally got around to looking it up a few days ago. “Though we’re apart, you’re part of me still.” That makes so much more sense.
Also Lovefool by the Cardigans.
I’m listening to the the Band’s 50 years anniversary deluxe edition of “The Band”, King Harvest Has Surely Come. I have heard this song a hundred times, but the passage:
Dry summer, then comes fall
Which I depend on most of all
Hey, rainmaker, can’t you hear the call?
Please let these crops grow tall
I have always heard til today as
…
Please let these crops grow at all
I find my interpretation even better in the context of the song…
Btw., this reissue is fantastic! I’ve just finished the part with the regular album tracks and I’m just starting to hear the bonus tracks, but the remastering is so obviously better than the first generation CD copy I have that I’m totally stunned. The instruments are suddenly so clearly separated and not the muddle of noise I knew that it sounds like a completely different album. I suspect that it’s not only remastered, but heavily remixed too. It’s a revelation.
Yeah all those lyrics about the slave ships coming over and women being whipped just around midnight. Jeez, can I un-hear those lyrics?
i thought “dont stand close to me” by the police was about a girl chasing someone who was antisocial and didnt want her …until i read the lyrics on youtube…
and theres the wham song where i thought he was telling her he didn’t want her just for her body … but no he was saying he didn’t want an open relationship but she did …
I always liked the song Walk Away Renee by the Left Banke, but some of the lyrics were never quite clear to me. 50 years later it occurred to me to look them up:
Just walk away, Renée
You won’t see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You’re not to blame
From deep inside the tears
I’m forced to cry
From deep inside the pain
That I chose to hide
Just walk away, Renée
You won’t see me follow you back home
Now as the rain burns down upon my weary eyes
For me it cries
Not exactly Dylan, but knowing all the lyrics makes the song more pleasurable to listen to.
From King Creole
When the King starts to do it it’s as good as done
He holds his guitar like a tommy gun
He starts to growl from way down his throat
He bends a string and that’s all she wrote
and
He plays something evil then he plays something sweet
No matter how he plays you got to get up on your feet
And when he gets the rockin’ fever baby, heaven sakes
He don’t stop playin’ 'til his guitar breaks
It wasn’t until I heard the alternate takes of the song that I could hear Elvis clearly.