# Lyrics you wonder about
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** music
**Created:** [January 21, 2022, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184 "2022-01-21T18:03:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2022, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/21 "2022-01-23T19:01:36Z")
Not that I particularly love this song as the OP would’ve hoped, but I always wondered about these lyrics in Cream’s “Swlabr”.
So while I have no idea what to make of these lyrics:
_You’ve got that rainbow feel_
_But the rainbow has a beard_
…_this_ line, however:
_Such good responses_
Uh, say what? _“Responses”?_ What - are you working in some behavioral vivisection lab or something, Jack?
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### Author:  [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2022, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/22 "2022-01-23T19:27:25Z")
> [@Telemark](#):
>
> > Yellow matter custard
> > Dripping from a dead dog’s eye
>
> That one always makes me ponder.
If I remember correctly, John wrote that song specifically because he was amused by the intensity of the critics to gain every nuance from the Beatles’ lyrics, and decided to mess with their heads. That part, apparently, was part of an old Liverpudlian schoolchildren’s rhyme. Such rhymes delight in the ugly (cf. “Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts”).
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/23 "2022-01-23T19:49:11Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#):
>
> If I remember correctly, John wrote that song specifically because he was amused by the intensity of the critics to gain every nuance from the Beatles’ lyrics, and decided to mess with their heads. That part, apparently, was part of an old Liverpudlian schoolchildren’s rhyme. Such rhymes delight in the ugly (cf. “Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts”).
The story I’ve heard is that he got a letter from a school child who told him that their class had done an analysis of one of his songs, which bemused him and motivated him to write a nonsense song so people had something to analyse.
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### Author:  [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/24 "2022-01-24T13:10:32Z")
SWLABR: She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow.
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### Author:  [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/25 "2022-01-24T15:07:52Z")
I recall an interview with Bob Dylan where he was asked about what a certain song means.
He said “It doesn’t mean anything … it’s just a song.”
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### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/26 "2022-01-24T17:11:46Z")
In Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero / No Limit” it starts with wonderful poetry:
> My love, she speaks like silence
> Without ideals or violence
> She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful
> Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire
>
> People carry roses
> And make promises by the hours
> My love, she laughs like the flowers
> Valentines can’t buy her
But later on, I wonder if he’s messing with us:
> The cloak and dagger dangles
> Madams light the candles
> In ceremonies of the horsemen
> Even the pawn must hold a grudge
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/27 "2022-01-25T09:34:06Z")
> [@Turble](#):
>
> I recall an interview with Bob Dylan where he was asked about what a certain song means.
>
> He said “It doesn’t mean anything … it’s just a song.”
And when Don McLean was asked what _American Pie_ means, said “It means I will never have to work again.”
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### Author:  [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2022, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/28 "2022-01-28T18:31:18Z")
The lyrics to Quinn the Eskimo seem beyond silly and well into nonsense. The line that caught my attention is “_I like my sugar sweet_,” which, I’ve just learned, appears in a 1941 recording by Fletcher Henderson.
I’ve never liked Quinn the Eskimo. There’s so little happening musically that the drivel is kind of annoying.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2022, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lyrics-you-wonder-about/958184/29 "2022-01-29T05:42:42Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> Michael Stipe is the poster child here I’d say.
Knew a guy who worked on the lighting for a music venue. They would get the lyrics from the band, and mark them up with lighting cues.
Worked great, except when Michael Stipe was involved. He’d sing anything he wanted. Ignore the lyrics, change the lyrics, make up nonsense lyrics. On the spot.
Just after hearing that story, I read an interview where Stipe said he treats the voice as just another instrument and it really doesn’t matter what he’s saying. Made sense.
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