Rush Red Barchetta
On Sunday…
Commit my weekly crime…
One-lane bridge…
Jesus Christ! How lax is law enforcement that they haven’t caught this guy yet???
I’d catch a grenade for you,
Throw my hand on a blade for you,
I’d jump in front of a train for you,
You know I’d do anything for you…
(Except that train thing, that’s pointless!)
Wait, wait, see, I could probably throw that grenade away, and heal from a knife wound… so I’d be saving your life… with a chance we’d be together afterwards.
But jumping in front of a train for you?
Girl, if you’re… (what, tied to the tracks? I’m TRYING to picture a situation where you need someone to play chicken with a locomotive)… I am not even going to slow it down one mph. We both dead there, girl, now 'scuse me, I’ve got a song to rewrite.
I had always loved the Beach Boys’ Dont Worry Baby. Beautiful song… until I started listening to the words in the verses. They seem kind of, oh I don’t know, immature?
Example:
“I guess I should have kept my mouth shut when I started to brag about my car,
But I can’t turn back now because I’ve pushed the other guys too far”.
The Beach Boys singing about teen male Californian concerns? That never happens.
“Woo-Woo! Woo-Woo!”
Sympathy for the Devil. I’ve always found it to be a bit much. I’ve annoyed two ppl by mentioning it to them, and afterwards it was all they could hear. Well, I don’t know how long it lasted, but it was a few months in one case, anyway.
More of a dumb mondegreen from childhood that I didn’t feel right putting in the concurrent Jim Croce thread, but - hearing “Operator” through static-y, quiet department store speakers made me go “A burrito, a burrito, will you…” (Pardon the slight derail.)
Meatloaf’s’s lyric:
I want you, X2
I need you, X2
But there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you,
So don’t be sad X2,
'Cuz two outa three ain’t bad.
Well, actually, it still is the short end of the stick, Marvin. Not that you’d be high on most dating lists, yourself, anyway.
Do not, under any circumstances, see the movie called “Sympathy for the Devil”. It is nothing but two hours of the Stones recording that song. Two hours, mostly just the guys laying down the background vocals. Two. Effing. Hours… of them standing around a huge microphone, take after take of them singing… well, you get the idea.
I’d never walked out on a movie before, but it felt so good to be free.
…
eta: Just read the linked thread from years ago, and I’d complained about the same lyrics. At least I’m consistent…
Oh man don’t get me started on Red Barchetta. I mean, I love the song, but it makes no sense when you really start to think about it. Motor vehicles have been outlawed for “fifty-odd years” but there’s still gasoline to run the car? The tires haven’t rotted off of it? They still have bridges that are too narrow for the “air cars”? (I’ve never been sure what an air car is, but I always assumed it was some sort of hovercraft, which makes me wonder why it would need a bridge anyway…)
After you hear enemy after enemy being destroyed in Galaxian, all I can hear is someone playing a somewhat similar videogame in the background of this Beyonce song
I remember that thread! I was thinking about your post just the other day when that song came on in the Jeep.
Here’s another way of ruining Sympathy For The Devil:
Predates Sympathy by two years.
j
Cowbell. Turns out it’s in far more than Don’t Fear the Reaper.
“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.”
“an American” is not a place! Grumble, grouse, blather, blather.
“Where” is a locative pronoun, as it is being used here, which is a type of relative pronoun. “Relative” means it relates two ideas in a sentence; here, it is that where I live, I’m free. However, all pronouns must have an antecedent; the antecedent of “where” is “an American.” Since “where” is a locative pronoun, however, it must refer back to a location. “An American” is not a location.
Possible fixes:
-
Change “an American” to “in America.” “America” is a place. The entire relative clause is now a modifier, and modifies the object of the preposition “in,” which is “America.”
-
Change “where” to “because.” “Because” is a subordinating conjunction; it connects an independent clause to a subordinate clause.
Both of these fixes maintain the meter of the line, and therefore fit the song.
I think I was gonna miss that anyway, but thanks for the warning. 
I think I would have enjoyed watching them record just about ANY other song, dammit! As for consistent, I did a search and found out this is the FIFTH time I’ve posted about this song. I gotta get a new shtick.
Great, now I’m known as the guy who ruins songs for people. . .
(thinks a moment)
Hey, I’ll take it! 
Nah, you didn’t ruin it. I love the song, ‘Woo-Woo’ notwithstanding. I wasn’t laughing with you. I was laughing at you. 
I must be some kind of weirdo, because the “woo woo!” has always been my favorite part of Sympathy for the Devil.
Oh. I’m more comfortable with that, I think. 
John Lennon “Imagine”.
“Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…”
One doesn’t have to be a rabid Randian to know where that ends up.
Too bad, it is a nice tune.
“Who’s unlovable?” (“You!”)
“Who’s unlivable?” (“You!”)
“Whose existence is quite unforgivable?” (“You!”)
- How can a person be “unlivable?”
- The pirates’ response to the third question should be “Yours!”
Speaking of Lennon, “All You Need Is Love” is a string of meaningless tautologies.
“There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.” Well, yeah, obviously, if you can do it, it can be done. So?