Whoosh?
Er… it has been mentioned a couple of times, try posts #20, #33, and 47#. Did you read the thread or just jump in to embarrass yourself and insult everybody?
From “Some Say” by Sum 41:
Seems like everything we knew
Turned out were never even true
A simple substitution of “all the things” for “everything” would have cost them nothing. Or even just “was” for “were.” Blech.
The “ever changing world in which we live in” thing drives me crazy, too.
Obviously, Joanie was a passenger on the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run at the time! 
Not to mention his contention that:
“In May of 1941, the war had just begun…”
Actually, he was 20 months out – the war started in September 1939, as we all know.
How about “Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are”?
Good sentiment, entirely bass-ackwards from reality.
Since about 4 billion years ago.
I don’t see an error here. “South of Mobile,” well was the man heading toward the gulf or returning from the gulf? Did people in the Mobile area stay away from the Gulf of Mexico at the time the song was written?
And the lyrics as you’ve quoted them say “on the east side of Chicago,” not “east of Chicago.” Aren’t those two very different places? Of course a cop can patrol the east side of a city, regardless of what lies beyond the city’s eastern boundaries.
[sorry, dual posts.]
[Mod Hat] People here can be extremely literal-minded when it comes to song lyrics, but please hold off on the insults.[/Mod Hat]
My nomination comes from the wandering minstrels of Green Day, who told us in Boulevard Of Broken Dreams:
My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
…so far so good, the guy is by himself, no problem…
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
… what? What else does he expect to be beating?
It’s “take up arms.” I suppose it’s a mixed. Then again maybe it suggests the story of King Canute, or maybe nitpicking ‘To be or not to be’ is just not a good idea. 
Very annoying. They could have easily rewritten it, and everybody was playing that song for months around here.
It’s the definitely “the tattoo, too,” meaning they have the same tattoo. I believe in the music video they both had tattoos of the Heartbreakers logo. All the lyrics of that song are written in a very simplistic manner to suggest that the protagonist is kind of a rube and doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. Great song as far as I’m concerned.
The only problem with the song is the “but.” The stuff he won’t do doesn’t contradict the stuff he says he’ll do for love. I only heard the song one time (too bad I can’t say that for some of his other work) and I got this. The only challenge is getting to the end of the song in the first place, because he explains the whole thing.
But I am a little surprised nobody’s mentioned I Am, I Said. That’s usually a mainstay in these discussions because of that line “‘I am,’ I said, to no one there/And no one heard at all, Not even the chair.” If you wanted to defend Neil Diamond I guess you could say he was being ironic.
What I can’t defend is this deathless couplet from Neil’s “Play Me”:
Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me
Sorry, but no amount of “poetic license” can excuse this.
90% of the examples in this thread are either whooshes, or perfectly acceptable poetic license.
But Conquistador is not pronounced kon-KWIST-uh-door.
A) Of course
B) Uh, are we sure they’re boobies? Michael Stipe is a homo.
I’ll add another one that’s more a question of “register”, which in linguistics means the appropriate tone of formality, etc. of a word or phrase:
There’s a line near the end of the Moody Blues album Days of Future Passed:
Senior citizens wish they were young
The phrase “senior citizen” is such a bureaucratic, sterile euphemism (and was so in 1969) that doesn’t fit in at all with the poetic register of the rest of the piece. They could have so easily said “grandfathers and mothers” or something.
He is, in his own words, “an equal opportunity lech.”
(And the song is, after all, about skinny-dipping.)
And, where I’m from, “mooning” always refers to buttocks.
When this song came out Stipe was still saying that he was an “equal opportunity lech,” had relationships with both men and women, and that he did not define himself as gay, straight, or bi. I believe he now identifies as gay, but that some time after that song came out.
That grates on my ears too (or used to, anyway; after 40 years I’ve gotten quite used to it), but it’s actually the correct British pronunciation.
Good point. Hadn’t thought of it that way,
That’s what makes REM lyrics great. Open to multiple interpretations.
Hey, don’t look at me. I was just pointing out to Mister Owl that yes, ‘poetic license’ had been bruited about already in this thread.
My understanding is that the moon’s path around the sun is always concave: in other words, it’s defensible to say that the moon does orbit around the sun (just weaving it’s orbit with the earth’s).