Songs not named what you thought

Cafe Society
101

The Cowsills song is not called, “I Love the Flower Girl,” but, “The Rain, the Park and Other Things.”

102

“Ozone Baby,” the catchiest song on the Led Zeppelin rejects album Coda, never mentions these inane words. It should be called “It’s My Love” or “My Own True Love.”

Robert Plant’s solo semi-hits in the early 80s, “Burning Down One Side” and “Pledge Pin,” are similarly misnamed.

103

Recently I’ve heard a couple of songs by New Order: “Blue Monday” (“How does it feel”) and “Bizarre Love Triangle” (“Every time I see you falling I get down on my knees and pray”).

104

I’ve got a bigger digression. Years ago I worked at a small-town newspaper. A prominent citizen had died. In the extensive story about the funeral, the editor wrote that the hymn “I Come to the Garden Alone” had been sung. I was proofreading and corrected it to “In the Garden.” He argued with me, his cite being that he was the son of a minister. I asked a woman in the advertising department to weigh in, and she agreed with me. He refused to change it until she went home to get the sheet music.

As his own story stated, the ad lady had sung the song at the service.

105

Van Halen “The Full Bug” (“best part of a man”)
Van Halen “I’m The One” (“show your love”)
Green Day “Basket Case” (“Do you have the time”)
Green Day “Brain Stew” (“I’m having trouble trying to sleep”)

I can’t think of a single AC/DC song that fits in this category.

106

God bless 'em, but they were never known fur subtlety.

107

Does spoken word count?

My millennial kid actually buys CDs. He was playing me some stand up from David Cross in the car, and we were both cracking up.

Later I was trying to find a particular routine, and looked at the tracks… well, let’s just say the names didn’t help. They had nothing to do with what he’d been talking about.

It’s Not Funny • David Cross • Track listing:

  1. Certain Leaders in Government Look or Act like Certain Pop Culture References! – 4:51
  2. Women, Please Rinse Off Your Vagina and Anus! – 5:10
  3. I’ve Taken a Popular Contemporary Pop Song and Changed the Lyrics to Comment on the Proliferation of Starbucks in My Neighborhood! – 3:16
  4. A Rapid Series of Comical Noises! – 3:57
  5. Although Indigent, Rural Families Have Little to Say in the Matter, Third Rate Public Education Has Kept Them Ignorant and Thus, Great Sources of Ridicule! – 2:48
  6. My Child is Enthralling, Especially When It Says Something Unexpectedly Precocious Even Though It Doesn’t Understand What It Just Said! – 8:38
  7. My Immigrant Mom Talks Funny! – 13:37
  8. When It Comes to Jews, Behavior One Might Perceive as Obnoxious and Annoying I Present as ‘Quirky’ but It’s Okay to Joke About It Because I, Myself, Am Jewish! – 6:01
  9. Pandering to the Locals! – 7:13
  10. Even Though I Am in the Closet, That Won’t Prevent Me from Getting Cheap Laughs at the Expense of Homosexuals! – 2:37
  11. Weathermen Have Become, for the Most Part, Obsolete! – 2:53
  12. When All is Said and Done, I am Lonely and Miserable and Barely Able to Mask My Contempt for the Audience as I Trot Out the Same Sorry Act I’ve Been Doing Since the Mid-Eighties! – 12:51
108

For years, I thought Green Day had recorded a second, slower version of “Basket Case,” with different lyrics and a slightly altered melody. Imagine my surprise at learning that the “slower version” was actually Blind Melon’s “No Rain.”