’Net Junkie
Misheard lyrics
good for laughsFew things make me stifle a mounting eruption of laughter like someone nearby butchering a song with lyrics that make absolutely no sense at all. For a nice chuckle, log onto www. kissthisguy.com, as in "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy," that famously misquoted line from Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze."
Cyber-surfers are encouraged to submit their own misinterpreted lyrics, such as this line taken from the Commodores' hit "Brick House": "See that brick -- ouch! / She's my tomato / Let it all hang out," as well as a few more from Madonna ("Like a virgin / Touched for the thirty-first time") and a couple of mangled Prince jams like "Raspberry Beret" ("Rags, baby, hooray / The kind you find in a secondhand store.")
These people should figure that a professional party animal like Billy Idol has no interest in "Eisenhower's Face" and that the Ramones never said "I Wanna Piece of Danish," or "I Wanna Piece of Date Bread." (That was the Fat Boys, if I'm not mistaken.) The Go-Go's sang "Our Lips Are Sealed," not "I Licked a Seal," "I Love Lucille" or "Harlots of Steel."
Although I'd imagine most of us know that one slurred line in "Every Breath You Take" from the Police as "How my poor heart aches," a couple of contributors admit to misinterpreting it as "I'm a pool hall ace" and, get this, "How my poo hole aches."
And really, can you imagine Stevie Wonder singing "Me and you / My apartheid lover" or this confession by Boy George in "Karma Chameleon": "I'm a man without conditioner ..."
If Michael Jackson's eccentricities weren't puzzling enough, the lyrics to "Billie Jean" were downright confounding for one contributor, who could've sworn Michael was singing "Billie Jean's not my brother / He's just a girl who says that I am the one / He's the jealous rabbi's son."
The lyrics to Janet Jackson's songs were equally strange, claims another participant known as Dawn, who thought the words to "Nasty" went "Basketball, basketball / Don't mean a thing / Oh, you basketball!"
"I was singing it at work one day, and everyone else started giggling," she writes to kissthisguy.com. "I always thought the video should have had basketball players shooting hoops or something, then I found out why not."
I've got just two words for you, Dawn: karaoke bar.
’Net Junkie drops every Monday.
Contact Shawn "Speedy" Lopes at slopes@starbulletin.com.
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