I've told this story before, but when our daughter was young (around four years old) if she heard a song on the radio that she liked, she would walk around the house repeating the lyrics incessantly. For weeks. The first day or two, it was cute. By the ninth day, it was pure, unstoppable torment. She was a fiendish human ear worm, sent to punish us.
Much to our chagrin (well, mostly my wife's chagrin, because I thought it was funny) somewhere along the line she heard the song "Baby Got Back" by the great lyricist Paul Simon. No, sorry, my mistake -- it was Sir Mix-a-Lot. (I believe he was knighted in the same ceremony as Elton John.)
To avoid any confusion, the song is not about an infant with shockingly well-developed lats.
Anyway, part of the song goes: "I like big butts and I cannot lie." Sure, not exactly Smokey Robinson, Carole King or even McCartney, and I don't think Sinatra would croon it, but it is Lincolnesque in its honesty. (Historical note: Phat Abe did not like big butts. By all accounts, Mary Todd's was a medium butt.)
Our daughter was enthralled by this lyric and repeated it, at max volume, everywhere we went. Grocery store. Neighbor's house. Sunday school class. And how proud we were!
Except: she didn't have the words quite right. She thought the lyric was:
"I like big butts in a cave at night." Only she said it: "I LIKE BIG BUTTS IN A CAVE AT NIIIIIIIIGHT!" Maximum big butt decibels.
Honestly, the cave at night location makes it a far more disturbing version than the original, perhaps the ballad of a hip hop serial killer or a debauched spelunker. (You know how I feel about spelunkers.) We couldn't make her stop singing it. I distinctly remember we took a family ferry ride one Saturday on the Susquehanna and for 3/4 of the time, my wife tried and failed to shush her and eventually held a towel over our daughter's mouth to muffle the repeating big butt caving public service announcement.
If I had known that Max was stymied for article topics -- this turned out to be an excellent one -- I would have asked him to write about the etymology of the non-word supposably, why so many people think it is a word and by what mechanism (crop duster chemtrails?) they can be forced to stop saying it in polite company.
When our oldest boy was 3 (1973) we were in a grocery store with him riding in the cart. In my utter stupidity I had been playing an album by Dr Hook and the Medicine Show with the kids listening in the house. Hook had some pretty ballads ("Sylvia's Mother Said", "Only Sixteen", "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman"), but they also had some raunchy material.
So as we enter an aisle with three old ladies pushing their carts, the boy lets out loudly, "All the fags and the dykes are boogying together!" The ladies were shocked. I was mortified! Shirley coulda shot me. I watched what I played in front of the kids from then on!
I got it. VanWarmer had his moments. If you aren't familiar with it already, check out Michael Johnson singing VanWarmer's "I Will Whisper Your Name" on his "That's That" album. Actually the whole album is something of a little-known gem.
Ah, after our oldest son was born I realized one of my favorite phrases was "Son of a b..." from the movie "Silver Streak". Knowing we would be visiting his great grandmother often, I cleaned up my act. Whew! He never repeated such things in front of relatives. I was glad I had figured out that young people are parrots.
I may have told this story before as well. When my son was learning to talk, he was still in diapers. I had a busy day around the house and he was playing contentedly, so I didn't notice the "bouquet" coming from his diaper for a while. By the time I got around to changing it, the contents were rather...sticky...and I mumbled to myself, "Oh, Andrew, you've got dingleberries!"
Remember, he was just learning to talk, and even words like "truck" came out more like "fwuck," to my complete embarrassment.
The next day, I was standing in line at the bank, Andrew in tow, in the early afternoon with all the little old ladies cashing their Social Security checks. Andrew decided it was the perfect time to proudly advise the world that "I got dingleberries!" in his loudest voice. Perfect enunciation - from the child who couldn't pronounce "truck" properly, but had no problem with a 4-syllable behemoth. Suffice it to say, I was horror-struck and spent the next week waiting for Social Services to appear at my door.
A local radio host told of a winter dinner out with wife and young son. The waiting area was crowded and stifling. The puffy coated little master badly wanted out of his oven and repeatedly screamed jacket off, jacket off to the amusement not of his mother.
Imagine your daughter going around with you in public chanting-out the "f-word," the "n-word" and quite a few others including calling for the offing of cops.
As for Sir Mix-a-Lot's taste, well...all I can say is "Lizzo."
My uncle Bud flew crop dusters out in Texas. Made a good living at it. I'd put you in touch with him, but unfortunately he is no longer with us. Died a natural death BTW. By natural, I don't mean crop dusting.
In 1968, the drunk lead singer of Iron Butterfly sang "In the garden of Eden," but it came out famously as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." The lead singer of the Georgia band REM, Michael Stipe, took three or four albums to enunciate his lyrics; his nickname for himself was "Mumbles." Worse, REM never printed their lyrics on the CD liner. I was a big fan of Elton John in the 70s; he always sang the lyrics clearly and they were excellent, because they were written by Bernie Taupin. Elton couldn't write lyrics to save his life, but he could write music to lyrics, which seems much more difficult than adapting words to fit the music.
The apparent ease with which someone like George Gershwin could whip out a tune is product of his years of preparation as a musician; his brother Ira had to come up with a lyric in days or weeks.
Like George Gershwin, Elton John studied music for a lifetime before he wrote those tunes.
"I was a big fan of Elton John in the 70s; he always sang the lyrics clearly and they were excellent, because they were written by Bernie Taupin." Me too, still am.
Rush (the radio broadcaster, not the rock band) paid Elton John to sing at Rush's wedding.
I loved the song "Levon" but for the life of me, I could not figure it out nor make out the lyrics.
"Levon wears his war wound like a crown." To me that was "Leon wears a possum like a crown." I pictured a possum hat similar to a raccoon hat.
"He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day,
when the New York Times said God is dead and the war's begun.
Alvin Tostig has a son today."
To me that was "He was born a father to a pond on a Christmas Day, when the New York Times said God is dead, and the world's begun, Allen tossed his son away."
I remember riding in Dad's Corvair when "Levon" played on the radio. After we heard "Levon wears his war wound like a crown," my father said "just like Mr. [redacted]." He took Uncle Sam's free South Pacific tour and had no patience for those who "think they won the war singlehanded." He told me the ones who did the most talked the least, which was wisdom I did not fully appreciate at the time.
Yes. I was close with a gentleman who fought in Germany in WWII — he only talked about it once with me and only briefly. In one sentence, he mentioned one of his friends who had died taking out a tank. That was it.
Darn close, Tony, you're darn close. In all seriousness, my first album of any kind was Elton's "Madman Across the Water." I still listen to it all the way through.
The Cream album Disraeli Gears got its title from another malapropism. They were discussing racing bicycles, and their roadie Mick Turner blurted out something about Disraeli gears instead of derailleur gears. After laughing they used it for the album title.
As a youth I'd never heard about Ben Disraeli so I didn't understand the British angle anyway.
I knew from the get go of today’s column when Max mentions resorting to “booger jokes” that something must snot be right. Knowing that he resides in a hot dusty Arizona town, his difficulty can only be attributed to a drive he took last evening …. 🎶
Lololol. The desert is a bizarre place, apparently full of horses that have no name. Believe me, when Max gets up in the morning, his hair could profit from a good dollop of Cool Whip.
Yes, the desert has always fascinated me. I've been to Death Valley many times.
In spring it is a paradise. Butterflies all around enjoying the brief bloom of the plants. Yet so forbidding in summer. Sort of an inverse of northern Minnesota which is barren in winter.
I don't think I ever saw that commercial, but I always heard the words "cat box" when that song came on. Little did I know at the time that I would someday be the proprietor of six cat boxes. 😻
“We don’t do booger jokes at PQ, which is a Substack of Substance, which is why, as an alternative…”
Well lah de friggin’ dah! You had my hopes up Max. Too high and mighty for booger jokes at the Substance Substack? [Actually I applaud Max. Booger jokes have no place at this place. Upstream from politics is no place for boogers although Seinfeld got a whole episode out of nosepicking and certainly has had a political influence downstream but…]
Just one booger offering from the original “True Grit,” John Wayne playing Rooster Cogburn: (Rooster is under the influence of quite a bit of corn liquor.)
Matty Ross: “You’re useless in this condition. I’ll walk over there by myself.”
Rooster: “You scared of the dark?”
Matty: “I’ve never been scared of the dark.”
Rooster: “Well if I had a big horse pistol like that, I wouldn’t be scared of no booger man.”
Matty: “I’m not scared of no booger man.”
In my yute it was “boogie man,” not “booger man.” Perhaps that was a North Minneapolis thing. And thankfully, because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we now have booger women. I can think of quite a few that qualify. But on to more highbrow stuff.
“I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.
She showed me her room, isn’t it good, Norwegian Wood.
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn’t and crawled off to sleep in the bath.
And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown.
So I lit a fire, isn’t it good, Norwegian Wood.”
Max. The meaning of the song is plain enough. A bit of arson done in frustration.
And you brought up “bugger.” Winston Churchill had a saying, “KBO, keep buggering on.” I’ve been told many times, even by a few Englishmen what “buggering” is, but nonetheless, the great English statesman even used the expression in front of the King…at least Churchill did so in the film “Into the Storm” with Brendon Gleeson doing a great job portraying Churchill. Keep buggering on…it will keep the booger man away.
—-
Another excellent and thought-provoking column and Thursday morning musical interlude from acclaimed author Max Cossack.
Well, yes, Louie Louie's "Three chords and a monotonous beat—imbecilic" . . . but the genius was that anybody could play it . . . and by extension any three-chord song (C was best because no pesky sharps or flats). A few of us figured that out early. I was in the best garage band in a thirty-mile radius when I was 16, back in '63, just after Louie Louie was released. We played all the teen hops (and drunken Rotary and Elks parties for those elders who wanted to think young while drinking more than Pepsi). It was a sweet gig, all with three chords. It was Money for Nothing ($75 a night total for the four-man band), although pre-Summer of Love days, sadly, the chicks were not free.
Yes, I remember now, just after Mr Gehrig's last heartfelt word and tear, teammate Babe Ruth could only sob, "Oh, Louis, Louis." As many others have remarked, what are the odds of Lou Gehrig dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. I apologize for the tastelessness; apparently they are right, really old people seem to lose their filters.
When I was a youth I first learned about Portland cement. I thought it was named after Portland, Oregon. Later I learned this wasn't the case so I thought maybe Portland, Maine. Finally I learned the truth: it was named for Portland, England.
You grew up on the music of Mozart and Beethoven, which over the years, people have said makes one smarter. I can't help but think some music is designed to make people stupider. Like music in casinos or mind-numbing TV ads, to diminish judgment, and separate people from their money.
That might also be why some lyrics are hard to discern--they weren't meant to be.
That on-hold music that some companies furnish to a customer on the phone has the opposite effect as that of a sedative on me. The only thing associated with that call that is more enraging is the constant repetition of "Your call is very important to us . . ."!
When I first started a business, I was surprised to have a customer tell me, "That's great music you have while you're on hold. No one plays old country music for you when you're on hold, thank you."
Since my phone wasn't connected to anything, I was surprised, so I called my wife at my office and she put me on hold. Immediately, the local AM country station came on. Knowing my clientele, I figured it was a good deal and did nothing.
After a few weeks, though, it sometimes started intruding on phone calls so I called the radio station and asked them what was up. They laughed and said that apparently when the ran the phone wires up to my top floor office they had created an antenna. I called the phone company, expecting disbelief, but apparently it had happened before. They came right over and fixed it easily - but I have no idea how.
Yeah, true, but at LEAST you might have had some FUN the night before...there is NOTHING fun about being on Hold for half an hour while waiting for a person in India to pretend to be on-site at the place you are calling. AG
I was never a very studious student (I could have left the 'very' off that) during high school, but finally graduating I joined the Navy where in my off duty hours I spent my time mostly doing nuttin, or drinking. By the time of my discharge, three and a half years later, my brain had become a fully formed brick.
Having nothing better to do, and now having the G.I. Bill in my pocket, I squeezed by the SAT and miraculously began my first year of college.
Taking English Lit. 101 in that first year, the professor assigned the class the task of writing a one page essay (no more, no less) with the topic being - 'anything.' My brick for a brain could think of nuttin, but after many hours of anxiety ridden consternation I finally sat down and simply wrote one full page on why I was writing an essay.
The paper was returned to me with more than a few red marks on it, with redundancy being the primary culprit of the writing rules I had broken. I had never, ever even heard the word 'redundancy' before then.
Nevertheless there was an 'A' at the top of the page. Turns out the professor so enjoyed reading my simple essay that he had read it aloud to the class (I happened to be absent that day - thank God) as an example of what he had been hoping for. What that was I'm still not sure.
My relationship with that professor over the remainder of that semester contains many stories, all of them somewhat funny, somewhat miraculous, and for me very fruitful. I even met his wife in a most unusual coincidence one day.
I got an 'A' for the semester. And that guy was not an easy 'A' kinda professor.
I write all of this simply to say, yes Max, I can relate to that feeling of not knowing what to write when under pressure. And like me, you have brilliantly passed the test. ;-)
For years, whenever I heard the Flamingos singing "I only have eyes for you.." I always thought that the background refrain of "she bop she bop" was " Beelezebub".
I feel the same way about a lot of today's movies. Mumbling your words is considered acting. If we watch one of these wretched movies we always have to have the captions on to follow the story. I always loved to watch Richard Burton act because he made sure every word was pronounced clearly and with emphasis. When God said, "Let there be light," I'm sure he was clearly understood.
One of the coolest experiences of our 62 years together (59 married) was winning two tickets to a concert in 1973 in Madison Square Garden with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and Jay and the Americans...
Oh, what a night,
late December back in sixty-three
what a very special time for me,
as I remember, what a night.
Oh, what a night, you know I didn't even know her name,
but I was never gonna be the same;
what a lady, what a night.
Oh, I, I got a funny feelin' when she walked in the room.
There is actually a more-or-less accepted word for misheard lyrics: mondegreens. It stems from someone hearing an old English ballad that went, "They have slain the Earl of Moray and laid him on the green" as "They have slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen."
I guess I should ask a question: what's the word that describes when an acronym becomes a word in its own right? I'm thinking radar, scuba, Fiat, and Alfa. I think Max once told me but I forgot.
So wonderful to see a young and healthy-ish John Prine. However with that overflowing ashtray and a cigarette in his mouth, it is not difficult to pinpoint the source of his health problems. Man, we loved him. When our little boy was 2, he would sing along with the song, "There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes..." We thought about taking him around to bars to sing that -- wouldn't be a dry eye in the house and maybe we could get some cash for his future (wasted) college fund. AG
"Hello in There" is one of the most heart-tugging songs of all time. Especially their son, Davie, who "died in the Korean War -- we still don't know what for." AG
In Linda Ronstad’s recording of “Different Drum” she explains a benefit of ending a relationship. I heard - We'll both live a lot longer if you limit our laundry. Sure, some savings of soap and water, but a lot longer life?
Years passed before I gained respect for writer Mike Nesmith.
She did, but she never quit the politics. We went to hear her live and local, where she spent part of her time criticizing the US President of that time (GW Bush I think). I don’t really care about any performer’s politics and wish she had left it at home!
Thankfully there was none of that in the early seventies when Linda and Jackson Brown played the Guthrie Theater. Or maybe I was still brainwashed enough not to notice. She sure was cute in her Cub Scout outfit.
Hahaha. Though for many of his teenage years, my son was about as conversational as a chair -- and not the one Neil Diamond was talking to when he was surprised it didn't answer. AG
I remember laughing out loud when I first heard that line from "I Am, I Said." The song was trying to be oh so serious when out pops that line about the uncaring deaf chair. At his best, Diamond was pretty good, but he could at times definitely lean toward the pretentious.
I've told this story before, but when our daughter was young (around four years old) if she heard a song on the radio that she liked, she would walk around the house repeating the lyrics incessantly. For weeks. The first day or two, it was cute. By the ninth day, it was pure, unstoppable torment. She was a fiendish human ear worm, sent to punish us.
Much to our chagrin (well, mostly my wife's chagrin, because I thought it was funny) somewhere along the line she heard the song "Baby Got Back" by the great lyricist Paul Simon. No, sorry, my mistake -- it was Sir Mix-a-Lot. (I believe he was knighted in the same ceremony as Elton John.)
To avoid any confusion, the song is not about an infant with shockingly well-developed lats.
Anyway, part of the song goes: "I like big butts and I cannot lie." Sure, not exactly Smokey Robinson, Carole King or even McCartney, and I don't think Sinatra would croon it, but it is Lincolnesque in its honesty. (Historical note: Phat Abe did not like big butts. By all accounts, Mary Todd's was a medium butt.)
Our daughter was enthralled by this lyric and repeated it, at max volume, everywhere we went. Grocery store. Neighbor's house. Sunday school class. And how proud we were!
Except: she didn't have the words quite right. She thought the lyric was:
"I like big butts in a cave at night." Only she said it: "I LIKE BIG BUTTS IN A CAVE AT NIIIIIIIIGHT!" Maximum big butt decibels.
Honestly, the cave at night location makes it a far more disturbing version than the original, perhaps the ballad of a hip hop serial killer or a debauched spelunker. (You know how I feel about spelunkers.) We couldn't make her stop singing it. I distinctly remember we took a family ferry ride one Saturday on the Susquehanna and for 3/4 of the time, my wife tried and failed to shush her and eventually held a towel over our daughter's mouth to muffle the repeating big butt caving public service announcement.
If I had known that Max was stymied for article topics -- this turned out to be an excellent one -- I would have asked him to write about the etymology of the non-word supposably, why so many people think it is a word and by what mechanism (crop duster chemtrails?) they can be forced to stop saying it in polite company.
When our oldest boy was 3 (1973) we were in a grocery store with him riding in the cart. In my utter stupidity I had been playing an album by Dr Hook and the Medicine Show with the kids listening in the house. Hook had some pretty ballads ("Sylvia's Mother Said", "Only Sixteen", "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman"), but they also had some raunchy material.
So as we enter an aisle with three old ladies pushing their carts, the boy lets out loudly, "All the fags and the dykes are boogying together!" The ladies were shocked. I was mortified! Shirley coulda shot me. I watched what I played in front of the kids from then on!
Ol' Mel
For some stupid reason this reminds me of our own 7-year-old son riding in the back seat, who wanted to know, "Why, Dad?"
"Why what?"
"Why does he need a Jew most?"
Somehow I forgot to include that in my post today.
Yeah, but you really have to explain what the lyric is:
"You left me, just when I needed you most."
Say it kind of fast and you'll see the problem. It's pretty funny, actually.
AG
I followed the same principle as in the post itself: no explanations.
People either know the song or they don't.
Never complain, never explain.
I got it. VanWarmer had his moments. If you aren't familiar with it already, check out Michael Johnson singing VanWarmer's "I Will Whisper Your Name" on his "That's That" album. Actually the whole album is something of a little-known gem.
"You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille." Good song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kulJsH8v0ok&list=RDkulJsH8v0ok&start_radio=1
Also the humorous follow on, "You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel.":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJIn6gMlo6A&list=RDmJIn6gMlo6A&start_radio=1
(The video is FUNNY)
Lyrics:
In a car in Minnesota a rusty Toyota, he just got done fixing his flat
I thought I'd get closer so I pulled on over, he just let it down off the Jack
He looked at the spare and said it in despair I hope that those lug nuts are tight
Let me tell you Daddy I'd like to drive a caddy were the words as he got in and drove out of sight
On the freeway I saw him and I closely watched him, his front wheel started to shake
He did a 180 and hit an old lady, she ended up in the lake
He flew off the Ridge and into the bridge, for a minute I thought he was dead
But he started kicking just like a dead chicken, he turned to the old car and said
You pick to find time to leave me loose wheel, you should be bolted to my automobile
My legs are all broken, that old lady soaking, it might take me 6 months to heal
You picked to find time to leave me loose wheel
And after I left him I started to question if I should be driving at all
So I sold my car, now I don't go far, and sometimes I don't go at all
The heel was loose on my old pair of shoes, and one day it finally let go
It happened so fast I fell flat on my a** now my butt's in a sling, and there's a cast on my toe
You picked a find time to leave me loose heel
I feel like I slipped on a banana peel
I don't get much action lying here in traction
How did I get such a deal
You pick to find time to leave me loose heel
Funny!
Ah, after our oldest son was born I realized one of my favorite phrases was "Son of a b..." from the movie "Silver Streak". Knowing we would be visiting his great grandmother often, I cleaned up my act. Whew! He never repeated such things in front of relatives. I was glad I had figured out that young people are parrots.
"We bad!"
"Darn right!"
I may have told this story before as well. When my son was learning to talk, he was still in diapers. I had a busy day around the house and he was playing contentedly, so I didn't notice the "bouquet" coming from his diaper for a while. By the time I got around to changing it, the contents were rather...sticky...and I mumbled to myself, "Oh, Andrew, you've got dingleberries!"
Remember, he was just learning to talk, and even words like "truck" came out more like "fwuck," to my complete embarrassment.
The next day, I was standing in line at the bank, Andrew in tow, in the early afternoon with all the little old ladies cashing their Social Security checks. Andrew decided it was the perfect time to proudly advise the world that "I got dingleberries!" in his loudest voice. Perfect enunciation - from the child who couldn't pronounce "truck" properly, but had no problem with a 4-syllable behemoth. Suffice it to say, I was horror-struck and spent the next week waiting for Social Services to appear at my door.
A local radio host told of a winter dinner out with wife and young son. The waiting area was crowded and stifling. The puffy coated little master badly wanted out of his oven and repeatedly screamed jacket off, jacket off to the amusement not of his mother.
It could have been worse Mayo Man.
Imagine your daughter going around with you in public chanting-out the "f-word," the "n-word" and quite a few others including calling for the offing of cops.
As for Sir Mix-a-Lot's taste, well...all I can say is "Lizzo."
Your daughter mistook "bats" for "butts." An understandable mistake. Could happen to anyone.
My uncle Bud flew crop dusters out in Texas. Made a good living at it. I'd put you in touch with him, but unfortunately he is no longer with us. Died a natural death BTW. By natural, I don't mean crop dusting.
In 1968, the drunk lead singer of Iron Butterfly sang "In the garden of Eden," but it came out famously as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." The lead singer of the Georgia band REM, Michael Stipe, took three or four albums to enunciate his lyrics; his nickname for himself was "Mumbles." Worse, REM never printed their lyrics on the CD liner. I was a big fan of Elton John in the 70s; he always sang the lyrics clearly and they were excellent, because they were written by Bernie Taupin. Elton couldn't write lyrics to save his life, but he could write music to lyrics, which seems much more difficult than adapting words to fit the music.
The apparent ease with which someone like George Gershwin could whip out a tune is product of his years of preparation as a musician; his brother Ira had to come up with a lyric in days or weeks.
Like George Gershwin, Elton John studied music for a lifetime before he wrote those tunes.
Gershwin and Elton in the same sentence. WOW. On 2nd thought, yeah, I can agree.
Gershwin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dckMqpouKU
Dvorak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3EhNGQb8ww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRtNpTW9uFg
Loved the YoYo Ma, Perlman, Seiji Ozawa.
Perlman can play any style
Klezmer with Andy Statman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXDXs_A7wEU
Bluegrass with John Denver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk2eR1epPMs
Ragtime with Andre Previn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBtzJyS_0Vk
Dvorak only died last week. I learned so much about computers from him.
Wrong keyboard
That was his uncle's design.
Good morning Tim.
"I was a big fan of Elton John in the 70s; he always sang the lyrics clearly and they were excellent, because they were written by Bernie Taupin." Me too, still am.
Rush (the radio broadcaster, not the rock band) paid Elton John to sing at Rush's wedding.
I loved the song "Levon" but for the life of me, I could not figure it out nor make out the lyrics.
"Levon wears his war wound like a crown." To me that was "Leon wears a possum like a crown." I pictured a possum hat similar to a raccoon hat.
"He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day,
when the New York Times said God is dead and the war's begun.
Alvin Tostig has a son today."
To me that was "He was born a father to a pond on a Christmas Day, when the New York Times said God is dead, and the world's begun, Allen tossed his son away."
(I didn't have no fancy hi-fi equipment.)
I remember riding in Dad's Corvair when "Levon" played on the radio. After we heard "Levon wears his war wound like a crown," my father said "just like Mr. [redacted]." He took Uncle Sam's free South Pacific tour and had no patience for those who "think they won the war singlehanded." He told me the ones who did the most talked the least, which was wisdom I did not fully appreciate at the time.
Everybody talking 'bout Heaven ain't going there.
Oh hell...
There's country song:
"Everybody wants to go to Heaven,
"But nobody wants to leave right now."
Joe Diffie, "Prop me up beside the jukebox" and the lyric is "Lord, I want to go to Heaven but I don't want to go tonight"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p2UtA5HCG8
Nobody is.
Yes. I was close with a gentleman who fought in Germany in WWII — he only talked about it once with me and only briefly. In one sentence, he mentioned one of his friends who had died taking out a tank. That was it.
Darn close, Tony, you're darn close. In all seriousness, my first album of any kind was Elton's "Madman Across the Water." I still listen to it all the way through.
The Cream album Disraeli Gears got its title from another malapropism. They were discussing racing bicycles, and their roadie Mick Turner blurted out something about Disraeli gears instead of derailleur gears. After laughing they used it for the album title.
As a youth I'd never heard about Ben Disraeli so I didn't understand the British angle anyway.
I think Elton John (stage name) was a play on Elmore James.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzr1Rfn-P4Y
David Jones took the stage name of David Bowie because he admired the design of the knife.
There is always “Oop Shoup”
I knew from the get go of today’s column when Max mentions resorting to “booger jokes” that something must snot be right. Knowing that he resides in a hot dusty Arizona town, his difficulty can only be attributed to a drive he took last evening …. 🎶
On a dark desert highway,
Cool Whip in his hair
Lololol. The desert is a bizarre place, apparently full of horses that have no name. Believe me, when Max gets up in the morning, his hair could profit from a good dollop of Cool Whip.
AG
Yes, the desert has always fascinated me. I've been to Death Valley many times.
In spring it is a paradise. Butterflies all around enjoying the brief bloom of the plants. Yet so forbidding in summer. Sort of an inverse of northern Minnesota which is barren in winter.
“Lock the taskbar, lock the taskbar.”
(“Rockin’ the Casbah, rock the Casbah.”)
Tracy, You of all people! Don't you remember the commercial for some HiFi audio equipment with the guy mouthing the words "stop the cat box"?
I don't think I ever saw that commercial, but I always heard the words "cat box" when that song came on. Little did I know at the time that I would someday be the proprietor of six cat boxes. 😻
Found it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khVRAO8N-4E
Cute! Thanks. A bonus: "Losing My Religion" came up right after the ad -- a favorite song.
Actually he was galloping a horse with no name. They tend to foam a bit at the mouth and nose if they get really hot.
No name ??!!??? But of course! I should have known.
All these years of wondering how he held on to a horse with no mane ….
Now I'm starting to get suspicious that No Name steaks are horse meat!
Oops! Memo to self: when you return from the grocery store, ALWAYS read ALL the comments before weighing in...AG
"Is that a diamond in your nose?"
"No, it's snot."
“We don’t do booger jokes at PQ, which is a Substack of Substance, which is why, as an alternative…”
Well lah de friggin’ dah! You had my hopes up Max. Too high and mighty for booger jokes at the Substance Substack? [Actually I applaud Max. Booger jokes have no place at this place. Upstream from politics is no place for boogers although Seinfeld got a whole episode out of nosepicking and certainly has had a political influence downstream but…]
Just one booger offering from the original “True Grit,” John Wayne playing Rooster Cogburn: (Rooster is under the influence of quite a bit of corn liquor.)
Matty Ross: “You’re useless in this condition. I’ll walk over there by myself.”
Rooster: “You scared of the dark?”
Matty: “I’ve never been scared of the dark.”
Rooster: “Well if I had a big horse pistol like that, I wouldn’t be scared of no booger man.”
Matty: “I’m not scared of no booger man.”
In my yute it was “boogie man,” not “booger man.” Perhaps that was a North Minneapolis thing. And thankfully, because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we now have booger women. I can think of quite a few that qualify. But on to more highbrow stuff.
“I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.
She showed me her room, isn’t it good, Norwegian Wood.
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn’t and crawled off to sleep in the bath.
And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown.
So I lit a fire, isn’t it good, Norwegian Wood.”
Max. The meaning of the song is plain enough. A bit of arson done in frustration.
And you brought up “bugger.” Winston Churchill had a saying, “KBO, keep buggering on.” I’ve been told many times, even by a few Englishmen what “buggering” is, but nonetheless, the great English statesman even used the expression in front of the King…at least Churchill did so in the film “Into the Storm” with Brendon Gleeson doing a great job portraying Churchill. Keep buggering on…it will keep the booger man away.
—-
Another excellent and thought-provoking column and Thursday morning musical interlude from acclaimed author Max Cossack.
A good friend from college later earned a PhD in entomology, which he describes as "a doctorate in buggery".
So that's what Churchill meant.
Churchill had an entire staff at Bletchley Park doing bugging of the Germans.
I read that a common cheap wood wall paneling back then was from Norway, hence the woman's apartment paneled in "Norwegian Wood".
Well, yes, Louie Louie's "Three chords and a monotonous beat—imbecilic" . . . but the genius was that anybody could play it . . . and by extension any three-chord song (C was best because no pesky sharps or flats). A few of us figured that out early. I was in the best garage band in a thirty-mile radius when I was 16, back in '63, just after Louie Louie was released. We played all the teen hops (and drunken Rotary and Elks parties for those elders who wanted to think young while drinking more than Pepsi). It was a sweet gig, all with three chords. It was Money for Nothing ($75 a night total for the four-man band), although pre-Summer of Love days, sadly, the chicks were not free.
That was good money then.
Radio stations used to have marathons and would play various covers of "Louis, Louis" all weekend.
Was that Louis XIV or Louis XVI? The Sun God, or the headless one? (Sorry, could not help myself.)
The song was about the luckiest man in the world, Louis Gehrig.
Yes, I remember now, just after Mr Gehrig's last heartfelt word and tear, teammate Babe Ruth could only sob, "Oh, Louis, Louis." As many others have remarked, what are the odds of Lou Gehrig dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. I apologize for the tastelessness; apparently they are right, really old people seem to lose their filters.
What are the chances that the disease called "Lime Disease" originated in a town called Lime, CT?
Max :
100 percent. |
And then there were illnesses that were named for places we thought they came from and so we didn't like.
Spanish flu.
German measles.
Chy-na virus.
"Oh dirty Maggie Mae, she always took our breath away.
And she never walks-down Lime Street anymore."
The Monkees played that in the film "Let It Be."
It would be even more spectacularly coincidental if it were Lyme, CT. Autocorrect?
When I was a youth I first learned about Portland cement. I thought it was named after Portland, Oregon. Later I learned this wasn't the case so I thought maybe Portland, Maine. Finally I learned the truth: it was named for Portland, England.
Speaking of "old", Babe died at 53, Lou at only 37. How sad.
Ol' Mel
And yet you are still going strong ol'.
God be praised.
You grew up on the music of Mozart and Beethoven, which over the years, people have said makes one smarter. I can't help but think some music is designed to make people stupider. Like music in casinos or mind-numbing TV ads, to diminish judgment, and separate people from their money.
That might also be why some lyrics are hard to discern--they weren't meant to be.
Like Muzak?
You know, I think so. Kind of like a sedative.
That on-hold music that some companies furnish to a customer on the phone has the opposite effect as that of a sedative on me. The only thing associated with that call that is more enraging is the constant repetition of "Your call is very important to us . . ."!
There are some companies which play genuine classical music. I will hold for them because I believe my call is very important to them.
When I first started a business, I was surprised to have a customer tell me, "That's great music you have while you're on hold. No one plays old country music for you when you're on hold, thank you."
Since my phone wasn't connected to anything, I was surprised, so I called my wife at my office and she put me on hold. Immediately, the local AM country station came on. Knowing my clientele, I figured it was a good deal and did nothing.
After a few weeks, though, it sometimes started intruding on phone calls so I called the radio station and asked them what was up. They laughed and said that apparently when the ran the phone wires up to my top floor office they had created an antenna. I called the phone company, expecting disbelief, but apparently it had happened before. They came right over and fixed it easily - but I have no idea how.
I always reply "If it's so important, ANSWER the damn thing!" This seems to make no difference to the telephonic annoyance machine.
It carries the same weight as "I'll respect you in the morning."
Yeah, true, but at LEAST you might have had some FUN the night before...there is NOTHING fun about being on Hold for half an hour while waiting for a person in India to pretend to be on-site at the place you are calling. AG
Has anyone ever believed that line?
Maybe AOC.
When my daughter was very young she used to sing “Puff the maggot dragon,” and I could not convince her it was Puff the Magic Dragon.
Kids…
Perhaps Puff liked to eat the flambeaux’d maggots?
OK that is so funny!
I was never a very studious student (I could have left the 'very' off that) during high school, but finally graduating I joined the Navy where in my off duty hours I spent my time mostly doing nuttin, or drinking. By the time of my discharge, three and a half years later, my brain had become a fully formed brick.
Having nothing better to do, and now having the G.I. Bill in my pocket, I squeezed by the SAT and miraculously began my first year of college.
Taking English Lit. 101 in that first year, the professor assigned the class the task of writing a one page essay (no more, no less) with the topic being - 'anything.' My brick for a brain could think of nuttin, but after many hours of anxiety ridden consternation I finally sat down and simply wrote one full page on why I was writing an essay.
The paper was returned to me with more than a few red marks on it, with redundancy being the primary culprit of the writing rules I had broken. I had never, ever even heard the word 'redundancy' before then.
Nevertheless there was an 'A' at the top of the page. Turns out the professor so enjoyed reading my simple essay that he had read it aloud to the class (I happened to be absent that day - thank God) as an example of what he had been hoping for. What that was I'm still not sure.
My relationship with that professor over the remainder of that semester contains many stories, all of them somewhat funny, somewhat miraculous, and for me very fruitful. I even met his wife in a most unusual coincidence one day.
I got an 'A' for the semester. And that guy was not an easy 'A' kinda professor.
I write all of this simply to say, yes Max, I can relate to that feeling of not knowing what to write when under pressure. And like me, you have brilliantly passed the test. ;-)
Jim
So nobody has yet mentioned:
"Round John Virgin, mother and child.."
For years, whenever I heard the Flamingos singing "I only have eyes for you.." I always thought that the background refrain of "she bop she bop" was " Beelezebub".
I feel the same way about a lot of today's movies. Mumbling your words is considered acting. If we watch one of these wretched movies we always have to have the captions on to follow the story. I always loved to watch Richard Burton act because he made sure every word was pronounced clearly and with emphasis. When God said, "Let there be light," I'm sure he was clearly understood.
During the filming of "Guys and Dolls," Sinatra has the frustrating job of teaching Brando to sing. After that, he always nicknamed Brando "Mumbles."
The worse thing Brando ever did was try to do a British accent in "Mutiny on the Bounty." It was embarrassing to watch.
Not quite the worst thing --maybe you haven't seen "Last Tango in Paris".
Nor will I ever.
Pauline Kael thought Last Tango was wonderful and 2001 was terrible. She also knew nobody that had voted for Nixon.
Consider the source.
I can't decide which is the most misogynist film ever made: Last Tango In Paris, or Looking For Mister Goodbar.
I pick the Steve Martin movie "Father of the Bride."
Ugh on both of them.
One of the most depressing movies I've ever seen. But not as bad as No Country For Old Men.
The latter was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Who takes that garbage seriously? Our intellectual class has degenerated past recovery.
Yes, no kidding. How can you say "I believe the science" and then say "men can become women"?
The worse thing Brando ever did was accepting a huge sum for acting poorly in Apocalypse Now.
And let's not even talk about the Red Ducks version.
Loved Richard Burton, especially in Camelot, Where Eagles Dare and Wild Geese.
What about singing "MacArthur Park"?
You tried to slip that one past me Max.
MacArthur Park was a hit for Elizabeth Taylor...er, uh, check that...
the movie King Arthur, Richard Harris.
We have to have captions, too. I couldn't be our hearing....
One of the coolest experiences of our 62 years together (59 married) was winning two tickets to a concert in 1973 in Madison Square Garden with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and Jay and the Americans...
Oh, what a night,
late December back in sixty-three
what a very special time for me,
as I remember, what a night.
Oh, what a night, you know I didn't even know her name,
but I was never gonna be the same;
what a lady, what a night.
Oh, I, I got a funny feelin' when she walked in the room.
Oh my, as I recall it ended much too soon.
Oh what a night hypnotizin' mesmerizing me,
she was ev'rything I dreamed she'd be;
sweet surrender, what a night.
I felt a rush like a rollin' ball of thunder,
spinnin' my head around n' takin' my body under.
Oh, what a night.
Why'd it take so long to see the light,
Seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right.
What a lady, what a night.
I felt a rush like a rollin' ball of thunder,
spinnin' my head around n' takin' my body under.
Oh what a night!
I saw a stage production of "Jersey Boys" in Picadilly, and it was fantastic. The British crowd loved it too.
There is actually a more-or-less accepted word for misheard lyrics: mondegreens. It stems from someone hearing an old English ballad that went, "They have slain the Earl of Moray and laid him on the green" as "They have slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen."
I guess I should ask a question: what's the word that describes when an acronym becomes a word in its own right? I'm thinking radar, scuba, Fiat, and Alfa. I think Max once told me but I forgot.
An anacronym?
An obsessive love of acronyms: acronymphomania
We'll have to wait for Max on that one. If there's a word for that, I don't know it.
Gary Larson Far Side on Louie Louie: https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3626641/the-far-side-elephants-and-pianos.html
Very good ronetc.
So wonderful to see a young and healthy-ish John Prine. However with that overflowing ashtray and a cigarette in his mouth, it is not difficult to pinpoint the source of his health problems. Man, we loved him. When our little boy was 2, he would sing along with the song, "There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes..." We thought about taking him around to bars to sing that -- wouldn't be a dry eye in the house and maybe we could get some cash for his future (wasted) college fund. AG
My favorite Prine song is "Hello in There". Feeling old myself today.
Also about Mr. Peabody's Coal Train, "Paradise". We visited the Peabody mansion once. Lot of people made a living digging coal together.
"Hello in There" is one of the most heart-tugging songs of all time. Especially their son, Davie, who "died in the Korean War -- we still don't know what for." AG
"There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes..."
Johnny Cash liked to sing that one.
As a yute I puzzled over it..."Just where did the money go?"
In Linda Ronstad’s recording of “Different Drum” she explains a benefit of ending a relationship. I heard - We'll both live a lot longer if you limit our laundry. Sure, some savings of soap and water, but a lot longer life?
Years passed before I gained respect for writer Mike Nesmith.
I'm sure that she enjoyed the benefit of ending a relationship with Jerry Brown.
She did, but she never quit the politics. We went to hear her live and local, where she spent part of her time criticizing the US President of that time (GW Bush I think). I don’t really care about any performer’s politics and wish she had left it at home!
Thankfully there was none of that in the early seventies when Linda and Jackson Brown played the Guthrie Theater. Or maybe I was still brainwashed enough not to notice. She sure was cute in her Cub Scout outfit.
We saw her in her Cub Scout outfit too. But it was in St. Paul, not at the Guthrie. Must have been the same tour.
It was winter and we drove back to Fargo in a blizzard.
Here there Phil. Mike Nesbitt was known as the "intellectual Beatle."
And why was he always wearing that hockey cap on warm California days?
Nesbitt was a racer, both off road buggies and motorcycles. Loved to compete in the Baja 1000. The cap was a well disguised racing helmet.
What a great drummer he was, even with all those rings.
He was in stark comparison to the other drummers.
Dennis: Nice!
One of our orange cats has taken up drumming. He's quite good for his age:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1531151895329439
The chair is not my son. . .
Hahaha. Though for many of his teenage years, my son was about as conversational as a chair -- and not the one Neil Diamond was talking to when he was surprised it didn't answer. AG
I remember laughing out loud when I first heard that line from "I Am, I Said." The song was trying to be oh so serious when out pops that line about the uncaring deaf chair. At his best, Diamond was pretty good, but he could at times definitely lean toward the pretentious.
I did too , R,D.
I thought - "...wha? That's the dumbest lyric I've ever heard."
Chairs were different in those days.
Now you've got me paranoid that some of my older chairs are listening to me. Oh, the stories they could tell.
Apparently, there is an American Girl doll that is marketed as deaf. Does that mean the rest of them are listening to us?