Lyrical Enlightenment
I stood corrected on this one until I fell over
Sometimes you get lyrics wrong and the rights are just as stupid. I mean somebody needs to tell Crystal Gayle that nothing really makes brown eyes blue, especially donuts. And I’m glad Johnny Nash can see clearly now that Lorraine has gone, I really am, but who the fuck’s Lorraine? Also chuffed for Elton getting the nerve to ask Tony Danza to hold him closer. Still not sure whether Manfred Man’s wrapped up like a douche or revved up like a deuce though and frankly Frank, I’m past caring.
Misunderstood lyrics are called mondegreens and here’s why:
There was an article in 1954 Harper’s Magazine called The Death of Lady Mondegreen by Sylvia Wright which included the words ‘Gladly the Cross I’d Bear’ which were widely misquoted as ‘Gladys, the cross-eyed bear’
LOL
But the one I discovered last night actually mattered to me. I was watching a movie about Laurel Canyon and all those otherworldly musicians who hung out there in the 60s including the Mamas and the Papas and they were talking about how John Phillips wrote California Dreamin’ while shivering through a 1965 New York winter.
Of course it’s a beautiful song, one of those that seem part of us maybe because the longing’s so familiar
I mean who doesn’t get a little weak in the knees when you hear it by surprise especially when all the leaves really are brown. It’s magical.
So he goes into a church and he begins to pray, right?
I’ve never understood praying and always considered it more wishing except to an audience of one. Anyway. The handful of times I’ve been to church I always faked it and bent my head when required but my eyes were going six ways from Sunday, all spirally and Clockwork Orange while I recited something like Gladys, the cross-eyed bear which I’ve decided to make my new mantra.
In the movie they close-upped on John Phillips’s face underneath his Daniel Boone hat and he didn’t say:
Well I got down on my knees and I began to pray
What he said was:
Well I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray
Which makes a difference.
And then I got to thinking about beliefs. I wrote something last week I might put at the end of this blog – just a sentence – and it surprised me that I used the word God and then I started thinking maybe it’s because I’m older now and maybe as you get older and part of your life sort of fizzles away there’s a few openings, you know, and maybe not so many takers as there used to be, and you’re just a little more on your own about things, and maybe a little more hopeful about how it’s all gonna go because none of us get out of this alive do we.
Anyway. You do you and I’ll do me which is a pretty accurate description of pandemic dating isn’t it
Here’s what I wrote:
No Sky For An Atheist
Last night I went down to the lake but the sky was what I really went for, so last night I went down to the sky, the white beach all ice ledges, traps everywhere, and you could still feel the violence in the layer of flat-line navy beneath the gigantic sky boiling purple, with thin strands of night and white stars like sparks of misplaced ice and it was no sky for an atheist because you could practically see God up there.
Also Eddie Money’s got two tickets to paradise and all I’ve got are two chickens with parrot eyes, whatever the fuck that is, and a cross-eyed bear named Gladys.
Have a nice weekend, everybody. Hope you keep wishing.
