Making Up My Own Song!

I am terrible at learning the lyrics to songs. It's funny how long I can go with a lyric in my head that makes absolutely no sense to me, but I'll keep singing it that way until Jere looks at me and says, "What are you singing?" Like that U2 song called One there's a line that I thought said,"Have you come here to play cheeses?" In my strange little world, I just figured that there was a game in Ireland called Cheeses that I'd never heard of. Turns out (as Jere corrected me through fits of laughter) that it says, "Have you come here to play Jesus. . ." AND it makes even more sense with the next line which goes, ". . .to the lepers in your head?" So apparently, there's no Irish game called Cheeses. Go figure!

There's another song called Voices Carry by an eighties band called 'Til Tuesday (I only know the name of the band thanks to Google.) For as long as I can remember, I have always sang, "Oh hush. Keep it down now. This is scary." After Jere stopped laughing, he explained that it's, "Hush hush. Keep it down now. Voices carry." I was SO sure that my version was the correct one even after he told me what the words really are. My version kind of makes sense, but I guess it does make a little more sense with "voices carry." I still sing "this is scary." I just can't unwire my brain on that one.

Remember that show, The Jeffersons from forever ago with the Movin' on Up theme song? Well, this one really puzzles me because I could swear that the lady singing it says, "Well, we're movin' on up, to the top, to a deluxe apartment . . ." My sister Sarah and I have sung it this way since the beginning of time, therefore that's how everyone else should sing it. Both her husband and mine said that it's actually, "Well, we're movin' on up, to the east side, to a deluxe . . ." Say what??? We had a big argument over the correct words, girls against guys, and for the first time since Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, we girls were . . . well, we were . . . ughhh! I just can't say it. OK, we were wrong. There I said it. But you have to admit, our way fits better and just plain makes more sense. So again, I'm hardwired to sing this one wrong. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Now this next line of lyrics from James Blunt's Tears and Rain I actually had gotten right for once. It goes, "All pleasure's the same, it just keeps me from trouble, Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray." So whenever it came on, Jere and I couldn't figure out what the "Dorian Gray" part was all about. Jere thought it was the name of some English tea. At least that was an intelligent guess. I said that I thought it might be a specific shade of the color gray, like the color of the Dorian car on Back to the Future (wasn't it a silvery gray color?) There was a pause and then Jere laughed so hard I thought he'd wet his pants. He said, "Beck, it's called a De Lorean car!" Oh! Woops!

And just for your information, I found out that Dorian Gray is a character in a book by Oscar Wilde called The Picture of Dorian Gray. When you find out what the book is about, the lyric really works. Who knew that songwriters were so smart?