I will readily admit that I misconstrue and misquote and garble the lyrics to songs on a regular basis. Actually, I do so without remorse or an inclination to change the error of my ways. Hillary and Sam used to tease me about it. Karl corrects me. It doesn’t matter, if I’m not sure of the words, I happily make them up, and sometimes I even like my lyrics better than those the poet wrote. I have chuckled at myself for mishearing lyrics. In the Credence Clearwater song, “Bad Moon Rising”, I still hear and sing, “There’s a bathroom on the right” instead of “there’s a bad moon on the rise”.
Despite my own engrained history of bastardizing lyrics, Karl, who mostly hears lyrics correctly, has revealed himself as the king of misheard lyrics and even though I discovered his commanding malapropism a couple of weeks ago, simply thinking of it causes belly laughs and mirthful tears. Here’s the story:
When Karl and I fell in love with the Caribbean, one of our favorite songs became an old Beach Boys’ classic called Kokomo. I’m sure you’ve heard it. (“Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take ya Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama”) It’s a list of Caribbean places and an invitation to go “fall in love to the rhythm of a steel drum band.” The song has sort of become one of our anthems, and we sing it together when it comes on. So, imagine my confusion: We were in the mountains, listening to tunes on the MP3 player blasting out of our camper speakers, enjoying the day. We’d just finished listening to Kokomo, and in the quiet moments afterward, we had this conversation…
Karl began, “In such a positive Caribbean song, I’ve never understood why they have to insult Vermont.”
I just stared at him. Sometimes my Venus and his Mars are not aligned.
Responding to my silence he added, “It just doesn’t seem right or like those lyrics belong.”
Now I needed clarification. “What lyrics are those?”
“You know, the line that says “Martinique, Vermont’s a crappy state”. He sang it with feeling.
“Oh. Wait. What?”
Needless to say, after a period of time during which I laughed so hard I thought my stomach muscles would be permanently affected, I wiped away the tears and responded. “Babe, that line is “Martinique, that Montserrat mystique”.
Now it was his turn to be dumbstruck. “No, you are mistaken. It says Vermont’s a crappy state.”
Of course, it doesn’t matter that later I looked it up and confirmed that the lyrics say nothing about New England, those are the lyrics he hears. And, now, of course, those are the lyrics we sing any and every time we hear that song.
Hail to the new king of misheard lyrics. 😊
