A Song By Any Other Name, Still Sounds As Sweet

My husband has a beautiful voice. When he sings, I swoon. Really.

Me? Well, when I sing I sound like a cat in heat. But that does not stop me. Birddog loves to tell me how many times I changed pitch and key in one chorus. I am proud of myself when he says that I hit the correct note at least once in a song.

Not only am I tone-deaf, but I misunderstand song lyrics and sing the wrong words all too often. If I don’t understand what the singer says, I usually just make up my own version that sounds like what they should be saying. I do this so much that when I find out the real words to a song, I still sing the wrong words. You should hear me when I try to sing “Respect” or “Lady Marmalade”.

I live in my own little musical world and that is fine with me. This drives Birddog crazy. Here are a just a few of my misquotations:

Starship: We built this city on rock and roll.
Ladybird: We built this city on a rocky road.

Bon Jovi: It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not.
Ladybird: It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not.

Kiss: I want to rock and roll all night and party every day.
Ladybird: I want to rock and roll all night and part of every day.

Apparently this problem is genetic. I distinctly remember sitting in the passenger seat of our car when I was about twelve years old and my brother, who was eight at the time, was singing Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight” at the top of his voice. My mother was trying not to laugh. Instead of singing “I don’t want to let you go ‘til we see the light”, he was singing “I don’t want to let you go to see the fight.” When my mother ask him what he thought the song meant, he explained something about the guy not wanting to take the girl to a boxing match. My mother and I just smiled at each other while Clay wailed in the back seat.

I often misunderstand lyrics too. When I was younger I never understood the Parson Brown part of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”. I thought that parson was a color, like chocolate or mocha. I didn’t realize that a parson was a leader at a church. I didn’t understand why anyone would want a brown snowman.

Okay, please tell me there are other song-butchers out there. What songs do you sing the wrong way?