You can pretty much tell AI didn't come up with that image, can't you? What can I say, I'm an old-fashioned guy, and I wanted a picture of a square dude holding a camera. Unlike yesterday when I showed you one of the residents of Albert's Square holding a camera.
All in aid of - with great thanks to our resident Maths teacher, George, for suggesting the theme and many of the tunes - songs about Square Numbers. Working our way from the square of 15... down to the square of 1.
Louise and I binge-watched the first series of Yellowjackets over the past week. It involves a girls' football team (or "soccer" team, as this is the US) that crash-lands in a remote area of the Canadian mountains in the mid-90s and remain stranded there for almost two years. The show also catches up with four of the survivors in the present day, with a stand out performance from Melanie Lynskey, and a savage double act of Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci that regularly had me laughing. Out loud. Although I shouldn't need to add those last two words, since laughter is generally out and loud. It's rare we internalise laughter and if it's quiet then it's not really laughter, is it? It's a snigger, at best. But I digress...
Yellowjackets mixes horror, suspense and black comedy to great effect. It's Lost with cannibalism, and more of a sense of humour. The soundtrack is pretty cool too, featuring a lot of carefully selected 90s hits, including welcome returns for Belly, Liz Phair and The Offspring. (I was also surprised how many of the more poppier tunes I felt an affectionate twinge of nostalgia for... step forward, Montell Jordan.) It's not all 90s all the time either: occasionally the soundtrack ventures further back, with Kim Wilde's Cambodia getting a rare spin, alongside... well, this...
Although I have a small amount of time for early Ultravox, I'd long since dismissed their biggest hit as over-played radio twaddle. However, it cropped up prominently in two separate episodes of Yellowjackets, and hearing it again after all this time sent a fair few shivers down my spine. Suddenly, the gated reverb sounds menacing, Midge Ure's desperate vocals truly tragic, and the elliptical lyrics bordering on meaningful. Proof positive that a new context can make you reconsider any song... Midge's moustache, on the other hand, still looks like something the cat could lick off with a spot of well-placed cream... and I somehow doubt the ladies from Yellowjackets would stop there.
Mondegreens. Misheard lyrics. You'll find them all over the internet, but here are ten GENUINE ones from my past. I honestly thought these were the actual lyrics... until finally, often many years later, I discovered the truth.
Possibly the earliest mondegreen I ever encountered... or at least, the earliest one I can remember. She just can't get enough chicken, love. I still hear that today...
This is one of the ones you'll see a lot on websites that discuss mondegreens. Most of the other examples they quote sound preposterous to me, apart from Bohemain Rhapsody's famous "Beelzebub had a devil for a sideboard". But this... this was exactly what I thought Madonna was singing in 1986. Apparently, a lot of people also thought the opening line to this song was the racially offensive, "Last night I dreamt of some dago". Poor old Madonna. Enunciate, luv.
Young girl with eyes like the desert
I'm having a hard time accepting Madonna will be 60 this year. Bad enough that Kylie just turned 50.
I've been planning this particular Top Ten for a while now and whenever I heard a song from my youth with a lyric I just couldn't explain, I had to go and check out the real thing. I swear I always thought Andy Bell was asking for Martin Scorcese's number in this song. I have no idea why.
What religion or reason
Could drive a man to forsake his lover
Now I've read the real lyric, I can't even hear the Martin Scorcese bit anymore. It's gone.
Enough what, Michael? Stamps? Airmail stickers? Postal Orders? (Do they even have Postal Orders anymore? Probably not. Another archaic item from our past.)
For many, many years it always baffled me how The Bloke Out Of Boston (do you know his name?) could possibly see his own backside if he was walking away. Was he looking over his shoulder into a mirror? Wasn't he looking where he was going? Accident waiting to happen, right there...
You might wonder why Meat was such a big fan of Our Cilla... I certainly did. Then again, BOOH was written by Jim Steinman, who is officially BARKING MAD, so why shouldn't he throw in a reference to Cilla? Maybe he was after a blind date...
I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram,
On a Silver Black Phantom Bike
When I found out the real lyrics, I was just as confused? Is that a Black Phantom bike that's painted silver? Or is it Silver-Black? What the hell is Silver-Black, Jim? Is that even a colour?
1. Elvis Costello - The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes
These may not be as amusing as some of the ones above, but they speak to how I spent a large part of my late teens and early twenties: headphones on, sat beside the stereo, listening to Elvis Costello albums and trying to write down the lyrics. There were never any lyric sheets in Elvis's records and the way he spat and twisted and punned his way through the language was endlessly fascinating... but also a little frustrating when I just couldn't work out what he was singing. Even now, almost 30 years later, I can still remember the time I spent puzzling over this one song in particular...
"Our love got fractured into echo and suede"
Our love got fractured in the echo and sway
"But since you got in my pumps, you just suspend my sentence"
Ever since you got me punctured this has been my sentence
Fortunately, the greatest lyrical couplet this song has to offer was clear as a bell...
Oh, I said, "I'm so happy I could die"
She said, "Drop dead" then left with another guy...
Your turn! There must be a misheard lyric or two in your back catalogue. Do share.
