Friday, May 18, 2007
Lyrical blunders, part infinity
I haven't posted in a while, simply because I've been under a great deal of pressure. You see, this is my 1,000th post. And while none of you would have known that if I hadn't just told you (unless you've been obsessively counting my posts over the past five years, in which case you might want to get a hobby), it doesn't negate the personal pressure I feel every time I sign into Blogger and see "999 posts" staring back at me. I mean, the 1,000th post? That's got to be spectacular, right?
Well, no. After more than a week at this stalemate, I realized that my only choices here were a) post something (anything) and just get it over with, or b) abrubtly end the blog at 999 posts. Since I'm not quite ready for the latter, I've chosen to forge ahead and mark this momentous occasion by telling you about something that, while not spectacular, has definitely been a recurring theme in the history of this blog. That's right, it's time for yet another lyrical mistake!
I've listened to the song "Kate" by Ben Folds Five quite a lot, on account of having a friend named Kate who loves Ben Folds Five, and also on account of owning a copy of the album it's on. Yet it wasn't until a couple of days ago, on my drive home from work, that I finally understood what one of the lines was really about.
Actual lyric: Down by Rosemary and Cameron, she hands out the Bhagavad Gita
Lyric heard by me: Down by Rosemary and Karen, she hands out the bag of Nikita
Wow, two lyrical blunders in one line! The first one I'm indifferent about, because they're both a person's name meant to be a street name, so unless Rosemary and Cameron is some famous intersection I'm not aware of and not just something Ben Folds made up, "Cameron" and "Karen" are totally interchangeable in my book. As for the second mistake? Um. I really wish I had one of my trademark outlandish stories to explain this one away, as it would no doubt involve the title character (Kate) somehow procuring and then charitably giving away a satchel once owned by former Soviet Union leader Nikita Krushchev, but unfortunately, this is just one of those that I knew in my heart was wrong and yet never bothered to look up. But now that I think about it, would the scenario that I just made up on the fly really be that more ludicrous than this Kate standing on a corner and handing out copies of an ancient Indian epic? All right, maybe a little.
UPDATE: While trying to satisfy my curiosity about "Rosemary and Cameron" (turns out they are real streets, albeit ones that don't actually intersect, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina), I came across another interpretation of the lyric here: Down by Rosemary and Cameron, she hands out the bong of Evita. Ha! Drug paraphernalia belonging to the former first lady of Argentina is way funnier than some Cold War knapsack.
I haven't posted in a while, simply because I've been under a great deal of pressure. You see, this is my 1,000th post. And while none of you would have known that if I hadn't just told you (unless you've been obsessively counting my posts over the past five years, in which case you might want to get a hobby), it doesn't negate the personal pressure I feel every time I sign into Blogger and see "999 posts" staring back at me. I mean, the 1,000th post? That's got to be spectacular, right?
Well, no. After more than a week at this stalemate, I realized that my only choices here were a) post something (anything) and just get it over with, or b) abrubtly end the blog at 999 posts. Since I'm not quite ready for the latter, I've chosen to forge ahead and mark this momentous occasion by telling you about something that, while not spectacular, has definitely been a recurring theme in the history of this blog. That's right, it's time for yet another lyrical mistake!
I've listened to the song "Kate" by Ben Folds Five quite a lot, on account of having a friend named Kate who loves Ben Folds Five, and also on account of owning a copy of the album it's on. Yet it wasn't until a couple of days ago, on my drive home from work, that I finally understood what one of the lines was really about.
Actual lyric: Down by Rosemary and Cameron, she hands out the Bhagavad Gita
Lyric heard by me: Down by Rosemary and Karen, she hands out the bag of Nikita
Wow, two lyrical blunders in one line! The first one I'm indifferent about, because they're both a person's name meant to be a street name, so unless Rosemary and Cameron is some famous intersection I'm not aware of and not just something Ben Folds made up, "Cameron" and "Karen" are totally interchangeable in my book. As for the second mistake? Um. I really wish I had one of my trademark outlandish stories to explain this one away, as it would no doubt involve the title character (Kate) somehow procuring and then charitably giving away a satchel once owned by former Soviet Union leader Nikita Krushchev, but unfortunately, this is just one of those that I knew in my heart was wrong and yet never bothered to look up. But now that I think about it, would the scenario that I just made up on the fly really be that more ludicrous than this Kate standing on a corner and handing out copies of an ancient Indian epic? All right, maybe a little.
UPDATE: While trying to satisfy my curiosity about "Rosemary and Cameron" (turns out they are real streets, albeit ones that don't actually intersect, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina), I came across another interpretation of the lyric here: Down by Rosemary and Cameron, she hands out the bong of Evita. Ha! Drug paraphernalia belonging to the former first lady of Argentina is way funnier than some Cold War knapsack.
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