Insight: I believe that the hot dogs go on

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

I recently watched a performance by British comedian Peter Kay where he described his frustration with certain songs on the radio and in trying to understand what the song lyrics were.

Celine Dion

Kay mentioned Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and said for many years he always thought he heard her sing “Hit Me With Your Pet Shark” instead of the actual lyrics to that tune. And he had me laughing hysterically when he told of thinking that in Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” she really sang “I believe that the hot dogs go on.”

It got me to thinking about songs that for years I misinterpreted the lyrics that the performer was singing.

The Swedish group Abba was all the rage in the 1970s and I have always liked their song “Dancing Queen.” But the song came on the radio as I was driving with the line I thought I heard them sing in that song was “See that girl, watch her steam, digging the dancing queen.”

A few years ago, I discovered that the actual lyric should be “See that girl, watch the scene, digging the dancing queen.”

And in that same song my ears hear “feel the beat of the tangerine” when it should be “feel the beat of the tambourine.”

Another band’s lyrics that have always confused me in the past are those of Nirvana and it seems that I have always had trouble understanding Nirvana’s lead singer Kurt Cobain since he was prone to mumbling when singing.

In Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” I always hear this line: “Here we are now, in restrainers” when it really should be “Here we are now, entertain us.”

The song “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John is another one I have had a hard time with over the years.

When I first heard that song, I thought I heard Elton John singing “I used to be a hard-beatin’ photon one” and I wondered what that could possibly mean. As it turns out, the actual lyric is “I used to be a heart beating for someone.”

I was in Germany eating breakfast in the mess hall when I heard “Lucille” by Kenny Rogers for the first time in the 1970s and I thought he sang “and 400 children with the crop in the field.”

I am not alone apparently in mishearing song lyrics. Over Christmas, my wife Nancy, who helps young students with reading, was singing “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer” with a young girl during a tutoring session. The girl sang “You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Connor and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen,” and insisted that a reindeer’s name mentioned in the tune was Connor and not Comet.

For decades, I’ve heard certain songs and wondered if I’m missing out on the joke.

On "We Will Rock You” by Queen, I have heard the late Freddie Mercury singing “kicking your cat all over the place” instead of “can” and in “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash, I still hear “Rock the Cat Box” instead of “Casbah.”

It has even happened to me with tunes by The Beatles. On their “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” song, I have heard “the girl with colitis goes by” when the correct line is “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”

In the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” I hear “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations, she’s giving me her citations” instead of “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations, she’s giving me excitations.”

Of all the singers that I have had trouble deciphering lyrics that they are singing, the late Michael Jackson remains at the forefront of my list.

Take his “Man in the Mirror” for example.

I clearly hear “I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. And no mustache could have been any cleaner…”

Or in “Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough,” I continue to hear “Keep On with the post box, don't stop ‘til you get enough.”

Then there is Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal.” Where do I start with this one?

At times I have heard “And you rotate, And you rotate, And you rotate, And you rotate right in” instead of ‘Annie are you ok, Annie are you ok, Annie are you ok, Will you tell us that you're ok?”

My friend Travis McGibney thought the lyrics were “Annie don't you want cake, Don't you want cake, Don't you want cake, Annie?”

After years of hearing a song on my car radio and singing along to it with what I thought were the lyrics, it can be tough to break the habit.

Back in the 1980s, I had Paul Young’s “Every Time You Go Away” cassette tape and when the title song played in my car, I always sang along to it except that I thought I heard the lyric, “Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you.” I was in a record store in Melbourne, Florida in the mid-1990s and saw the lyrics in a Paul Young poster hanging on the wall. The real lyrics are “Every time you go away you take a piece of me with you.”

Perhaps I should schedule a hearing test. <