A Lyrical Revelation 34 Years in the Making
by Marc Schuster
1978. I’m five years old, and I swear the couplet goes “Spins a web, any size./Can’t you see? Just like eyes!” Did it make sense? No. But it was close enough for jazz — and the theme from Spider-man was one heck of a jazzy tune.
2012. I’m significantly older. I hear the Ramones on Pandora, and it hits me: “Spins a web, any size/Catches thieves just like flies!”
Thanks for clearing that up, Joey… wherever you are!
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So funny! Misheard lyrics can be hysterical. For years I sang “Big old Jed had a light on,” as opposed to the correct “Big old jet airliner,” in that song by Steve Miller band.
And I just played that theme song about 5 times in row, and my daughter seems extremely annoyed. I used to watch spiderman every morning while I got ready for school back in the 70s, and that theme song just transported me back to another time.
I like your version of the Steve Miller song better, actually. And that’s when I used to listen to the song, too. There’s probably a whole generation of us who associate the Spiderman theme song with heading off to another day of learning!
The Spiderman theme is a classic–tons of great versions, even the bad ones are classic. And I too connect them with school. (Though I don’t connect it with good grades though.. .hmmm)…
Misheard lyrics, well, there’s a total cult around them:
http://www.kissthisguy.com/
is one of the classic sites dedicated to them. Gotta love the internet.
Thanks, Michael! (And thanks for the link!)
I know you can hardly wait for my ‘misheard lyrics’ contribution.
The real lyrics are, ‘Angie, Angie . . .’ by the Rolling Stones.
I always thought they were, ‘I ain’t dead, I ain’t dead . . . ‘
Wow… I’ll never listen to that song the same way again! Paul McCartney should have done a cover of it, just to clear things up.
It took me forever to realize that song We Were Only Freshman wasn’t We Were Only Frenchman. Years of confusing there.
Zut alors!
Girls Aloud – Love Machine.
Actual lyrics: You’re calls late, big mistake.
What I was singing: You’re cornflakes, big mistake.
I thought they meant that cornflakes aren’t very nice, and comparing that comparing a person to them was an insult.
And, to be fair, cornflakes can be a big mistake.
[...] daughter watched her cartoons and I ran around the house singing the Spiderman theme song (thanks Marc), I remembered a BBC interview with Russell that I watched a while back. There was a part of it [...]
Had to watch the first clip three times! It was hard to pick the actual words while reading your original interpretation.
My own faux par was as a seven year old. Dad was a big fan of Elvis Presley and I thought, “Return to sender,” was “Return Jacinda!”…the name of one of my friends at the time. How I managed to justify that, in line within the rest of the song, is an unsolved mystery.
More recently, I was fooled by a song by the Pussy Cat Dolls. I would sing along to the earworm chorus on the radio. My version was:
“When I grow up
I wanna see the world
Drive nice cars
I wanna have boobies”
That last word was actually “groupies.” And they say men have selective hearing!
“Return Jacinda” works for me! I imagine Elvis singing about how he’s upset that his girlfriend, Jacinda, has been kidnapped and he wants her returned. Kind of like this one…
My favorite lyric is, “Is he strong?/Listen bud, he’s got radioactive blood.”
That’s right, bud! Don’t mess with him.
Oh Marc! I’d forgotten just how badly I need the Ramones.
It’s funny how I’ll hear a Ramones tune from time to time and remember how much I love their music.