That's when I realize it's over: incorrect lyrics set into stone

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http://www.armchair.mb.ca/~oneiros/pix/moby.jpgSo you do a cover of one of your favourite songs. You record it and release it. Then someone points out: dude, you got the lyrics wrong! I remember Moby getting nailed for this with his cover of "That's When I Reach For My Revolver". Have any other Kiss This Guy-type bungles been committed to tape?

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That's! When! I! Reach! For! My! Lyric! Sheet!

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

He didn't get nailed--he sang the right words the first time, he just changed them when he did the video because MTV wouldn't let it on unless he did.

― M Matos, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, I had heard somewhere else that he had just gotten it wrong. Whoops. Maybe that would have been preferable to changing it to gain MTV play. Anyhow...original question still stands even if the example isn't quite what I thought. Let's also add to this question wilful changing of original lyrics for questionable reasons.

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Let's also add to this question wilful changing of original lyrics for questionable reasons.

"Let's Spend Some Time Together" - Rolling Stones on Ed Sullivan

― Dave225, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh - here's one I HATE! Some christian-rock singer piece-of-shit did a remake of Talking Heads' "Heaven" - "Heaven is a place - a place where nothing - BAD ever happens." Totally changes the meaning of the song. I'm fuckin' pissed (mad, not drunk.)

― Dave225, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Famous rendition of Mack the Knife by Ella Fitzgerald where she forgets all the lyrics halfway though and starts scatting shouties to her jazz budies.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Moby may have changed the chorus for MTV reasons, but he sang "Its dead eyes look upon us and they tell me we're nothing but slaves" as "Instead they look upon us when they tell me we're nothing but saved" on his own time.

Didn't Jars of Clay used to play "All Apologies" live with "What else can I say/Everyone is gay" converted to "What else can I say/Jesus is the way"?

― Douglas, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not really the same thing but isn't there some website filled with Christian-proselytizing versions of famous pop tunes? I remember "Smells like Teen Spirit" became "Smells like the Holy Spirit" and some other very awful things. Awful entertaining, that is.

― dave k, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There are a few I like. Pat Kelly's reggae cover of A Whiter Shade Of Pale makes up some even stupider lyrics, but the best is the great Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence's hapless attempt at Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. He hardly knows any of the words, and he's a bit approximate on those. He fills in with repetition or unwell- sounding "uh"s a lot. "You better watch out / You better watch out / You better watch out / You better watch out / You better watch out / Sandy Claw is coming, urrghhh..."

I have two relatives visiting my home for the first time on Sunday - I should set up a tape to immediately give them the required toilet directions: Creedence Clearwater revival singing "There's a bathroom on the right".

― Martin Skidmore, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was at Disneyland about ten years ago and this Tomorrowland cover band changed the AC/DC lyric "knockin' me out with those American thighs" to "eyes". However, they had no problem chanting "murderah" about 500 times for their Ini Kamoze (sp?) interpretation. I guess this is final proof of America's acceptance of violence over sex. Or maybe not...

― Spencer Chow, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In their version of Anarchy in the UK, Megadeth were either unable to understand Johnny Rotten's accent or unfamiliar with the concept of 'council tenancy', so they came up with 'c*ntish tendency'.

I used a * there because ILMers so rarely resort to bad language which is of course neither big nor clever.

― Graham C, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm positive a lot of the lines are messed up in A Certain Ratio's version of "Shack Up".

He didn't get nailed--he sang the right words the first time, he just changed them when he did the video because MTV wouldn't let it on unless he did.

That's sorta incorrect. He sang the wrong lyrics the first time (intentionally) when performing on MTV, but under somewhat of a blessing from the MoB-member who wrote it whose name I'm forgetting. Then he later released it as a single with the changed lyrics, not under any blessing of the MoB-member who wrote it whose name I'm forgetting.

― Vic Funk, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

See, that's the thing...I remember the single that I heard on CD had the wrong lyrics. (Clint Conley of Mission of Burma wrote the song, btw.)

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also on Megadeths cover of "Anarchy.." is D. Mustaine mishearing the word "passerby" and thus singing,

"I want to destroy....possibly"

― john-paul, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Midway Still's version of "you made me realise"

In St Ives, You Made Me Realise...

― electric sound of jim, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh - here's one I HATE! Some christian-rock singer piece-of-shit did a remake of Talking Heads' "Heaven" - "Heaven is a place - a place where nothing - BAD ever happens."

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

― geeta, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That is the funniest thing ever. I must get a copy of that.

― N., Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Check the lyrical adjustment to Esquivel's (R.I.P.) "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". I find it amusing if a bit syncretist. -jeff

― mxyzptlk, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dexy's Midnight Runners version of Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said" changes "it was Reet Petite" to "it was real you see".

― Nik, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"The Joker" by Steve Miller famously ripped off a phrase or two from "The Letter" by the Medallions, including "pompitous of love", which doesn't even suggest any meaning for itself except maybe a certain POMPOUSNESS on Mr. Miller's part. The Straight Dope reveals that Vernon Green's original line in the letter was "puppetutes" of love, a word he made up "to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure [puppet], who would be my everything and bear my children."

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Does anyone's Mama really believe that "the good times" are something in which one ought to trust? No, Phil Collins, you idiot, no-one's Mama ever has.

― Colin Meeder, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

following on from the christians-changing-lyrics-to-suit-god part of the thread: i remember standing with my ear to a church door in cambridge town centre one evening as the choir sang out: cum on feel the joys!!! (the oasis cover was doing well at the time)

― dbini, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

These Xtian rewrites sound particularly dire. It may be worth an unofficial compilation just to find out HOW dire. Anyone got some MP3s?

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two months pass...

just to break up the idea of lyrics being changed by christian bands, I seem to remember that American Music Club's version of California Dreaming changed the "got down on my knees and I began to pray" line to "got down on my knees and I pretend to pray". quite effective really, adding a hollow-souled tinge to the whole LA vibe thing going on in that song.

― kel, Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Another Level's toned down version of 'Freak Me' for Blue Peter saw, among others, 'I like the taste of whipped cream/spread it on top of me' changed to 'I like the taste of whipped cream/Do you know what I mean?', and 'Let me play with your body baby' to 'Let me sta-ay with you baby'.

I'm sure there were other lines changed though. Not sure why I care to remember it, but never mind.

― Mr Swygart, Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When the thankfully forgotten Younger Younger 28s did CD:UK over here, the line "Lipstick, cigarettes, packet of three" was changed to "Lipstick, crackerbread, packet of cheese".

And they wondered why it didn't chart?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eleven months pass...

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU HAVE FOUND TODAY'S REVIVED THREAD WHICH CONTAINS AT LEAST ONE REFERENCE TO MISSION OF BURMA OR ANYONE FROM MISSION OF BURMA

back to the Moby debate:

See, that's the thing...I remember the single that I heard on CD had the wrong lyrics. (Clint Conley of Mission of Burma wrote the song, btw.)
-- Sean Carruthers

http://missionofburma.com/bgu/original/photo/midwest/detroit/4100.jpg

I wonder if he ever even told Moby the lyrics. I would never ask Clint for lyrics except I did ask for a line from Revolver when people asked me to ask him. I think his exact response was,

"Kitty, if I knew what it was, YOU would be the last person I would give it to."

Oh, wait...

That was a different question.

No, when I asked for lyrics, he mumbled something about going forth and making up my own rather than his answering the question.

― BurmaKitty (BurmaKitty), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 21:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Um.. Moby knows the actual lyric. He sang the lame censored line in light of the then-recent Columbine attacks.

Of course he does fumble with several of the other lines in that song. Same with his cover of "New Dawn Fades"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 22:03 (twenty-three years ago)

moby's revolver cover predates columbine by a couple of years, the lyric was changed becuz mtv/radio wouldn't play a song that referenced guns

― James Blount (James Blount), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 22:10 (twenty-three years ago)

The Anarchy in the UK thing still cracks me up . . . "I want to destroy . . . possibly." indeed.

"Miami's Antichrist."

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Thursday, 8 May 2003 10:27 (twenty-three years ago)

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