Once I stopped howling with laughter at lovely Englishmum’s recent post, Jason Darulo and Hoolahoopgate, I started thinking about song lyrics. Englishmum, bowling along in her car with hoolahoops cascading out of the back, was singing:
‘I’m so sorreeee that it didn’t work out… I’m movin’ on…
I’m so sorreee but it’s over now, have another scone…’
Now these may not be the exact lyrics that Jason penned. And if my girls had been in the car with Englishmum at the time, there would have been a lot of severe eye-rolling going on. I know, because I never get the lyrics to any song right, and it drives the girls mad.
I suppose it started in my youth, with Kenny Rogers’ classic Lucille, which I always thought went, ‘You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille/With four hundred children and a crop in the field’. No surprise that she ran off with 400 mouths to feed and Kenny’s yucky beard to look at. It wasn’t until much later that I found out it was only 4 hungry children. Of course I always loved Abba’s Dancing Queen, despite the mysterious line, ‘Feel the beat from the tangerine, oh yeah’. Then came Robert Palmer’s rather naughty Addicted to Love, ‘Might as well face it/You’re a d*** with a glove.’
Just this morning, I was warbling along beautifully to Lady Gaga’s Alejandro, ‘She’s got both hands/In a bucket’. Capital Radio plays this every single day on the school run. Sometimes I have wondered why this poor lady has her hands in a bucket, and if this is why she is so sad. But mostly I just sing along loudly. Today, though, I was rudely interrupted. ‘You do realise it’s not bucket, it’s pocket,’ hissed one of the little dears. Still doesn’t explain why she’s got both hands in just the one pocket, I reasoned. It must give her a very odd bunchy look.
Deep sighs from my passengers. ‘It’s like that other Lady Gaga song, Just Dance, when you kept singing ‘Chicken and a frog,’ when it’s actually ‘checking out that catalogue,’ they remonstrated. ‘Well, chicken and a frog makes more sense. Why is she catalogue shopping on the dance floor?’ Queue even more sighs, and a stony silence.
Then Taio Crux’s Dynamite came on the radio. ‘I put my hands in the air/Singing Gordon Gekko,’ I sang. ‘Muuuuuum, ‘it’s ‘Singing Galileo’,’ said Child Two witheringly. ‘No it’s not, ‘ said Child One crossly. ‘It’s ‘Got to let go.” ‘Oh – so it is,’ said Child Two in surprise.
Hah! Not so easy to get lyrics right all the time, is it?