I have a lot of memories of my most recent family
trip to Israel to celebrate my older son's Bar Mitzvah. However, there is one that
repeatedly jumps out at me: playing the "telephone game"
with 18 family members at Roza Restaurant in Gush Etzion
Junction. Even if the phrase was something simple like "Shawarma on
a Spit", it was guaranteed, that this phrase would not get around
the table intact.
The world has changed a lot since
that December 2019 trip to the Middle East and these days, with social
distancing, my family and I find ourselves on a lot of walks and runs
throughout our neighborhood. During these
walks, the topics range from politics to starting your own business to what
songs you are listening to when exercising.
At the same time, we also look to keep things light, and what makes me
laugh during these unprecedented times is flubbing the lyrics to songs that you
really thought you knew the words.
Recently my younger son has thrown
himself into the spotlight. At the top of the chart this week is Bon Jovi's 'Livin' on a Prayer', which has been affectionately turned into 'Living on a Prairie'. It
reminded me of a Wayne’s World skit that I think would also work with the new Saturday
Night Live (At Home) format in
which Wayne & Garth highlight the 'Top 5 Misheard Lyrics' from their basement.
I have never forgotten #5 Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey" being
sung as "Jacques the Monkey".
When the topic of this post
came up, my wife also recalled a childhood friend that used to sing Rusted Root's
hit "Send Me On My Way" as "Simmi & the Whale" and this
woman would impressively go on to study at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health. Speaking of colleges, while I was an
undergraduate student at George Washington University, the team had numerous
players with unique names: Omo Moses, Kwame Evans and Vaughn Jones to
name a few (shout out to Nimbo Hammons and Adama Kah as well). And
cleverly, the GW band changed the lyrics to Tito Puente's song, "Oye Como
Va" with "Omo, Kwame, Vaughn". I am sure there are some Colonials’ fans who
never knew the origins of the 1962 Latin jazz and mambo Billboard hit.
The bottom line is that people
are listening to a lot of individual playlists these days, but they are not alone in making up lyrics to their favorite songs. I realize that
I too have a couple of errors on the score sheet. There is the time
that I thought that Rush's lyrics to "Tom Sawyer" were tied to a
1980s video game that I played regularly at Warinanco Park in Roselle,
"Today's Tom Sawyer, He gets high on you, With Space Invaders, He gets by
on you'. Or The Clash's "Rock the Casbah", in which I thought Joe Strummer was singing, "Kareem
don't like it.". As if #33 needed to be in another song other than
Kurtis Blow's "Basketball"?
Good luck with Google Translate. Thanks for reading.
