And You Can Tell Everybody This is Your Song

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.