Saturday, February 24, 2007

Mistake

When cloven-hoof Prince Turnip in the garden...

21 comments:

amelia said...

it reminds me oddly of cummings. but...?

THE FIRE BOSS (aka EFF BEE) said...

mountain goats, revised.

amelia said...

dude, totally shoulda reminded me of that first. have been listening to nothing else. hmmph.

THE FIRE BOSS (aka EFF BEE) said...

cf First Few Desperate Hours

K. Ross Hoffman said...

speaking of coursers, your deer departed.

Anonymous said...

FB:
sometimes I follow you, and sometimes the stuff you say makes no sense at all.
desperately seeking context,
-your old anon friend

THE FIRE BOSS (aka EFF BEE) said...

dear anon:
this little post is a messed up version of a line in the song "First Few Desperate Hours," off the album "Tallahassee" by The Mountain Goats. the real line is actually not far off: "when cloven-hoof prints turn up in the garden..."
i'm amused by my mis-hearing because of how it seems to have been generated. "Prince" came to my ear faster than "prints," but "Turnip" makes almost no sense, as you imply. of course, the word sounds like "turn up," but i suspect my mind wouldn't have fastened on "turnip" without "garden" following just after. because of the strength of that association, the mistake has cemented over time, so that i'm *always* now tempted to hear/sing "Prince Turnip," despite knowing what the actual lyric is. i think the story of Peter Rabbit is also playing into this.
it's like my friend's mis-hearing of the Simon and Garfunkle line from "America": "I said, 'Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera." she heard, "...'Be careful, his BLOWTORCH is really a camera."
this is, one, hilarious, but also semi-appropriate. suspecting that a fellow bus passenger is a spy associates him more closely with blowtorches than bowties, despite the words diverging quite widely after first syllable.
we like to notice the way that the agents by which meaning is constructed through language can sometimes work against one another. see also the leotard/lyotard post below.

amelia said...

dear the fb,

my blowtorch is really a camera!

i love your explication of that little piece of mis-hearing. upon further review, i was pretty amused by the way a poem i hadn't read since high-school crept in to my mis-reading of your mis-hearing: lots of lines from "in just" begin "when..." and there's the "goat-footed" character, and garden :: spring? i like that. also, in general, mis-hearing lyrics? fun.

in other news, i was completely convinced during my initial infatuation w/ st. peter's in philly that (atheistic) rufus wainwright's chorus on "beautiful child" was "...beautiful child of God." (nope, just "...beautiful child again." alas!)

K. Ross Hoffman said...

hi amelia

amelia said...

hi ross!

Anonymous said...

Fire Boss--

Your dear roommate just about ruined a line from Death Cab For Cutie's /I Will Follow You Into The Dark/ for me, when she did a Rudolph the Reindeer impression at "Illuminate the NOSE on their vacancy signs". =)

THE FIRE BOSS (aka EFF BEE) said...

am: yes, i never had the heart to correct you on the rufus lyric.

oh language! its pleasure! its ruination!

amelia said...

you never had the heart??? OUCH! (i'm still singing it that way, though.)

THE FIRE BOSS (aka EFF BEE) said...

you liked it so much! why take that away?

Anonymous said...

yes, andrew, but "illuminate the 'no's" sounds exactly the same as "illuminate the nose." that was a perfectly legitimate mistake, since nose is more common than "no"s.

my sister thought CCR's "there's a bad moon on the rise" was actually "there's a bathroom on the right." and how about jimi hendrix with "excuse me while i kiss this guy?"

K. Ross Hoffman said...

i still don't know if it's "count our blessings and our thumbs" or "count our blessings on our thumbs," or which is preferable.

K. Ross Hoffman said...

er, "my blessings," whatever

amelia said...

when i was a fan i was a really big fan of both the beatles song and the nickelodeon television show..you know, hey dude.

K. Ross Hoffman said...

there need to be more comments on this thread.

amelia said...

indeed there do. any other lyric mishaps to speak of?

Claire: said...

as i recall, the FB misheard prince's seven:
"all seven and we'll watch them fall,
they stand in the way of love
and we will smoke them all
with that intellect and the sidewalk fair"

which should be "savoir faire"