Been parenting or trying to in the past, what? two years? And in the process, honestly, not been entirely myself, at least in front of people, or in this case (in blogging i mean), I haven’t shown the other side of me to my readers. Not saying that what you’re seeing is nothing but a big lie. It’s just that, I’ve been or tried to be always at my best self at all times.
But let me try to show you, that side of me, that I am not sure if you’re gonna like.. hahaha!
Let’s have a break from my usual posts, just because we all need to have a good laugh every once in a while..
It is just striking how we Pinoys commit grammatical slips at times when we’re expected not to, in singing, for instance, in front of a live audience (whether it’s a huge one or just you and your buddies). Some of us get it mixed-up perhaps because we didn’t listen hard enough, or could be that we couldn’t understand the accent of the artist, and so we try to make sense out of the vague words said in those songs, plainly inventing in the hope of being spontaneous just because we didn’t know the lyrics…
The following are bits and pieces of song lyrics that people might have misheard, mangled, misunderstood, mispronounced, and messed-up in funny ways. They’re actually called MONDEGREENS.
Mondegreens are simply defined as misheard and mangled lyrics, and in fact a universal syndrome. Some of you might have heard about a rendition called ‘KEN LEE (..tulibu dibu douchoo)’ by a Bulgarian Idol. If not, hey, you’re way outdated, search it over at youtube to see what I mean. Or better yet, okay fine, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQt-h753jHI
And who among us Pinoys doesn’t know Alyssa Alano and how her career started? Whatever she meant by ‘beat in the verdict valley…’ (click this link to appreciate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leW9nn8ZCAM) she probably just wanted to get that big debut of her ‘spectacular’ performance over and done with. Haha! But it paid off, didn’t it?
One of my friend’s house help can be a potential Mondegreen contender, she has been caught screwing up such hits like (here’s how she sang it): ‘Nothing’s gonna change my love for you, you know naman by now, how much I love you..’ in all fairness, it sounded pa-tweetums lang, ha. ‘Napatingin ako sa kamera’ when I heard her sing (The Greatest Love of All) ‘If I pay, I can’t believe, never to walk with Edu Manzano..’ Eh di wow! Di ba? Haha. And then there’s Hopelessly Devoted To You sang as ‘But now, there’s no better guy, since you push my lover’s eye (ouch!), I’m out of my bed, hope the city voted to you..oooh.. hope the city voted to you!(election?) She never failed to amaze us.
Stand-up comedians, on the other hand, have their ways of slippin’ in malicious minds to their funny antics and humor, all for fun sake. Replacing words to sound the way they want it, like in the song ‘in good times, and bed times, I’ll be side-by-side forever more, that’s what friends are for’ or one of the Breads’ classics- “Make it With You’ sang ‘..and if I chose the one I’d like to help me through, I wanna make out with you.. I really think that we can make a girl..’ and Irene Cara’s Flash Dance lines sounded ‘take your pants down, (instead of take your passion) and make it happen.. ‘
There are those that made a little sense, somehow: ‘Ahas, in the middle of the street, ahas, in the middle of the street..’ Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Scarborough Fair’ was sang ‘Are you going to starve an old friend? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…’ and then there’s Neil Diamond’s ‘Selsun blue everybody use one’ instead of ‘Song Sung blue everybody knows one… ‘ Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowing in the Wind’ held the lyrics ‘the ants are my friends, they’re going & they win, the ants are just going and they win..’ talk about country songs being murdered?! I got a little ‘diri’ hearing one of the Beatles songs (Ticket to Ride)sang this way instead.. ‘She’s got a tick in her eye, she’s got a tick in her eye, she’s got a tick in her eye, but she don’t care!’ MAJOR EEEWWWW! Haha.
A hopeless romantic manang singing her heart out over a karaoke sounded a little desperate with a Joey Albert song that went ‘I wanna die… I can’t get over you…’ (originally ‘Oh what a night, I can’t get over you’). A college barkada used to sing a very powerful song by the Cranberries ‘Zombie’ at the top of her lungs with an earsplitting ‘Some-day, someday, some-day-hey-hey-ho-oh-oh…’ instead. I heard a sampaguita vendor singing ‘I’m 264 my shirt, 264 my shirt 260 its hers..’ (Too Sexy) with matching dance steps.
Those who made these songs up obviously got confused: ‘I believe our children, or our future, piss them when they let her give away..’ hu-whattttt?!? Overkill, you won’t believe this really happened, but it did. I was a witness how the bride cried over her wedding not exactly tears of joy, perhaps of humiliation? After hearing the church soloist rendition of ‘It Might Be You’ with the most hideous lines one can ever think of singing on a wedding… ‘Something’s telling me it’s me and you… all of my wife… maybe it’s you, or maybe it’s you, I’ve been waiting for… all of my wife’ Haay, nako, believe me. Me and my siblings had to get out the church for a while, because we couldn’t stop laughing and giggling.
Holidays were never spared as we all know, by those little carolers singing happy ‘Jing-gam-bels’ song and the always screwed-up lyrics of ‘nagluto ang ate ng manok at tinola…’ I heard something new last Christmas, though, ‘Olive, the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names’ instead of the original ‘all of the other reindeer’ has given rise to a new fictional character- Olive. Haha!
Guilty as can be, I’ve got a fair share of misheard lyrics, a couple of times its words were nice and clear, sounding perfectly, projecting confidently but then my sisters would frustratingly hold up my singing telling me I’ve got the words all wrong! The annoying part for them is when stubborn me would insist on goin’ on thinking the stuff I’ve sung actually sounded better than the original lyrics. Haha! After all, I’d say, it’s my rendition, right?
The list is just endless… I know that you probably have a lot goin’ on in your head right now. Share it… let other people suffer from the last song syndrome of the silliest mondegreens you have encountered… I can see you’re enjoying.. ‘til next time friends. ‘Chuvaness, chuvaness, everything you own in the box, chuvaness!’ ;-D
