The sky put on a bit of a show in the wee hours of this morning, prompting me to think of the Jimi Hendrix line, “Excuse me while I kiss the sky,” which then made me want to say, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy,” well, for reasons that should be obvious. (If not they are not, I refer you to this article.)
Which brings me to the actual point of this blog post:
Mondegreens, Malapropisms, and Mixed Metaphors
I come from a short line (as far as I know, it only spans two generations) of women who mix metaphors, misquote idioms and butcher lyrics. It’s not a proud legacy, but it is what it is. The defective gene can be traced to my mother who might say something like, “You can beat a dead gift horse, but you can’t make him drink.” She passed this trait on to my sister who will say with an air of proud surprise, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I got that one right, didn’t I?!” when (on occasion) she gets an idiom correct.
They’re funny, my mom and my sister, and their mixed-up expressions, but I don’t laugh too loudly.
He Who Laughs Last Laughs Best
My form of the malady manifests itself specifically in my tendency to invent song lyrics. When I was a little girl I used to love a song that was apparently about a garden that just couldn’t or wouldn’t grow Japanese peas. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Perhaps you’ve heard it. I think the band is called Chicago.
What are Japanese peas? I have no idea. A lesser-known variety similar to snow peas or sugar snap peas? Why don’t they grow? Perhaps not enough water or sunlight, I don’t know. I didn’t question it, I just sang along. Later—to my everlasting disappointment—I found out the real lyrics were, “Ooh ooh ooh, no baby please don’t go.”
Perhaps in my five-year-old brain, these sweetpeas were what Peter Cetera was singing about.
My version is less needy and not quite so pathetic.
PS. Speaking of mistaken lyrics and total eclipses…I did a web search for misunderstood lyrics for Total Eclipse of the Heart and found this: “Totally, clips of the heart.” Submitted, I’m guessing, by a valley girl.
Here’s an old commercial that features two guys singing loud, singing proud, but above all, singing words that only make sense to the ones singing!
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