A 30 year argument: Led Zeppelin III, Song: Gallows Pole - Friend thinks Robert Plant is saying: "She's so ugly though" I say "No he's not" (but can't understand what is said). Anyone at the recording session? |
There used to be a web site dedicated to this topic. I forget what it is but someone out there must recall it. |
Purple haze was written with out a doubt under the influence. The subject being that of a popular drug in it's day. As for meaning "kiss this guy" or "kiss the sky". It doesn't suprise me as it goes along with the subject at hand. A lot of strange lyrics were generated from this era. It's just a shame that we didn't get an unplugged version from Jimi to the likes of others like Plant and Paige. Gallows Pole was done on the unleaded album too............. |
Beach Boys, Help me Rhonda. "Since you put me down I've got owls pucking in my bed" It sounds like that to me. I've never gotten hold of the sheet music to find out what the lyric really is. Does anyone know? |
How about: Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a doush and a wrooner in the night???
What is he really saying... I've wondered for years. (Manfried Mann?) |
Wstritt, here's the link for botched and misunderstood lyrics:
http://www.kissthisguy.com/
Some pretty funny stuff! |
Excuse me while i kiss the sky. Read for yourself in his song book. |
Dedicatedaudio, according to the lyrics on the back of the LP jacket (The Roaring Silence):
"Blinded by the light
Wrapped up like a deuce
Another runner in the night."
Do you realize that this song was written by Bruce Springsteen, who also did a version of it, although the Manfred Mann song was the version that most are familiar with. |
The classic, which suposedly puzzled millions, was the opening song to the TV series, "All In the Family." The last bit of the song went ... "Didn't need a welfare state ... Everybody pulled their weight ... Gee our old La Salle great ... Those Were the Days." The song was actually re-recorded and overly enuciated a few seasons later, because nobody could decipher the La Salle line. |
It's "Revved up like a deuce" (deuce coupe).
The web site is:
http://www.amiright.com/
I love this one:
"Big Old Jedi Wino, don't carry me too far away!" |
John Prine tells a story about a woman coming up to him in a club and asking him to sing the song about the "Happy Enchilada." When he told her that he didn't know such a song and asked her how it went, she said "you know - 'It's a happy enchilada and you think you're gonna drown.'" The lyric is "It's a half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown. That's the way that the world goes 'round."
Dick |
"Louie, Louie"... many-a things heard in there. |
One of my best friends and I are Rock and Roll trivia people..and remember who wrote what, when and what they were wearing when they did it....drives our friends crazy.
But...one song took us forever to figure out a line in. It's the opening line from the Beach Boys "Help Me Ronda"
"Well since you put me down, I've been mumble, muble etc...
We finally figured out it was..."Well since you put me down, I've been out doin in my head"......
For several years we though they were saying "...been outa tune in my head"..
Fun thread.. |
"Some people call me Maurice
Cause I speak/Of the pompetous of love"
I read somewhere that that actually IS the lyric. Anyone know for sure? |
Sarah - found on the net..
The Joker
Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah
Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
Cause I speak of the pompitous of love
People talk about me, baby
Say I'm doin' you wrong, doin' you wrong
Well, don't you worry baby
Don't worry
Cause I'm right here, right here, right here, right here at home |
But what IS "the pompitous of love?" Steve Miller has been speaking of it to me for 30 years now, and I still have no clue what it is. Is love pompous? Is that the same as pompitous? |
From Creedence Clearwater Revival:
I heard: "There's a bathroom on the right"
What they said: "There's a bad moon on the rise"
Iron Butterfly:
I heard: "In the Garden of Eden..."
What they said: Well, you know..."Inagaddagavida" or whatever.
Dylan:
What a friend claims to have heard: "The ants are my friends..." |
Nina Hagen in the song The Mother of Punk has the words
"I'm the mother of punk
So what the funk?"
Guess how it's heard when you listen...:^) |
I once had a girl tell me how much she loved that Rolling Stones song about "your big suburban"...yes, like the SUV. Yes, the same SUV built probably 30 years after the song was written. I didn't have the heart to tell her that fact though...lol. The song was "Beast of Burden". Top that one...lol |
"Pompatus" mystified millions when Steve Miller used it in his 1973 hit "The Joker": "Some people call me the space cowboy. / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love. / Some people call me Maurice, / Cause I speak of the Pompatus of love.""Space cowboy" and "gangster of love" referred to earlier Miller songs. Maurice was from Miller's 1972 tune "Enter Maurice," which appeared on the album Recall the Beginning ... A Journey From Eden. "Enter Maurice" had this lyric: "My dearest darling, come closer to Maurice so I can whisper sweet words of epismetology in your ear and speak to you of the pompitous of love."Great, now there were two mystery words. What's more, it appeared even Miller himself was uncertain how pompatus was spelled. It appeared as "pompatus" in at least two books of sheet music but as "pompitous" in the lyrics included with "Recall the Beginning."Miller has said little about the P-word over the years. In at least one interview, fans say, he claimed "it doesn't mean anything--it's just jive talk."Not quite.Some sharp-eared music fan noticed the "Enter Maurice" lyric above bore a marked resemblance to some lines in a rhythm and blues tune called "The Letter" by the Medallions. The song had been a hit in R & B circles in 1954.J.K. found the record. It had the lines, "Oh my darling, let me whisper sweet words of [something like epismetology] and discuss the [something like pompatus] of love." J.K. tried to find the sheet music for the song, but came up only with the Box Tops hit ("My baby, she wrote me a letter").Then came a stroke of luck. Jon Cryer the movie guy had stumbled onto the secret of pompatus. Eager to reveal it to the world, he sent it to--who, Rolling Stone? The New York Times?Of course not. He sent it to us.Speculation about "pompatus" was a recurring motif in the script for The Pompatus of Love. While the movie was in postproduction Cryer heard about "The Letter." During a TV interview he said that the song had been written and sung by a member of the Medallions named Vernon Green. Green, still very much alive, was dozing in front of the tube when the mention of his name caught his attention. He immediately contacted Cryer.Green had never heard "The Joker." Cryer says that when he played it for Green "he laughed his ass off." Green's story:"You have to remember, I was a very lonely guy at the time. I was only 14 years old, I had just run away from home, and I walked with crutches," Green told Cryer. He scraped by singing songs on the streets of Watts.One song was "The Letter," Green's attempt to conjure up his dream woman. The mystery words, J.K. ascertained after talking with Green, were "puppetutes" and "pizmotality." (Green wasn't much for writing things down, so the spellings are approximate.)"Pizmotality described words of such secrecy that they could only be spoken to the one you loved," Green told Cryer. And puppetutes? "A term I coined to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure [thus puppet], who would be my everything and bear my children." Not real PC, but look, it was 1954.Green went on to record many other songs and is still writing today. Steve Miller must have loved R & B. Another line from "The Joker" goes "I really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree. / Lovey dovey, lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time." A similar line may be found in the Clovers' 1953 hit "Lovey Dovey": "I really love your peaches wanna shake your tree / Lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time."When I spoke to Miller's publicist Jim Welch about these remarkable coincidences, he said Miller's comment was "artistic license." Pressed a bit, Welch said Miller acknowledged that he'd been "influenced" by earlier artists. Not perhaps the most forthcoming statement in the world. But at least we now know it didn't come to him in a dream. This info was gleaned from a website. |
Cpdunn99...you are amazingly close.
Inagaddagavida was actually written by half of Iron Butterfly when they where in Europe. Wanting to get the rest of the band to learn the song before they got home they called them and sang it to them over a rather poor trans-atlantic connection. The guys in the states heard Inagaddagavida, the song WAS supposed to be In The Garden Of Eden!!! When all the band got together, they liked Inagaddagavida better so they left it that way...
Never thought I'd get to use that tid bit! |
What I've always heard is "... the properties of love". |
Blue oyster cult,s first album. |
"Louie Louie" lyrics have to be the all time mystery. Anyone know the real ones or are they unprintable on this family oriented site? |
Kennyt: thanks for that!! How many years have you been aching to spill that little tidbit?! |
formulaone That was about the best explanation for any question I have ever seen. WOW! |
Thank you Formula One!! As Nrchy, said, that is an incredibly detailed and informative explanation. So "pompitous" is really "puppetutes." Makes a LOT more sense that way! (right) |
Hey Eddaytona,
Here are the real lyrics of Louie Louie, as written and copyrighted by Richard Berry (Limax Music), and performed by the Kingsmen (note: this is NOT the Iggy Pop version):
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
A fine little girl, she wait for me.
Me catch the ship across the sea.
I sailed the ship all alone.
I never think I'll make it home.
Louie Louie, me gotta go ...
Three nights and days we sailed the sea.
Me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there.
I smell the rose in her hair.
Louie Louie, me gotta go.
Me see Jamaican moon above.
It won't be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again.
Louie Louie, me gotta go." |
Dweller - where in Gallows Pole are you referring to? I'm guessing the last verse, the closest line of which is "She warmed my blood from cold". Unfortunately, I don't think there is a definitive version of the lyrics (Plant sang it differently on different occasions), but here's the gist of the last verse:
"Yes you got a fine sister,
She warmed my blood from cold.
She/we warmed/brought my blood to boiling hot,
To keep you from the gallows pole.
Your brother brought me silver,
Your sister warmed my soul,
But now I laugh and pull so hard,
And see you swinging on the gallows pole... |
Great story formulaone! It's fun to see the history of how music and language get distorted across the span of years.
That said, "pompatus" is actually a word (Latin, to be sure) meaning something like "splendor". |
Rzado: It's at the 4 minute, 22 seconds mark.
R. Plant: "She's smhfteumsnethbtoso 'o"
"She saw the back of my door"
Regards,
Ken |
Every song ever recorded by James Brown? |
Owww, get back, Voodoochile! You needn't understand James Brown to understand James Brown! ;-) |
4yanx... IM PICKN UP WHAT CHU PUTTN DOWN! HEYYYY... |
Years ago I read a story about Barry Manilow. He told about a letter he got that said; "my mom and I really love your new song but what does 'looks like tomatos' mean?"
The real lyrics were: "looks like we made it." |
Dweller, I double checked it yesterday, and you can tell your friend he's definitely wrong. It kind of threw me that his proposed lyric had "she" in it, because "she" doesn't appear in the last minute or so of the song. The "she" is, in fact, "see", as in "see-saw" - the motion made by someone who is hanging by the neck (as is the subject of the song at the time). Here's the lyrics of the two lines at issue:
"See-saw, Margaret Daw, gotta swing
See-saw, knock on my door, I, I gotta swing, ah-ha-ha"
Some claim that "Margaret" is in fact "Marjorie", but either way, nothing about "she" or "ugly". |
Rzado: The coolest guys hang around this site. Thanks! |
Rar1 its actually " Gee our old La Salle ran great" listened last night heard it totally clear finally been wondering for a long time what it was. Thanks |
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Phasecorrect, you are as usual, correct about REM. I found a website that had the lyrics to all their songs once, and even translated, the lyrics made no sense at all! Michael Stipe just did a stream of consciousness rant. Sounded good but was untranslateable. |
