Orange Peelings

Song of the Day - ‘A Man Walks Down the Street’, Paul Simon 

Have you ever listened to a song, looked up the lyrics, and then realized you had been singing them wrong ever since you first heard them?

I do this all the time.

And not just little things like mixing up prepositions of proper nouns, legit mistranslations of entire lyrics.

The most notorious example would have to be when I was eight or nine and, as my parents are awesome, we were listening to Neil Diamond in the car. The song ‘Cherry, Cherry’ came on and as we got to the chorus, I exploded out from the back seat, ‘SHE’S GOT THE WET BABOOBY, CHERRY’.

My dad and sister turned from the front seat giving me a look of wonder and burst out laughing.

Turns out the lyrics are ‘she’s got the way to move me, Cherry’.

Whatever.

I don’t really know what went through my head to think those were the right lyrics, I just sang what I heard.

The way every middle schooler in the US sang their own version of ‘Dragostea Din Tei’ by O-Zone - also known as the ‘Numa Numa’ song. You just sing what you hear and hope you’re close.

I recently found out that the song lyrics to a song with which I had previously been infatuated were not as I thought they were.

For whatever reason, it didn’t register to me that the lyrics I had in my head made very little sense. I just thought there was a depth of wisdom and sentiment that I simply didn’t understand, and chocked it up to creativity and artistic license.

But now that I know what the right words are, I find myself shaking my head at my own folly. Really, how could I be so silly?

Though when I really think about it, I DO come by it honestly. Whenever I play the intro to ‘More than a Feeling’, if my dad’s in the vicinity he’ll yell out ‘IT’S MORE THAN ORANGE PEEEELIIIIIIIINGS’.

And yes, he is quite aware what the actual words are. He just revels in being a dork.

When I was younger, one of my favorite songs for my parents to sing while I was trying to fall asleep was ‘Goodnight Irene’. It was soft and full of lullabyness, simple enough that even my devotedly tone-deaf mother could sing it and almost always stay in tune. 

Years later I looked up the lyrics and found out that the one right before the chorus - one my parents never refrained from singing to me - was ‘sometimes I take a great notion / to jump in the river and drown’.

Whenever I hear or sing the song myself, it never strikes me that the person singing is contemplating suicide. I always remember my personal context of the song, of calm and sleepy and backrub and love. I guess the mysticism and love of my parents’ serenade managed to fog up the line’s literal meaning for me.

One of my favorite memories is when my dad would sing me to sleep. A favorite of his and mine was ‘You Can Call Me Al’ by Paul Simon, but my sister and I had dubbed it ‘A Man Walks Down the Street’. We had hand motions and he’d sing the percussion parts as well as all the words, and he sang it the same way every single time. It’s the way I sing it when I’m not listening to the actual song. Though sometimes I throw in the flute solo for good measure.

Well, this turned real personal and sentimental real fast.

On a brighter note, the sun is shining, the door is open wide and I can hear the Music of Outside - loud birds, buzzing bugs that run into our front window, wind blowing the wind chime, the occasional car, and what sounds like someone weed-whacking. My dogs are passed out on the floor, my mother likewise in her chair draped in the kitty cat blanket. Funnily enough, all of them are facing towards the open door in their respective subconscious stupors, like flowers follow the arc of the sun.

I love summer. 

‘You say you want a resolution,

well, you know

we all want to change the chord.’ - Emma’s version of ‘Revolution’ by the Beatles