I Was Raised to Butcher Songs

So, I totally get antsy after about 3 hours of class. Particularly when the teacher has set a precedent of letting us out early. Technically I should be prepared for 4 hours of class on Tuesday and Thursday nights. But, since we haven't actually stayed in class that long, I have gotten used to the idea. By 8:00 last night, I was ready to go. And even though she let us go around 7:40, my group had to meet to discuss how we were going to finish up our group assignments which we have to present next Tuesday. I really do get ready to go... What can I say? I was very jittery. After leaving school, I figured Institute might still be going, so I swung by there. It didn't end up ending until 9:00, so I got about 50 minutes of Institute, which was cool.

Have you ever been singing along to a song to which you've always sung, and suddenly realized what the singer was really saying? And suddenly it all becomes quite clear to you that your lyrics don't even make sense in the song? But, since you've always sung it that way (your way), you will continue to do so, because your lyrics really do sound like they fit... even if they don't fit with the meaning... My classic example (though I'm sure there are many) is Vanilla Ice's Ice, Ice Baby. (Elka, I know you wish you had speakers right now so you could jam out to this :) -- but I also know you're going to go listen to it now :)). There's a point where, in the background, you hear the words "Beach Front Avenue... Girls are hot..." Well, now that I've lived close enough to Panama City Beach, FL, I know there is such a place as Beach Front Avenue. When I grew up in Panama, my version (ie "Detroit Avenue") made just as much sense as anything else. It had the right number of syllables and it seemed like a logical name of a street. Oh, and just FYI -- I did it to TV shows too :).

Of course, that song-butchering wasn't intentional. But, my family likes to butcher songs intentionally. My mother, for one. Brad for another. But I'm sure it started with my mom :). Of course, the ones I remember her butchering were from our cartoons, which were already rather pointless ;). So, following is my mom's butchering of songs:

My Little Pony -- lyrics were changed to "My little pony's a phony bologna."
Gummi Bears -- lyrics were changed to "Gummi bears... plopping here and there and everywhere." And, once she did it and we thought it was hilarious, we always stressed the plopping part.

So, Brad took quite fondly to this practice of altering songs. In the summer of 1995, he got on a kick of doing it, and he had almost convinced himself that you could insert the word "phone" into any song and make it fit. These are the three I can think of:

November Rain -- lyrics were changed to "everybody needs some time on the phone."
You Are Not Alone -- lyrics were changed to (you guessed it) "you are not a phone." (I didn't say he was creative...) (and yes, they played this video on MTV, and it's rather scary)
Somebody's Cryin' -- lyrics were changed to "so pleeeeeaaase return the phone you took from me."

It's been 13 years since the genius creation of these songs by Brad. I want you to know that I still hear Brad's version in my head for any of those songs when I hear them. And now you probaly will too. But, you won't have the hilarious mental picture of Brad making a big deal about singing them that way and then laughing at them because it irritated me. (Which is probably why he did it in the first place). He also butchered Tonight, Tonight by the Smashing Pumpkins, but his version was a little less than appropriate for this blog, so I won't include it. (Nothing really vulgar, just teenage boy humor).

Of course, we came by it honestly (from my mom). I don't know what Heath's excuse is for altering the words to Everclear's Santa Monica to be "I am still living with your goat." ;) But I've never forgotten that one either.

And, since I mentioned it, I will tell you about the most hilarious mess-up that I made -- at least, in my own mind. It's really great. Any of you ever seen the tv show Quantum Leap? We loved that show. We recorded the tv episodes on VHS, and I'm pretty sure my dad still has them all in the tv room at his house. We watched it so much that I had the whole intro memorized. I can still give it to you word for word (only now I know the real words :)). Okay, this would have been much more hilarious if I could've found it on youtube. Alas, they do not have it. Which is insane to me. Basically, my version went like this:

"Hair-raising that one could time travel within his own life time, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the quantum leap accelerator, and vanished...."

Fits, right? makes sense, right? I mean, time travel is quite a hair-raising experience -- trust me, I know ;). Okay, so that really is the way I said it for years and years. The show ended in 1993. It was sometime after I was an adult (which occurred somewhere between 1998 and 1999, depending on what state you are in), so that should tell you how long I was saying this wrong. The real words are:

"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own life time, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the quantum leap accelerator, and vanished..."

Ah! Well, admittedly it makes more sense that way. But, you have to admit... My version was slightly cooler.

*And Tarylyn has guessed the movie quote correctly!*