I heard Siouxsie & the Banshees ‘Hong Kong Garden’ on the wireless the other day. What leapt out at me was not the covert racism (Google it yourselves) but the following couplet:
“Would you like number twenty three?
Leave your Yens on the counter please”
Now then, young Susan, the official currency of Hong Kong is the HK dollar. They take Yen in Japan, and I can’t imagine there being a Cantonese takeaway in Tokyo.
Can the Massive think of any similar nonsense for an old pedant to get in a froth about?
The street currency in the old USSR was often US dollars, the rouble being periodically worthless. Perhaps it’s like that.
I always go to old punk singles for FOREX updates.
The lack of knowledge about where the jail is in TL’s ‘Jailbreak’ is usually mentioned in such threads.
As well as the lack of a 4AM in the afternoon or evening, Mr Oldfield.
And it’s not ironic Ms Morissette, it’s just very, very unlucky.
” It says Morris on the door. the GPO owned it before”
It probably says Minor 1000 on the front wing and if it was previously owned by the GPO then it would be a van, unless it was a company car.
Seethes……..
Also on a money-related theme, the reference to “currency” in the lines:
“But look at my hopes, look at my dreams
The currency we’ve spent
I love you, you pay my rent”
stuck out like a sore thumb when I watched a bit of the PSBs from Glastonbury on the iplayer the other day.
I only watched a bit of Rent and had the following thoughts: (a) where was Chris Lowe – had he been hidden backstage? (b) Neil T’s voice seemed to me to be more nasal than before (when I say “before”, I mean late 80’s. I don’t follow the PSBs closely); (c) wouldn’t it be better to watch the original videos than to stand in a field watching Neil Tennant standing in front of PSB videos? (Still undecided on that); and (d) “currency” sounds odd.
On the last, I suppose he wants to say, “think about all the money we’ve spent”, except “money” wouldn’t allow the line to scan, would it? I don’t imagine he’s saying: consider all the Dollars, Yen, Rand and Krone we’ve got through this month.
Anyway, once this had occurred to me, I couldn’t stop hearing it every time NT sang the line and so I stopped watching.
By the way, where was Chris Lowe?
Chris Lowe was there, but playing his keyboards in the wings. His pod didn’t open, or sumfink.
He was keeping a Lowe profile then, was he?
Of course, there’s also the pun about a Tennant singing a song about rent.
Ba-dum, tish!
It would scan if he said “the money that we’ve spent”.
#lyric doctor
As an ex-journalist (and, it says on Wikipedia, production editor), you would have thought NT could have sorted that one out himself, wouldn’t you?
By the way Macca, you could have improved Live and Let Die by saying “and if the ever changing world that we all live in…” instead of having everyone wonder if you wrote “…and if the ever changing world in which we live in…”.
#lyricdoctor
That’s always bothered me too. But, isn’t the line actually “…and if the ever changing world in which we’re living…”?
“We’re living” makes more sense, but ends up sounding like “we live in”, which causes the impression of a double preposition “in”.
I knew that was the actual lyric but it’s clunky for such an accomplished writer. Just a simple call to the Lyric Doctor can save so much reputational damage.
Sorry … Me being too literal (“pedantic”?).
It’s been a long day and I’m signing-off now.
Spondulicks would be better.
Whither mazoolah?
Ah, but currency doesn’t have to be only money. Which in the context of this song is the clever part. He doesn’t just throw these things together, y’know.
And ‘PSB videos’ constituted about 5% of the stage presentation. It’s the first time to my knowledge they’ve used their own videos in this way, but it makes sense in a definitive Greatest Hits show.
I admit to being a bit unfair as regards the video. It was in a vain attempt to be amusing.
I only watched for about 5 minutes and I do admit that it did look pretty smart, with NT in his long white coat standing in front of artful images of his younger self.
Currency is the correct term because this song is not just about money. Poor NT is in a complex relationship. The transactions between them suggest payment ‘in kind’. One party pays the rent in cash, the other in sexual favours. “I love you, you pay my rent” is delivered in a deadpan, designed voice.
You all know this. I’m just saying.
I rest, m’lud.
Exactly. This line, and the whole of West End Boys, is pretty much the start and end of my PSB appreciation, but it’s a great line
Squeeze’s time travelling in Up The Junction – 24 months in one and a half verses
This morning at four-fifty
I took her rather nifty
Down to an incubator
Where thirty minutes later
She gave birth to a daughter
Within a year a walker
She looked just like her mother
If there could be another
And now she’s two years older
Her mother’s with a soldier
Cool for Cats – arrows in his hats. Why is he wearing more than one hat? Replicating the Tommy Cooper routine?
Nowadays it would “18 hours and 30 minutes later”
The NHS was so much better under a Labour government.
Especially if, as in the song, you were going into labour
The two people in that song were too liberal, and didn’t use a conservative.
He was very disappointed etc
36 months I think (being pedantic)
Being even more pedantic, a more accurate answer would be “somewhere between 24 and 36 months” as the timeframe specified for the baby’s starting to use the walker is “within a year”
Or does it just take place on one day?
“This morning at four-fifty”
Does he then see into the future where his daughter is now living with her mother and a soldier?
Also, what was she doing in an incubator? How did she even fit in.
Came here to make this exact point. What need does a pregnant woman have for an incubator? Embarrassing stuff.
The lyrics of the woeful Heaven 17 song “Come Live with Me”, start IIRC with “I was 37, you were 17. You were half my age, a youth I’d never seen”. They have always offended me, not only mathematically but also because the song would make no sense if he’d never seen her (unless he’s blind of course). I spent an evening in Glenn Gregory’s company once. He was a lovely man and his girlfriend was not half his age luckily so it didn’t crop up in conversation.
That one gets my goat, too.
“I was 2.176407588235 times your age” would be correct but a bit of a mouthful.
And he must have been 17 himself – probably for a whole year, spent with his eyes closed? What could possibly make a 17-y-o lad go blind for a whole year?
I take it to mean he didn’t have much of a good time as a young person, and sees the relationship as a way of (re)capturing that time and his lost vitality.
Mick Jagger’s insistence that his birth coincided with Dartford being struck by the first and last “crossfire hurricane” in UK meteorological history
What he has to say about his dear old mum later in that song is both defamatory and dashed bad form.
Noel G.
There’s four and twenty million doors
On life’s endless corridor
Not endless then. Masterplonker.
He’s also responsible for slowly walking down the hall faster than Cannon and Ball, isn’t he?
I’ve never understood the problem with this lyric. It’s not exactly Emily Dickinson, but it’s a perfectly serviceable pop lyric juxtaposing physical and mental speed.
The insistence on taking it literally (“how can he move fast and slow? Wanker!”) could be deployed to undermine any number of lyrics from songs we all love (“who knows where the time goes? It doesn’t “go” anywhere, it’s an abstract concept, not the number 19 bus. Twats!”).
There’s also the remote possibility that Noel is aware of highbrow Physics concepts like timelines in parallel dimensions, or velocity being a fairly abstract concept dependent upon the observer’s speed and directional vector, and of course of measurement of time in different units chosen by humans in different societies prior to the introduction of S.I. units, or the rotation of planet earth being about 460m/s at the surface – meaning we’re all moving at about 1,000 miles per hour even when we’re standing still.
I told you it was remote.
Or just the fact that Brackett the Butler in Chigley took so long to walk down the hall to answer the phone.
And Crondall was the only scanning rhyme he could find for hall
The measurement of it’s passage is an invention of mankind’s, but time itself is real, not an abstract concept.
At last! Someone else who appreciates Emily Dickinson.
Hope is the thing with feathers.
As in, “I hope there’s some meat on this chicken”
🙌🙌🙌
Not a big fan of Noel’s lyrics but, given that this a thread for pedantry… the corridor might be infinite but contain a finite number of doors. Or have no doors at all, for that matter.
Or the lyrics might exist purely at the quantum level, at which point all our assumptions about corridors and doors start to collapse entirely.
I came here to be a pedant only to out pedanted. Such is the Afterword. It’s a clunky old lyric though. Tune’s quite nice.
He also called an album “standing on the shoulder of giants”
One shoulder between them was it?
If life’s corridor is endless then there’s an infinite amount of it after all of those doors and Noel’s not actually being inaccurate.
Is it really a fact that there are nine million bicycles in Beijing, Katie?
In fairness, she does say this one is a guess guess but are we really twelve billion light years from the edge?
Eric Idle suggests it’s a hundred thousand light years side to side
Who knows?
Possibly not completely related, but what would be next number if 2000 Light Years from Home had another verse?
100
600
1000
2000
….
Is that Numberwang?
AKA The Zager and Evans paradox
I used to defend that until I found out that Mike Batt wrote it. He’s a twonk, so it’s bobbins.
I never knew that levels of difficulty can be compared to a “nuclear war” but clearly some of my fellow Brummies did? Or was is the one what was born ‘darn sarf?
Did Starship really build a city on Rock and Roll?
I think they may need stronger foundations (Concrete and Clay perhaps), otherwise AC/DC will shake them
Rock’n’ Roll is just a ridiculous name for a confidence-inspiring foundation material, isn’t it? Extraordinary choice from the Starship corporation, to be honest. Rock Steady, now that’s a much better brand name.
….but that in turn has its own problems, to wit creating a funky and lowdown feeling.
In Bananarama’s He Was Really Saying Something, it would seem all the bloke was saying was “Bop Bop Dooby Doo Wah”.
In fairness, they didn’t say he was saying something worthy or even intelligible
There she was just a walkin’ down the street
singing do-wah-diddy diddy-dum-diddy-doo
…..I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, care in the community doesn’t work
I don’t know if this is pedantry or just a hatred of sloppiness, but you have no idea how much the mis-spelling in the title of Richard Thompson’s “Roll Over Vaughn Williams” annoys me. (Google it if you don’t know what I mean).
Surprising that RT should miss an a. He’s written enough songs in it. Oho!
Although obviously the song title is linked to the composer Beethoven, you would think the correct spelling would be Vaughan.
But nowhere in the lyrics is any mention of Ralph, so could the song be a tribute to an old school chum of RT when he attended William Ellis Grammar?
I can’t be bothered searching for and looking through the class lists though.
Arthur realises the bleeding obvious about thirty years after the fact, part 54: I only now just noticed this song title is a play on the Chuck Berry song. D’oh.
So he is to blame for people forever misspelling my surname.
But while we’re dealing with Thommo, no mention yet of that key-free motorbike?
Could have been the key for the padlock and chain.
Bit difficult to try to explain that in a song and make it scan.
I have just Googled the price of Vincent bikes. I would want round the clock security rather than a padlock.
Hotel California, asked for some wine – “we haven’t had that spirit since 1969”
Wine is NOT a spirit..
He was making an irrelevant aside about the non-appearance of the Fresh Garbage Hitmakers….
Maybe it’s a “that’s the spirit!” -type comment about his request for wine?
But going back for just one goddamn second… who says “Please bring me my wine?” apart from a fat Roman or Henry VIII ?
I also saw Alt J live a few weeks back and remember
“She may contain the urge to run away / But hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks“
I don’t think soggy clothes in themselves would hold a girl down. Also maybe a line of cones or elastic cord is more humane than bloody breezeblocks
Breezeblocks aren’t really very heavy, anyway. Engineering bricks are what he needs to weigh down his victims.
@fentonsteve
It’s possible you are thinking of thermalite blocks which are light.
Breezeblocks weigh 19 kilos roughly.
Though thermalite blocks will absorb water making them heavier should you wish to hold someone down.
Justin, I love you. You know that. But you can’t list a whole lot of things happening in a song called Nothing Ever Happens. I realise “lots of really dull things happen” wouldn’t have scanned as well but it doesn’t alter the fact that it’s a pedant’s dream.
Dullness is in the eye of the beholder.
Back in the late 80s I worked as a Post Office Clerk & that song always irked me as the signs we put up said “closed” not “position closed.”
Ah, time to trot out my favourite couplet ever, from Top Teen Baby by Garry Mills (1960).
I did this cookie she’s the mostest of the lot
And furthermore she is the only chick I got
Bit of a sampling error there, Gaz…
Talking of Gaz.
“I am a doctor”
Really, Dr Coombes?
Back to PSB lyrics:
From I Want A Dog :
“when I get back to my small flat, I want to hear somebody bark.”
It’s not right, is it?
Who are we to judge?
*totally judges*
*In Bingo Little voice* Congratulations to all Afterworders who made this thread so enjoyable and amusing! Can you do it again next year?
Sometimes the snow comes down in June [fair enough, Vanessa]
Sometimes the Sun goes round the Moon [No, Vanessa. No it does not.]
this lyric has always annoyed me … thanks for mentioning it Gatz
I neither want to rule or run the world.
Even when it is shown that Queen aren’t and never were the champions of it. Jarvis may have had a point, but not enough for Michael Frantl. In fact, I’m with Woody.
As far as the world is concerned, only New Order and Fleetwood Mac are correct, altho’ their appreciation of velocity may’ve been overstimulated.
Aren’t we all. Hurrr
Phil Lynott again, although they may be Gary Moore’s words but in Parisienne Walkways he sings
I remember Paris in ’49
The Champs-Elysées, Saint-Michel
And old Beaujolais wine
And I recall that you were mine
In those Parisienne days
Looking back at the photographs
Those summer days spent outside corner cafes
Oh, I could write you paragraphs
About my old Parisienne days
He was only born in 49 so I find that hard to believe.
And isn’t Beaujolais wine made to be consumed new? I doubt old Beaujolais improves it. It certainly gave me almighty hangovers.
I’m particularly fond of “Oh, I could write you paragraphs about my old Parisienne days.” Not a poem or a song, mind you. Paragraphs.
Hang on – “Looking back at the photographs” makes no sense. Who looks back at photographs?
“Looking back at things from the past, through the medium of photography” – sorted it for you, Phil/Gary.
And me. Fucking horrible stuff. Once was enough
Ironically, if Phil had stuck to the old Beaujolais rather than sticking a needle in his arm, he’d probably still be with us today
Sadly, it took me more than one go to learn.
Metallica sang Fight Fire With Fire.
Surely water, foam or CO2 would be a better option
Were you to be confronted by a rampaging forest fire, one of the most effective ways of stopping it in its tracks is to dig a long ditch, fill it with flammable material and set it on fire.
The idea being that, faced with pre-scorched earth, the fire will come to a halt
It’s not a lyric, but in the video for ‘Dilemma’ by Kelly Rowland & Nelly, the aforementioned Rowland receives a ‘text message’ which is actually an Excel spreedsheet.
Lol – I’d forgotten that. Iconic.
I like to think some genius in the production company threw it in deliberately to ensure the video remained a talking-point forever.
How have we got so far into the thread without a mention of ‘Ironic’ by Alanis Morrissette.
It’s surprising it hasn’t been mentioned, isn’t it? It’s contrary to what we might have expected, and has caused wry amusement as a result.
*coughs * I think you’ll find…..
“Like A big American car but misspelt with a D”
And an R. Oh, and some other letters too. Cardiac. Cadillac.
Still a great lyric though.
How about pedantry in the song itself? From HMHB’s “Shit Arm, Bad tattoo”:
If you’re going to quote from the Book of Revelation
Don’t keep calling it the Book of Revelations
There’s no “s”, it’s the Book of Revelation
As revealed to St John the Divine
See also Mary Hopkin
She must despair
“They smelt of pubs and Wormwood scrubs and too many right wing meetings”? Really? If so I tip my hat and convey compliments upon your extraordinarily discerning odour recognition. But my overriding concern would be is what the fuck or you doing on the London Underground with a takeaway curry, at midnight. In 1978
And how come they know where he lives after taking his keys? Has he got a label attached, with his name and address? Is he some 9 year old evacuee, and is this 1942?
I fumble for change, and pull out the Queen
Smiling, beguiling
I put in the money and pull out a plum
Behind me
I have been baffled by this lyric ever since I first heard it. I would love to know what Paul Weller’s on about.
The fruit vending machine at Earls Court Station.
Knowing he was going to be eating curry and drinking wine, he obviously felt the need for a vitamin C kick
Hmm. And these “steps” he navigates down to his fate, that both “repeat my own and reflect my thoughts”. For me unlikely. However Weller uses this bleak state of affairs to compound the psychological distress the stairs are having by describing them as being “partially naked”. Must have been mortifying for them.
From Queen’s “Killer Queen”
“Gunpowder, gelatine…”
That well known explosive substance used in trifles.
So THAT’S why my bomb didn’t work!
But gelatine is made from piggies, so you are already a filthy MURDERER.
Jim Morrison: “His brain is squirming like a toad.”
David Bowie: “My brain hurt like a warehouse.”
Both similies could have benefitted from a little extra brain hurt-squirm, but The Dame’s Gumbyesque non-sequitur wins on points.
There’s a (Ashley Hutchings) Rainbow Chasers’ song about early photography in which it is said the photographer uses sodium light to light his subjects. Alas sodium lights weren’t invented until the 1930s I think they meant to say magnesium, but would it have scanned?
‘There’s an old man sitting next to me/
Making love to his tonic and gin’ sang Billy Joel. It’s a GIN AND TONIC.
It’s been pointed out by quite a few internet folk, but I did notice something odd the first time I heard Joan Baez sing the following lines:
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I’d known
A couple of light years ago
Light years measure distance, not time.
Oh, so you’re quite alright with the idea of the chap dipping his knob in his drink?
I was once so drunk, I laughed at a scene in Two and a Half Men. Who am I to judge?
I don’t know how you got from “knob” to Charlie Sheen…
…oh wait a minute
I used to know a guy in Aberystwyth, West Wales, who was famed for getting barred for life from one of the town’s pubs, after starting a major brawl there.
At the peak of a heated argument with someone, he’d whipped out his cock and dipped it into the other guy’s pint of Guinness.
Why the coyness? We all know who this is …
There’s a story in one of David Niven’s biographies in which having skied down a mountain in an early version of Lycra or Spandex, he has to be suspended over a giant glass of brandy by a number of men so he can dip his honorable member into it in order to avoid losing it to frostbite.
Maybe Billy Joel walked into the hotel bathroom at that precise moment and the germ of a song started to form…. Maybe!?
Could be worse.
Not a magazine I’m proud of having read, but I remember Loaded doing a food supplement where one adventuresome writer gave the following culinary advice: “If you’re not doing anything else this weekend, why not dip your bell-end into a piping-hot steak and kidney pudding?”
Fray Bentos died in vain….
This far and no mention of The Jam’s English Rose and the repeated ‘tempt me from she’ atrocity which turns the song from merely bloody awful into completely unlistenable? Weller must have been taking the piss.