I might add a comment or two regarding the misunderstanding of rock lyrics...

The most powerful pop singers of the middle 20th century (Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday come to mind) never ever left their audience in doubt as to their meaning. Sinatra said more than once, when queried about the secret to his phrasing, "I mean it."

Admittedly I don't sing rock; but I have always made at least part of my living singing Classical music and jazz and country. What's going on with me is that I wish powerfully to be heard; I have something to say, and this may be the only time anyone will ever listen. But I don't/can't write music, and when I sing I want the composer to be understood (and in the best of singers' music, the words make the notes easy); I want only to share this thing that moves me so much. If somebody has to consult a lyrics sheet to understand the message, I'm not getting it done. The difference is between "Listen to me" and "Listen to this."

I don't mean to highjack the thread. Susan Boyle sings like an angel, and that goes far beyond having a good voice. And I'm pretty sure she means it.

Rob-

Yes, but...

first of all you have to be a lover of R&R. for me with some bands the lead singer/front man's voice was another instrument in the mix. And imagine finding out through the lyric sheet that the songwriter actually had something to say worth hearing.

But it helps to burn one for the "state of mind" and also to LOVE R&Roll!!!

Rob-

Yes, but...

first of all you have to be a lover of R&R. for me with some bands the lead singer/front man's voice was another instrument in the mix. And imagine finding out through the lyric sheet that the songwriter actually had something to say worth hearing.

But it helps to burn one for the "state of mind" and also to LOVE R&Roll!!!

adagny,

You're right, of course, and it's all just rock and roll, as they say...

A couple of points here: give a listen, if you haven't already, to Billie Holiday and Lester Young for an example of why the jazz guys thought Billie sang like a horn player - another instrument in the mix. And like I say, imagine getting the songwriter's poetry in the context of being stunned by the sound, all at once. Like it's all happening for the first time, the universe creating itself.

Other good examples are Bach arias, where the singer is accompanied by a solo violin or oboe playing a whole other melody simultaneously, and following the words causes you to experience the harmony almost viscerally while being in thrall to the meaning of the text. Chill inducing, especially if you're the singer.

Also, while I haven't sung much R&R, I can promise you an awful lot of Blues and Bluegrass has been assayed soon after burning one ;-}

It's a good thing we don't all like the same stuff, too. Otherwise, as an old guy once told me, we'd all be driving Chevrolets and shooting Winchesters.

That was great.

"Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?"

Shakespeare got there way ahead of all of us.

It may even be that many great songs are better appreciated without understanding whatsoever the language in which they are written. This is especially true of Elton John's work.

Appreciated or mocked, Mr. Wilson. I can think of a number of Bollywood's greatest hits worthy og being appreciated for sheer comic relief (search buffalax on Youtube and find out what happened to the goats.)
I once misunderstood the lyrics to England Dan and John Ford Coley's song, "I'd really like to see you tonight." For years I'd been hearing, "I'm not talkin' 'bout the linen, and I don't want to change your mind, but there's a warm wind blowing the stars around, and I really want to see you tonight."
When this song came on the radio, I brought the subject of this odd-sounding line up to my husband.

I asked him what's so important 'bout the linens? Were they having a fight about bedsheets? Did she have one pattern picked out, but he wanted something else? I went on and on about that line in the song until my husband said, "It's: I'm not talkin' 'bout movin' in, and I don't want to change your life."

As Emily Litella would say: "Never mind."

So, when I was three years old and appearing in a Sunday School pageant where all the little kids were belting out "Onward Christian Soldiers," to the delight of the parents watching intently, but I was singing at the top of my voice, "Christmas on my shoulder," was I having a Mondegreen Moment?

After "Honky Chateau", Elton John would have been better off switching to Klingon.

"'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense; the sound must seem an echo to the sense."

I could never figure out what that word (phrase) was in the England Dan/John Ford Coley song, and I ended up looking it up about a year ago. It wouldn't have been so tough to make it out if they'd put the accent on the right syllable ("melanin? they're singing about skin color?").

That song is, like the movie *Same Time Next Year,* filled with those pretty, pretty lies the grownups used to tell themselves and each other in the 1970s. You know: full of beaches and sunsets and broken hearts, and yet endlessly appealing on the surface. Like that movie, "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" is a guilty pleasure to this day, and yet I know plenty of people got burned over the pretense that one could engage sexually, yet remain emotionally aloof; it's patent nonsense.

What is one to do? To this day, I love a nice California sunset, and I've got a secret soft spot for men with long hair, or at least sideburns.

And, yes: "the hook" does sound like "the heart" in that song. I suspect that it was sung in a deliberately ambiguous way.