the ’Zine

Battle of the Lyrics

by Brett Milano on January 14, 2008

There's a heated discussion raging on our message boards about certain lyrics used in Rock Band, and whether those jibe with the ones that are sung on the records. Most of the talk concerns Nirvana's "In Bloom," and whether Kurt Cobain sang "don't know what it means" or "knows not what it means". It's true that Kurt sang both versions, though not necessarily at the points where the lyric sheet says. For what it's worth, producer Butch Vig did a lot of cutting and pasting with Cobain's vocals on that album—One rumor I've heard is that he sang "Here we are now, entertain us" only once; and that clip used in every chorus of the song. Sounds that way to these ears, but that's one studio secret that may never be revealed.

"C-U-F-E, Everyone's Accusing Me!"

As a couple of posters brought up, however, it's definitely true that lyric sheets often differ from what's sung on records. One of my favorite examples is on the Who's "Pinball Wizard": According to the Tommy lyric sheet, the lyric is "He's got crazy flipper fingers, and never tilts at all." Nice line, but Roger Daltrey never sings the part about tilting—The line on the record is "Never seen him fall" (the tilt line did appear on a few live versions). For a long while, there were Japanese pressings of various albums where the lyrics were transcribed by ear; often by people whose English was none too brilliant. The Ramones album "It's Alive" was especially legendary for its hilarious lyric glitches: The line "Gabba gabba, we accept you, one of us" became "Gabba gabba, you're a weed, 'cept you're one of us." And according to the Japanese transcriber, the chant in the middle was "C-U-F-E, everyone's accusing me." (It's really "D-U-M-B", but who wants to be accused of being, uh, cufe?)

Lots of debates have also hinged on whether cuss words should or shouldn't be there. The Free hit "All Right Now" was actually banned by the BBC for a time, because they were certain that the F-word was in the lyrics (It's really "Let's move before they raise the parking rate"—that "parking" sure sounds like something else, though). Officially, Ray Davies is singing "The air pollution is a-foggin' up my eyes" on the Kinks' "Apeman." Maybe it's just his accent, but I'm betting that Davies pulled a fast one and blurted out something different when the tapes were rolling. Ditto for Steely Dan's hit single "FM"—Officially, the line is "Play her some funked-up Muzak, she'll treat you nice.' But I'm f#%^ed if I can hear the "n" in "funked-up."

Sometimes the artists get clever and start singing the wrong lyrics on purpose. As someone on the board noted, John Fogerty really did start singing "There's a bathroom on the right" during "Bad Moon Rising"—Listen to his live album "Premonition," it's there in the last chorus. I saw him perform in November and he still sang the joke lyric, even pointing to the side of the stage at that point. Okay John, we get it.

Hate to break the news though, but Hendrix never sang "Excuse me while I kiss this guy," either live or on record. In some peoples' dreams, maybe.