Monday, January 29, 2007

What'd they say?

Years ago, a co-worker brought in one of those funnybooks about mistaken song lyrics. You've seen them. The co-worker laughed at one of them, a B-52's tune. "'Whoa, Nipsey Russell?'" he said, "Who the hell would come up with that." I replied, "That's not what they're saying?"

Well one song has bedeviled me (so to speak) for some time now: Blue Oyster Cult's "Burnin for You." This is a tune my old band actually worked on for a while, so it was semi-important to get the lyrics right. The first verse he ends with "I'm living for giving the devil his due," which is pretty straightforward, especially if you accept the double entendre of the title. Second time around it sounded to me like "I'm fall frezhun and frags do glock foo," which might not quite be 100% accurate.

Now, with the internet, it should be easy -- right?

A bunch of returns come up with "I've seen signs of what (freezing their eyes) went through"
...which makes about as much sense as my own 1982 interpretation.

Then I found this one: lyricsfreak.com says "Ive [sic] seen suns that were freezing and lives that were through"

And, singing along, it actually a) fits b) makes a little bit of sense.

Anybody have another theory about this 25-year-old mystery?

(I also note that a LOT of the lyrics sites miss the joke earlier in the verse; It's not "time to play besides," which makes no sense at all, but "Time to play B-sides."As in, the flip side of a popular 45 RPM single. Jeez. Kids today...)

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