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Old 06-28-2004, 09:42 PM   #26
Brian 57
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My four year-old son was snuggled up to me at nap time this afternoon. I put Harmony in the CD player, and during "River of Light" just after the line "Good to be on a river somewhere" he looks up at me and says "did that man just say go pee in the river?"
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Old 06-29-2004, 03:57 AM   #27
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In "Cabaret", I first thought the line that ends with (On-Tar-I-O!) was "..and still I'd like to tell her,that I miss her so,oh,on the air I go!"



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Old 06-29-2004, 12:57 PM   #28
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I still like the one that Wes mentioned about 100 years ago, from a Cleveland (?) concert (think it was Wes...)

"All the Lovely Ladies in refineries tonight..."

Another that I heard in 1980 or 81, very first Concert after Dream St. was released:

"I don't remember where she said she would be, back in the City or up in a tree..."

...alternating with "on the TV"....

Don't think he ever actually sang the words "On the High Seas" that night.

It was also the first time he played "Keepin' On Yearin'"....song was stuck in my head for 20 years, never heard it again until....Songbook! It's still stuck in my head!!!
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Old 06-29-2004, 12:57 PM   #29
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I still like the one that Wes mentioned about 100 years ago, from a Cleveland (?) concert (think it was Wes...)

"All the Lovely Ladies in refineries tonight..."

Another that I heard in 1980 or 81, very first Concert after Dream St. was released:

"I don't remember where she said she would be, back in the City or up in a tree..."

...alternating with "on the TV"....

Don't think he ever actually sang the words "On the High Seas" that night.

It was also the first time he played "Keepin' On Yearin'"....song was stuck in my head for 20 years, never heard it again until....Songbook! It's still stuck in my head!!!
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Old 06-29-2004, 03:04 PM   #30
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"On The TV" was actaully the original title for the song. on the soundstage 79 special he introduced it as a "new song" called "on the tv".. maybe he still sang those lyrics into the 80s?
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Old 08-28-2008, 05:58 AM   #31
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bumpiy bump - i'm sure we have some new ones!
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Old 08-28-2008, 03:22 PM   #32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by podunklander View Post
In a line from "Pussywillows, Cat-tails".. I thought Gordon was singing "wheat thins"...but it's "wheat-bins". As I am fond of Wheat Thins, I was deeply disappointed to learn otherwise. And was embarrassed that I heard 'thins' instead of 'bins'...until someone else told me that they thought it was 'thins' too.
I'm the someone else! I thought it was just a bunch of naked people lying around eating crackers! Put a whole different spin on it.
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Old 08-29-2008, 02:34 AM   #33
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Now that you guys mention the naked limbs in "Pussywillows, Cat-tails.." w/o consulting lyrics tables myself, I wonder if he took an opposite turn here. That is to say, Gordon. and the phrase naked limbs..and wheat bins (thins..lol), to the end of being ...shall we say ...less provocative than we think ?

As opposed to double-entendre being of course more provocative than first-listen as the norm on the dual-meaning end of lyrics mis-heard, where if we are infact hearing "naked limbs" correctly, AND despite it seeming a summer-time or spring song. If, however, in the context of shivering, and wood-fires a blazin'... I wonder if all of what I've said thus far leads to this: "naked limbs" could in fact be a reference to a common term people who work with trees in anyway frequently use the term "denuded trees/vegetation" - even in -groan- mapping - "denudedtrees" is the phrase used for the assumption of the aerial photos being flown at the right time of year - when there are no leaves, and you can see more of the ground, which is the goal.

So..... could he have meant all along, taking shivering, and wood fires a-blazin' into account....that he means a cold(er) time of year with leaves off of the trees, hence...my wondering, however unlikely, to use a techie term reserved commonly to forestry, landscaping, and mapping, that he's possibly MEANING when indeed singing "naked limbs", that its cold enough out (shivering) that there are no leaves on the trees e.g. anytime other than late spring thru mid-autumn, and in fact the trees are "denuded" which of course every student tee-hees as least to themselves when they first hear it, but find it means nothing even remotely ..er..provocative.

He does mention the warm breath of spring as I recall, implying to me its cool out and they're shivering, but there's a hint of spring in the air ? 'cept pussywillows don't grow before trees get leaves do they ? Aw-heck...over analyses.. somebody slap me back to my senses ! lol

I know, in one sentence instead of the above lol... :

Could it be cold enough out that the trees have no leaves [are de-nuded] and thats the simple meaning of naked [tree?] limbs in context of ...shivering.. & ...wood-fires a-blazin' ?

OK time for somebody to hit the gong, or put the big hook out on stage lol....hey it possible.......

I have no doubt Lightfoot is an expert forester, Landscape Architect, and aerial mapper.

Thats my story, and I'm sticking to it, to paraphrase RM
!
Is it not equally likely a double-entendre could work both directions ? NO. ok....
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Old 08-29-2008, 06:46 AM   #34
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Podunk: lol....lol.....-cough- lol lol.... Your range of knowledge in varying sciences and arts never ceases to amaze me Podunk - I did my mental mind's eye hypothesis of this half in jest; half then taken seriously, without looking at the lyrics on purpose. Sounds like...lol... I would have picked-up on the 4-seasons thing there.... I love the comments you made on the -ahem- semi-autobiographical notes there..... I love it.... lol.. brings back some farmer's land adjoiners memories from Ohio for me...

Know what I really like most about that song ?.... stupid thing... but I wish I knew the instrument played, I think its a French Horn, or oboe/bass clarinet d/k even woodwind or brass... but there is a (pardon my ignorance of music theory) riff in the instrumental spots at the beginning and various times through. This one instrument picks up in a solo of sorts after every set of lyrics where he stops singing for several seconds, and it goes intrumental.

That ...one...instrument... brings back another memory for me from Ohio autumns down in Brunswick, a small town out in the country I drove back to after graduating in '76 from Estes in Colorado, and saving $2k working at a lumberyard locally, for my planned Steinbeck/Moon-Blue Highways/Kerouac w/o the weirdness-esque road trip into the New England Autumn, winding up one late afternoon down in Brunswick, Ohio; the perfect autumn day; crisp air after an Indian Summer midday. I was, of course, playing Lightfoot on the car stereo. I distinctly remember playing Seven Islands, Is There Anyone Home, Changes, Crossroads, and my other favourite autumn and on the road songs.

At about 4pm or so , I stopped for a steak ( I'd earned it, labour $), where there was a young woman waiting tables that absolutely entranced me. She could have asked me for my clothes, my boots, and my motorcycle ala T2/the Gubbernator lol j/k - she could have asked me for my car, my credit carD (1), all my money, and everything I brought of value and necessity of mine in the car - camping/climbing gear, very good stereo, books/music/memorabilia/prized collections/special posessions/box of paper and tin etc/ - so to speak of course... I'd been on the road for about 6 weeks by this point - did not know where I was going to plant roots, or at all, what.... open ended agenda.

Scared the hell out of my parents, had not yet decided to go to college, did not know where I wanted to live/work/fill in the blank... and this woman and I connected...not the way my future wife and I did much, much more and permanent- it stuck, with her, but that waitress for ONE DAY was the whole world to me... that day..., but that autumn, that day, that woman, well....driving around in the car later that evening; thinking of her, the SONG played - Pussywillows,Cattails, Soft winds and roses..... and that instrumental riff (?) withthat oboe or french horn playing as I looked at her one more time as I drove away... the two sensory images are forever fused in memory relationally; no pun intended. Isn't it amazing what beautiful music and other poigmant moments that serendipitously come together like that etch indelibly in our memory ? Whenever I hear that song... I see her face..and leave it at that.

About 5 months later, after heading south for the winter to Florida, I finally made my way home on my last dollars of gas. TWO weeks later I met my wife-to-be... and that, THAT, took... Permanent. And her and my 'song', that I will always see/hear/etc Merry by is "Beautiful". And she was, in all ways.

Anyway....

So, I hear ya, except I think yours was humorous and certainly in good taste... I have to think about the logistic points you presented and found logically to be the case in the lyrics versus the metaphors.... very interesting read.... gotta think about that..chew it over some more... Thanks - always interesting and thought-provoking are your reads, Podunk.. Gotta read it again, then ACTUALLY look at the lyrics.

Thanks for sharing that.
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Old 08-29-2008, 09:04 PM   #35
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Podunk - naaa... you're right.. its the act of human reproduction, pure and- not so simple. lol my bare tree limbs postulation was only a "I wonder if ?" remote possibility. Its about sex. We can tastefully say it - and leave it at that. AND THATS, OK. I'm good enough, smart enough, and GOSH DARN it, people LIKE me ! lol - have you seen that SNL skit with the comedian SML skit-writer-turned author-now political hopeful (Al.. ) -Frankensteen ? - his name is something like that.... well he played that spoof of self-affirmation character in the blue sweater, who'd look at himself. and repeat that "GOOD ENOUGH" mantra - very funny. Al Franken - thats it..... a smart cooky, but not sure if he's ready for a balanced approach in ..the subject we'll wisely avoid...lol..


Thanks for the comments, Podunk. very ..generous....lol
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Old 10-24-2010, 06:56 AM   #36
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Default Spanish Moths?

I've noticed several threads referring to misheard/misunderstood Lightfoot lyrics and I'd like to add one. The first Lightfoot album I heard was the vinyl copy of "Summertime Dream" my older sister had bought months earlier. I told her one of my favourite songs on it was "Spanish Moss". She obviously hadn't read the album cover very well, because she sounded surprised and said she had always thought it was "Spanish Moths"!
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Old 10-24-2010, 10:31 AM   #37
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Love it!
Spanish Moths, keep on following my thoughts around.....
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Old 10-24-2010, 05:12 PM   #38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave, Melbourne,Australia View Post
"Spanish Moths"!
...memoreeth of thavannah thummertime
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Old 10-25-2010, 02:56 PM   #39
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...wish you knew what I wath thayin".....
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Old 10-25-2010, 03:57 PM   #40
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http://www.kissthisguy.com/135songso...-Lightfoot.htm
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Old 10-26-2010, 05:31 PM   #41
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave, Melbourne,Australia View Post
I've noticed several threads referring to misheard/misunderstood Lightfoot lyrics and I'd like to add one. The first Lightfoot album I heard was the vinyl copy of "Summertime Dream" my older sister had bought months earlier. I told her one of my favourite songs on it was "Spanish Moss". She obviously hadn't read the album cover very well, because she sounded surprised and said she had always thought it was "Spanish Moths"!
My mum is often surprised like that herself. We'll be setting in the kitchen listening to the radio & she'll have to ask me just what a particular artist is saying.
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Old 10-29-2010, 08:49 PM   #42
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I was a kid when "Wreck" came out and when I finally heard it,
this is one example of what I thought I heard:

" The dog came late and his breakfast had to wait,when the whales of November came laughin' "!

LOL!
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Old 10-29-2010, 08:52 PM   #43
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Here's an old "misheard lyrics" thread!
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Old 11-02-2010, 02:29 PM   #44
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Mondegreens, they're called mondegreens .. Google and enjoy. The Hendrix one has been around since Purple Haze, lol.

Good explanation here:
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~w...ndegreens.html
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Old 05-11-2013, 01:55 PM   #45
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Default Lyrics I've always heard wrong until.....

Here is the whole point of this thread in a nutshell: I'm hoping others have also heard certain words or phrases in Gord's songs incorrectly, and for even years didn't know it. Do you have any like that too?.

Here is my first entry, a near 40-year error of mine in listening to one of my favorite songs of THE MAN'S:

I was listening to "All The Lovely Ladies" yesterday, and it occurred to me that there were a few words or phrases here or there that I've always thought were curious, and come to find out, after reading the lyrics, were entirely different.

This is not a new thread idea, but one on my mind lately. So I thought I'd own-up to words which I've always heard wrong, and see if I'm the only one. I doubt it

I'll start with this one, because there are many:

from "All The Lovely Ladies", in the following lines:

"To all the lovely ladies in their finery tonight
I wish that I could kiss you while you knit
"

FOR A LAUGH RIGHT HERE ON THE ABOVE: I have knelt so hammered into my head I even wrote it at first in the above, where I meant to have the correct word knit. I corrected it. Duhh. Caught it today on Sunday, LOL

For almost 40 years I thought "knit" was knelt. And I pictured some lovely lady genuflecting at the site of Gord, LOL. While I thought it odd, I never questioned it, because it sounded like that word. I was very surprised to see "knit". What a word, that so many people, at least in the states, would consider an antiquated notion. Knitting. However innaccurate, it elicits images of ladies magically knitting scarfs and such, and doesn't seem to fit the image I had of the song's setting of what I thought was, well, a bordello (however fancy. Or, perhaps a more tasteful and refined, but not quite puritanical setting, of a sort of "high-end singles mixer", where finely-dressed ladies and gentlemen strolled in, all with prurient interests, picked out their date, and strolled out with arched eyebrows in sartorial splendor. After all, they are finely-dressed.

The other phrase from the same song that I've been wrong on for almost 40 years as well is in these lines:

To all the ones who learn to live with being second-guessed
Whose job it is to give more then they get


I've thought for all this time, in the same song, "second-guessed" was second-guest. While I know the song by heart, and the phrase second-guessed quite well, it didn't sound that way. The other was plausible, because it was, err.. Gord. And if he says so, its cool, you know what I mean?

I thought second-guest must have been a Canadian idiom, or colloquial term at least, for "a person who is farther back on the hand-out line", or used to being the second guest to, or at a function. I felt sympathy. It fit. I had no cause to question it. The other above, I should have questioned.

YOU WOULD THINK, in all this time, expecially when I did lyrics-quizzers for so long (that wasn't an ad for it ) I would have come across that. I probably did, but you know what they say about the mind's eye: we see what we want, or expect to see.

Anyone else want to own-up to being human on lyrics discernment?

I hope I'm not alone in this, LOL.
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Old 05-11-2013, 02:53 PM   #46
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I believe I read that he wrote it for the audiences that come to his shows... SONGBOOK liner notes: A Valentine to the audience, where we recognize "all the lovely ladies in their finery tonight," and then the "handsome gentlemen."
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Old 05-11-2013, 04:01 PM   #47
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I believe I read that he wrote it for the audiences that come to his shows... SONGBOOK liner notes: A Valentine to the audience, where we recognize "all the lovely ladies in their finery tonight," and then the "handsome gentlemen."
Thanks Char, aren't I the embarrassed one. That makes perfect sense on people (couples)coming in to the concert, having dressed-up for the it, and leaving in the same pairs (for the most part, LOL) as came in. If I'd read the little booklet, I'd be OK, right? LOL. But hope remains on my thread's intent: hearing specific words wrong for in some cases, a long time, but not necessarily. It's the confessional aspect of the often humorous "heard THAT one wrong" on the word, as opposed to "I wonder what he means in that song, or that verse".

I do appreciate the correction of my misinterpretation of the whole image of the, well, "fancy bordello" image I had in mind for so long. It seemed oddly out of context with the prayer-like wishes for people who are down-trodden, falsely-occused, those who cannot write, those heavy-rounders with a headache for their pains.

I am hoping people will join me in this thought of specific words and phrases they've heard wrong, and never happened-upon the written lyrics,or in my case, despite having read virtually all of them to check back in lyrics quizzers to be sure, reading right over what I've heard wrong all along, and still didn't catch.

Thank Char for the insight!

Anyone hear any words wrong in songs besides me ?
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Old 05-11-2013, 05:00 PM   #48
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Default Re: Lyrics I've always heard wrong until.....

After 40 years, i still hear people singing "every highway." Probably the most misheard Lightfoot lyric.

I still catch myself singing "and the cats are in the sand." I guess I'm thinking they're using their litter box, I don't know.
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Old 05-11-2013, 05:25 PM   #49
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Default Re: Lyrics I've always heard wrong until.....

Here's one that bugs me: In Alberta Bound, there is the lyric "no one I've met could e'er forget". On the interwebs however, you'll find THIS gem of an improvement: "No ONE-EYED MAN could e'er forget the Rocky Mountain sunset."

I'm sure Gord wonders why he didn't think of doing it that way.

I must add though, that as a St. Louis Cardinal fan who used to hate the NY team when they were in our division, I always heard that line as "no one-eyed Met". Just kidding, I knew better.
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Old 05-11-2013, 10:57 PM   #50
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Default Re: Lyrics I've always heard wrong until.....

Back in the the late 70s Gord would joke that the band thought it was " All the lovely ladies in refineries tonight, I wish that I could relieve you of your change"
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