Just for fun: lyrics that are just wrong

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41

The best explanation I’ve seen of this lyric yet !!! :joy:

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42

By the way, I know nothing about sports ball, but I have a friend who is a massive Bruce fan.

Cheers,

Keith

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43

Good find! (I actually have that book.)

I consider this the exception that proves the rule. I’ve been a baseball fan for 60+ years and probably spent thousands of hours watching games and reading about baseball and I have never once heard or seen the term speedball used except in Bruce’s song.

Btw, the quote from 1918 does not surprise me: extremely rhetorical and overblown sportswriting was the norm in those days. I would not be surprised if the writer invented the term himself. By 1955 (the 2nd quote), the prose had settled down somewhat, but I would bet that “speedballer” was a colorful term invented by the writer and not something that was in common use.

How does your friend feel about John Fogerty? Many people complain about the lyrics of “Centerfield”, but I think it’s a great song!

This is a good discussion, which unites two of my passions: music and baseball. Awesome!

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44

I do know what that is all about. It’s not family-friendly :scream:

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45

Then change “I shot a man in Reno” to “I shot a man NAMED Reno”
Problem solved. You could do time anywhere.

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46

Too many bad/wrong/nonsensical lyrics to even enumerate, but “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die,” isn’t one of them. It is most likely a prior and not necessarily why he is in Folsom, but certainly sums up man’s inhumanity to man.

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I think the connection between the shooting in Reno and being in prison are clear.

48

Okay, since you’re the 2nd one to say that maybe the shooting in Reno wasn’t why he was in Folsom, I researched it a bit.

When asked about it, Johnny Cash didn’t say they weren’t connected. He said he just took poetic license.

As far as the “inhumanity of man” aspect, Keb Mo might have agreed with you because in his cover (which I really like) he changes it to “they say I shot a man in Reno, but that was just a lie.”

49

I won’t say the lyrics are “wrong,” but there is one song from my repertoire of California 60’s-70’s songs that I can’t seem to memorize, “San Francisco.” My problem is that the same phrases are repeated in all three verses, but in a different sequence. Sounds random. I wonder if it even matters, or if anyone would notice if I just chilled out and stuck in “Love-In,” "Gentle People, “Flowers in your/their hair” wherever. :blossom:

50

I think very few would notice which phrase you use when.

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51

Good bit of analysis. Still better lyrics than, “You’re My Wonderwall,” or “When the rain washes you clean you will know.” Some songs are good, or have decent elements in spite of having weak/wrong/bad lyrics.

52

I never said it wasn’t a good song. :roll_eyes:

53

This is an interesting story about a singer/songwriter who revised their lyrics when they found out they were wrong. In Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald” he initially sang “At seven PM a main hatchway caved in”, suggesting a hatch was badly secured (and therefore indirectly blaming the crew).

Much later he saw a TV documentary where a dive crew had found the wreck and disputed the official findings. He couldn’t change his previous recorded version, but from then on he sang a revised version with that line altered whenever he performed the song.

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54

Never said you did.

55

Some strange things appear in lyrics.

But most of the songs refered to in here were quite famous, so it doesn’t really matter, or some stupid stuff inside may even add a tiny bit of attention :slight_smile:

Maybe as a group we should write a stupid song together? :grinning_face:
Does anyone know this game where someone starts a story with some sentence, the sheet is given to the next who continues the story with a sentence, passed to the third and so on, but the top is folded back so every one can only see the previous sentence just before him and not those earlier?

We played it decades ago at parties and often it was quite fun.

PS. Now I thought a bit further and this could actucally be quite funny with a song.

56

Aren’t you describing AI?

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57

As a kid I was often subjected to Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night - it was my Mom’s favorite. Most of the album was pretty good but I never could get into Porcupine Pie… too weird for my taste!!! :tongue:

Tod

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58

I understand - you say that there’s enough stupid songs out there nowadays anyway :slight_smile:

I just imagined it as a fun game where the process would be more important than the result.
So rather for the sake of laughing and learning something in the process and even probably resulting in some bits that could actually be taken into a “real” song.

Listened to it and I remember Porcupine Pie :slight_smile: Neil Diamond’s less famous songs were probably played less often over here in Germany, but I know this one. Possibly even my mother also had an album of his?

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59

I’m a fan of Frisco… sing Dock of the bay, oh and I got married in San Crab Disco, city hall.