Bob's Corner
From our weekly issue dated July 08, 2009
As a younger man, I used to sing along with the popular tunes emanating from the AM radio in my smokin’ vehicle, and sometimes misheard lyrics. One example: There was a song containing the words, “Poetry. Poetry in motion.”
What I heard, and sang aloud until the person who became my wife stopped staring at me with a baffled look, was: “Oh a tree; oh a tree in motion.” Hey, it made sense to me. Can’t you see a tree swaying in the breeze? OK, so I was cuckoo.
Which reminds me of really young children whose vocabulary and frames of reference provide them truly interesting lyrics and comments. Example: Our granddaughter Natalie, 4, was at the Wild Animal Park in San Diego County and happily pointed at an animal, identifying it as a “cantaloupe.” Also, after a recent trip to Disneyland, her preschool teacher asked about her favorite ride. Natalie replied that it was the “Pirates and the bean.” She also told her mom, Vicki, that the blow dryer she was using should be called a hair conditioner.
And last week, retired “Noose” co-worker Virginia Gilliam sent some malapropisms from various sources.
One mom wrote that when her twin daughters were young she taught them the Lord’s Prayer, only to overhear them saying, “Give us this steak and daily bread, and forgive us our mattresses.” One man noted that when he was young, he learned the prayer as, “Our Father, who are in Heaven, Howard be thy name.” A woman as a little girl prayed, “Hail Mary, full of grapes.”
Yet another recited, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, howjda know my name?” Another stated, “Give us this day our jelly bread.”
Someone recalled hearing a child who, in the Pledge of Allegiance, said, “I led the pigeons to the flag.” One boy wondered who was Richard Stands because in the pledge he heard, “I pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for Richard Stands.”
One person said that she once knew a child whose favorite Sunday school hymn was, “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.” A girl, 8, had to be shown in the hymnal that, “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful,” was the title, and not, “Oh, Connie be Faithful.”
Some folks recalled a song about Noah in which the words were, “And the rains came down, and the floods came up.” Two tiny sisters who lived next door were overheard singing it as, “And the rains came down, and the spuds came up.”
And there was the boy who, in singing “God Bless America,” intoned, “Stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from a bulb.”
One more: I heard about a guy who mistook the lyrics, “Then I saw her face; now I’m a believer,” as “Then I saw her face; now I’m gonna’ leave her.”
(Bob's Note: The preceding originally was printed in our May 31, 2006 issue. Thanks for the memories ... )
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