Posted on 12/27/2020 4:46:10 AM PST by NOBO2012
I will be gone all day so what do you say we spend today pondering this eminently ponderable: what is it about the human brain that causes us to mishear certain words or phrases? And why, once misheard, does the brain try to render meaning to the nonsensical and forevermore insist on mishearing the same thing over and over?
Ed Driscoll was obviously wondering more or less the same thing when he posted this little gem retweeted from a reddit thread. He did so with this droll observation: ANALYSIS: TRUE. France is Bacon.
We’ve all had this happen to us, but somehow it seems other people’s misheard brain worms are more interesting than mine. Take Gerard Van Der Leun for example: not only does he advise us what this phenomenon is called (a ‘mondegreen’) but as you’ll see in his post - Delete “Hook.” Insert “Heart” – when his brain misfires it’s actually better than the original. Here’s his take on the Blues Traveler’s song titled “The Hook” (which really should have been a clue, but the brain will do what the brain will do):
All of this is a periphrastic way of coming to what I had heard sung in the refrain to ‘The Hook.’ for many years. I never heard the word ‘hook.’ Instead I heard the word ‘heart,’ as in:
“Because the heart brings you back
I ain’t tellin’ you no lie
The heart brings you back
On that you can rely.”I’ve listened to ‘The Hook.’, with attention or just as background, probably around a hundred times over the years. I’ve trance danced to it. I’ve even been to a Blues Traveler concert in New York City that had it on the setlist. In all those iterations I’ve never heard ‘hook,’ but always heard ‘heart.’ Now I know different …. but not better.
Seen whole the lyrics to ‘The Hook’ are all about the plight and pain of being a pop star. One of the thousands of such screeds in which our celebrities bemoan the curse of wealth and fame their rise has brought to them — the endless angst of those who fear they had to ‘sell-out’ in order to ‘buy-in.’ I try, but somehow I just can’t feel this pampered pain.
In the end, I really don’t want ‘The Hook.’ to bring me back. I want ‘The Heart’ to bring me back:
“Because the heart brings you back
I ain’t tellin’ you no lie
The heart brings you back
On that you can rely.”It might be a mondegreen, but it makes a much better song.
It’s hard to argue with his conclusion, it really would make a much better song. But then, Gerard is a poet and writer so I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that his mondegreens are better than ours, and indeed, better than the real thing.
Still, I find it interesting to ponder the power of the human brain to fill voids with misinformation. But for this fact the mockingbird media would not exist. They’ve literally created an entire industry out of replacing news and information with alternate words that they want you to believe are better than the real thing. They exist to make us see clearly now: Lorraine is gone.
Warning: misinformation is not a joke
I vote to give MSM ‘The Hook’
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
~Warren Zevon
My husband said he alway heard Secret Asian Man instead of Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers.
For five decades, I was hearing “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones wrong. For one thing, I thought a baritone saxophone was playing the opening notes, but the instrument is actually a guitar plugged into some sort of electronic device.
As to the lyrics, until the Internet came along, I thought they were singing “He’s telling me more and more about some news and information,” but the actual expression is “useless information.” I heard “a man comes on and tells me I’ve got to wash my shirts with bleach” when it was actually “how white my shirts can be.” And instead of “trying to meet some girl,” the narrator actually says he’s trying to “make” some girl.
I, too, thought they were singing "shy violet"--perhaps in answer to The Mills Brothers' My Shy Violet (1968)
Anger issues?
The hymn, “Glady the Cross-Eyed Bear”.
A little girl was asked to draw a picture of the Nativity along with the rest of her class. At the end of the school day, the drawings were sent home for the parents to adore and display on their refrigerators, or in another place of prominence.
Betsy’s mom was excited when her daughter told her she drew her very own picture of the Nativity. “Oh, let me see!” her mother exclaimed. When she glanced at the picture, she became rather confused. She saw an airplane drawn right in the middle of the page.
Betsy’s mom asked her daughter if this was the correct picture - the one of the Nativity.
“Of course, Mommy! You know!” replied Betsy. “That’s the flight into Egypt!!”
Her mom then looked at the figures riding in the plane and saw a very angry man in the front of the plane. “Who is this angry looking man?” her mom asked. “Mommy! Betsy answered with frustration. “That’s Pontius the Pilot!”
Her mom, feeling like she needed to “get with it” in understanding her daughter’s drawing, continued on....”I see Joseph here, and Mary,...but who is the really big guy in the back?”
With a sigh, her daughter blurted out: “You know this, Mommy! That’s round John Virgin!”
The original, to me, is Louie Louie.
Nobody has mentioned Bruce Springsteen who’s “Wrapped up like a douched in the middle of the night.”
Yup... Anger issues.
:)
Love it! Thanks for posting!
Hope you had a great Christmas!
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