Remember Grand Funk Railroad? One of their hit songs (Walk Like A Man) goes like this:
“A little girl asked me what am I gonna do
When I get old and blue and worn clear through
And I said by that time I’m gonna be in my prime
I’m gonna strut like a cock until I’m 99.”
Admirable manly sentiments to be sure. But when I listened to this song when I was 16 or so, I always heard the last line like this:
“I’m gonna strut like a cockatiel at 99.”
Cocks and cockatiels are both birds, but substituting one for the other completely changes the meaning of that line. Which is why that line never made any sense to me. Strut like a cockatiel? What does that even mean?
Since I hadn’t listened to “Walk Like A Man (You Can Call Me Your Man)” since I was 16, I only recently, and by accident found out that I had been remembering that song wrong all my life. More about that later. (By the way, I’d also misheard the line “worn clear through” as “no can do.” No can do what? Well, you know … that misheard line seemed to make sense to me then.)
Among my many character flaws, prominent is the fact that I mishear song lyrics, or remember them as something else. Sometimes, when I do find out the real lyrics, I am disappointed. The misheard ones seem better.
There is a fabulous word that describes a misheard lyric: Mondegreen — a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of a song. It’s a great word, and it was invented by the American writer Sylvia Wright, who coined the word in the 1950s. When Wright was a child, her mother would read her the poem that goes:
“Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray,
And laid him on the green.”
Wright heard the last line as “Lady Mondegreen.” An imagined double-slaying — and a new word for the lexicon.
There are some famous mondegreens: “ ‘Scuz me, while I kiss this guy …” (Jimi Hendrix); “I wanna rock and roll all night, and part of every day …” (Kiss); “Everybody in a wholesale frock …” (Elvis Presley).
I myself am prone to mondegreens. Over the years, I’ve come to believe that in my case it takes my brain a split second longer than normal people to process information coming into it from my ears. That’s why, although I can pick up a smattering of another language quite easily, I have great difficulty understanding it — most people are the opposite. I will say something to someone, in French, say, and they will respond, and I will stare at them blankly. This happens to me in English, too. It drives people crazy. Including me. But I digress.
How did I discover the right lyrics to “Walk Like A Man (You Can Call Me Your Man)?” I haven’t listened to that song since I was 16, nor even thought about it. But for some reason, it started going through my head the other day. An earworm! I don’t know what triggered it — but at one point in my day it started running unbidden through my brain, and I finally had to ask myself: “‘Strut like a cockatiel …’ What does that even mean?”
Earworms — also known as Involuntary Musical Imagery — are snatches of music that start running through the brain unbidden, that sometimes won’t go away for hours. It is one of the prices we pay for being alive. Could be worse, I suppose.
There is a theory in linguistics that the word earworm is a “calque” from the German “Ohrwurm, which in ancient times was a worm that was dried out, ground up and used to treat ear diseases. A theory as good as any.
A calque is when one language borrows a word or phrase from another language, and keeps its basic sound components while ascribing a different meaning — from “Ohrwurm” to “Earworm.” Dig it!
A calque is different from a Hobson-Jobson, which is more like a Mondegreen, and is where a language adopts a word from another language and keeps the same meaning and roughly the same pronunciation. For example, English borrowed from the Spanish the word “cockroach,” from “Cucaracha” (“scurry up and scurry down!”).
I am also prone to earworms. For a couple of years my default earworm was the opening chord sequence to the theme from “Sesame Street,” which was pleasant enough. It was when my brain was taken over by a mid-1970s jingle for a kids’ game (“Have you got trouble, wait don’t run, this kind of trouble is lots of fun …”) that I decided enough was enough.
Over the years, I have conducted extensive research, using my own brain, and have come up with the solution to earworms. If that snippet of music running unbidden through your brain won’t go away, and is driving you crazy, here’s the secret. Whistle or hum to yourself the theme from “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” If you don’t know it, google it. “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” acts like an eraser head — humming it will wipe the earworm out of your brain, yet itself won’t get stuck in your brain.
So when “Walk Like A Man (You Can Call Me Your Man)” started running through my head, unbidden, I was about to started humming “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” when the earworm got to the line “I’m gonna strut like a cockatiel at 99.” I stopped whistling “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” to ask myself “‘Strut like a cockatiel …’ What does that even mean?”
Have a good Easter weekend, dear readers, and may all your Ohrwurms be pleasant.