Sex Changes and Burned Pizza

Here are some of my favorite misheard lyrics stories I’ve heard about through the years:

Rolling Stones “Beast of Burden”:

Real Lyric:

I'll never be your beast of burden

Misheard Lyric:

I'll never leave your pizza burnin'

REM “Losing my Religion”:

Real Lyric:

That's me in the corner, That's me in the spotlight

Misheard Lyric:

Let's pee in the corner, Let's pee in the spotlight

Jimi Hendrix “Purple Haze”:

Real Lyric:

'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky

Misheard Lyric:

'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy

Pink Floyd “Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)”:

Real Lyric:

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Misheard Lyric:

The ducks are hazards in the classroom

My own contribution to this list.  Robin still teases me every time this song comes on:

Chuck Berry – “You Never Can Tell”:

Real Lyric:

They bought a souped up jitney, 'twas a cherry red '53
They drove it down to New Orleans to celebrate their anniversary
It was there that Pierre was wedded to the lovely mademoiselle
"C'est la vie," say the old folks, "It goes to show you never can tell"

My Version:

They bought a souped up jitney, 'twas a cherry red '53
They drove it down to New Orleans to celebrate their anniversary
It was there that Pierre was made into the lovely mademoiselle
"C'est la vie," say the old folks, "It goes to show you never can tell"

Paying for Convenience

I was excited to discover that The Reverend Horton Heat are coming to Portland on the 12/30/2010. Tickets are listed on their web site as being $12. I went to buy two tickets this morning and discovered that the online sales were being handled by Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster was advertising the show for $15.95 ($12 + $3.95 service fees). I hate service fees but that was within my tolerance level.

I went to purchase them and I was faced with a series of options on delivery. Everything from printing at home to UPS overnight. To simply drop them in the mail and send them to me would cost me $12 more. I decided to print them. For the connivence of printing them from my own printer with my own ink and paper it would cost me another $2.50. Rationalizing to myself that at least it wasn’t $2.50 per ticket I forged ahead. That is when I was hit with a $4.50 handling fee. There was no explanation on how this was different than the $3.95 service fee I was already being charged.

Suddenly my $12 tickets were now $19.50 each from all the hidden fees. I abandoned my cart and closed my browser in disgust. You know the thing is, I would have gladly paid $19.50 a ticket but by the end of the checkout process I felt like I was dealing with a used car salesman who was trying to up sell me on a bunch of crap I didn’t want…

Blue Yule

About Ten years ago, my Sister In Law asked me simply for a collection of Holiday music for her Christmas present. I’ve made her a new one every year since then. What originally started out as just a stocking stuffer for her has since become something that we pass out to everyone who gets a bag of Robin’s amazing Christmas chocolates. I’ve amassed quite a collection of Holiday music over the years (over 1700 songs), some good, some bad and some great.  One of my favorites is Blue Yule from Rhino. I don’t recall how I stumbled across this particular collection but after hearing it for the first time, I fell in love with it. I put it on each year and I’ve used about 80% of the songs on the collections through the years. This compilation contains some sublime Christmas Blues from the likes of Eddie Campbell, Lightening Hopkins, Canned Heat, Charles Brown, Sonny Boy Williamson and John Lee Hooker.

Favorite box set collections

I own a lot of box sets in my musical collection.  I have some that are compilations of a particular style of music or some that are for a single artist like the kick ass Hip-O-Select sets (more on those in another post).  I have two particular box sets that stand out from all the rest in my collection and they are The Chess Story from Chess and Beg, Scream & Shout from Rhino.

The Chess Story: 1947 – 1975

If I had to pick just one box set in my collection as the best, this would be it.  The hits that Chess Records put out during the years it operated are staggering.  The artists they signed are some of the finest around, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Etta James, Howlin Wolf, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson not to mention the song writing talents of Willie Dixon.  This thirteen CD collection is phenomenal and a treasure for the ears. The fact that such incredible music music came from this one label is a feat only paralleled by Sun Records or Stax-Volt Records. Unfortunately this set is out of print and goes for crazy money if you can actually find it.

Beg, Scream & Shout: A Big Old Box Of  60′s Soul

We picked this Rhino box set up in Memphis when we visited the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum while visiting family.  Before I acquired the Chess Box set, this was hands down my favorite box set ever.  The packaging is a great tribute to days gone by, the whole thing is encased in a 45 rpm box with the sleeves and jewel cases for each of the six CD’s being replicas of 45 singles.  There are a series of “Soul Cards” with data on each artist (sort of like baseball cards for soul music).  This Rhino collection has a dizzying array of artists on it, Areha Franklin, Ben E King, Booker T & The MG’s, Clarence Carter, Ike & Tina Turner, Jackie Wilson, The Mark-Keys, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Rufus Thomas, Sam & Dave, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Supremes, the list goes on and on.  The six CD’s are divided up by mood, two each for Beg, Scream and Shout.  I have a fair amount of Rhino box sets and this one outshines them all.  If you see it, pick it up, you will not regret it if you like soul music.

A historic musical gold mine

I have recently acquired a very cool bootleg.  Led Zeppelin – The Ultimate Studio Sessions.  This is a 12 cd box set containing Led Zeppelin recording studio demos and rough song sketches from 1968 – 1980. This is really like being a fly on the wall during the creation of such amazing music over the years. There are quite a lot of repeats and false starts but it is a rare audio documentary of the creation & recording process. It is going to take me forever to listen to it all but below are three gems from the collection.

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You (take 9)

Hey Hey What Can I Do

In My Time Of Dying

The first concert I ever saw live

The Police at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland Oregon.  Ghost in the Machine Tour.

On a dark Saturday night when I was 14 years old, my brother Tim got out of the car with just a sleeping bag and a light jacket and he walked over to a small line forming outside the Memorial Coliseum for the Police concert in 1982.  At the time I didn’t understand why he was sleeping outside for seats at a concert.  I was going to the same show but I showed up 24 hours later and  I got in that same line but much further back. This was still in the days of general admission with no such thing as assigned seats.  When the doors were opened it took about an hour to get into the venue and I finally found some seats in the way back of the floor.  It turned out that Tim saved me and my buddy two very prime seats in the 5th row, dead center.  In short order, we were less than 15 feet from the stage for my first concert. The Police were in their prime and they sounded incredible.  Every song was tight, it was an amazing concert and still the best I have ever seen.  I had no idea until how fortunate I was to see such a show until years later after I had seen many more concerts. When the Police got back together and toured again I consciously skipped it because I knew that nothing could come close to when I saw them in their prime.

More Dark Christmas Songs

I forgot about a few Christmas songs in my post yesterday, here are some more:

My Brother Tim reminded me of this Pogues classic:

I can’t believe I forgot about one of my favorites by Robert Earl Keene:

A great one from Nightmare Before Christmas:

A sad one from John Prine:

And you can’t have a list like this without Denis Leary:

Dark Christmas Songs

Sharing some of my favorite Dark Christmas songs for the holidays.  Not necessarily anti-christmas, just definitely not Jingle Bells…

Tom Waits – Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

Over The Rhine – All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue (a new discovery for me this year)

Sonny Boy Williamson – Santa Claus

Canned Heat – Christmas Blues