Misheard Lyrics

A few days ago, Gordon McWattie asked readers on Facebook to share their misheard Bowie lyrics. The responses were hilarious. My contribution was that even recently I thought the line, “I shake,” from “The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (as Beauty)” was, “I say.” So it turns out, Bowie was not presenting as a stuffy old Englishman (“I say!”) and more as someone whose trembling with emotions, instability, illness— who knows? Which is, of course, far more in alignment with the song.

So I was thinking about other Bowie lines I got wrong over the years. This isn’t a top ten list in the sense that they are ranked, but for the sake of carrying on with the levity I’ll stick with the nice, round number 10…

1. “I can’t read shit” from “I Can’t Read.” I’m starting my list with a line I might have had right all along. I never had any reason to think Bowie wasn’t singing, “I can’t read shit” in this Tin Machine song, until I read Kevin Armstrong’s memoir, Absolute Beginner, in which he pointed out that it’s unclear whether Bowie is actually singing, “I can’t reach it.” I later had the opportunity to interview Kevin and I asked him which it was, and even though he played guitar on the song, he didn’t know for sure. I actually think, “I can’t reach it” makes more sense in the song, which I have come to think is not about illiteracy but rather Bowie lamenting that he had lost touch with his audience.

2. “People looked in Jagger’s eyes and scored” from “Drive in Saturday.” I had thought the line was the fairly prosaic, “People looked in Jagger’s eyes in scores,” like, lots of people were looking into Jagger’s eyes. If you think about it, scores of people— thousands, actually look into Jagger’s eyes. So it makes sense. Except the song is about a post-apocalyptic world in which people forgot how to have sex, so they think back to the days that the Stones served as an aphrodisiac.

3. “Sam was a gun” from “Scream Like a Baby.” What I thought Sam was, was a god. My version makes more sense. Sam really gets pummeled by oppressors in this song and I thought he was another divine martyr. Turns out he actually was a gun. I have no good idea what that means.

4. “He laughed insane and quipped ‘KAHLIL GIBRAN.’” For years, I thought what I was hearing was, “He laughed and said, what color’s different.” What does that mean? I never really tried to logic it out. At some point I looked up the lyrics, which, of course, inspired me to look up Khalil Gibran, who, it turns out was a writer and visual artist who died in 1931. So Bowie’s version doesn’t make a lot more sense than mine.

5. “Looks like you’ve been there, too” from “Rebel Rebel.” I thought the line was, “looks like a female, too.” In this case, both versions would have made sense to some extent. That said, I like what Bowie was singing much more. At the point I realized the actual lyrics, I came to think this part of the song is one of Bowie’s best clusters of lyrics.

6. “It’s a real mean team” from “All the Young Dudes.” The line follows, “Lucy looks sweet ’cause he dresses like a queen; But he can kick like a mule…” It would have naturally followed that, “he’s a real mean teen,” which is what I thought the line was, but turns out wasn’t.

7. “Les Tricoteuses” from “Candidate.” The “Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)” sequence from Diamond Dogs is one of my favorite pieces of music. The song, and the album as a whole, is possibly the best example of Bowie’s “cut up” technique in full bloom. Accordingly, there are lines that make little literal sense, and I thought one of them was, “Someone scrawled on the wall “I smell the blood of the tree cutters.” I never put too much thought into what Bowie had against lumberjacks— maybe he had seen the Monty Python sketch. Anyway, that’s not what he’s saying at all. Once I realized the actual words, and then what “les Tricoteuses” were, the song took on a new dimension for me, But that’s a story for another post.

8. “Three steps to heaven” from “It’s No Game.” At least what I thought the line was. Adam Steiner’s book, Silhouettes and Shadows” discusses the possibility that the line is, “Silhouettes and shadows watch the revolution; No more free steps to heaven.” Steiner contemplates the meaning either way. But we’re not sure which one is right.

9. “From Kether to Malkuth” from “Station to Station.” Be honest, did you know that’s what the line was, even now? And if so, how long did it take you to figure it out. Like, how many years of listening to the song? And once you got it, did you have any idea what Bowie was singing about? It’s been a while since I figured it out and I don’t remember what I thought he was saying, but I can tell you, it wasn’t that!

10. “You’re squawking like a pink monkey bird” from “Moonage Daydream.” Not that it would have made a heck of a lot more sense, but for years I thought the line was, “You’re squawking like a big funky bird.” Actually, scratch that— that would have made much more sense. What in the world is a “pink monkey bird?”*

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* Sadly, there is an answer to this question. “Pink monkey bird” has a meaning. I just have never encountered the term outside this song and had to look it up, which I will leave for you to do on your own. I liked the idea that the term has no meaning at all.