I like to make up my own lyrics sometimes, especially if it’s a song with a catchy tune but I’m not terribly interested in learning the words for my car (or shower) singing. There are songs I work hard to learn, to memorize – some songs are just really easy to hear what they’re saying, and then other songs, the words are harder to hear, or the music is louder than the singer, blah blah blah, basically, I’m getting older and I find myself picking and choosing what I’m going to sacrifice as far as hard drive space in my brain.
So yesterday morning I was hopping around trying to get my husband to recognize a specific song, and I was angry-singing “Standing in the AIRport, with a pocket full of CHEESE.” He looked at me like I had announced we were selling everything and moving to Tibet to wear orange robes and sit on prayer rugs. Obviously I was not even close on those lyrics, so I would need to do it again, WITH FEELING and a little more of the music. I am not easily daunted, so I continued to sing, with more angry metal gods in my voice: STANDin’ in the AIRport! a pocket full of CHEESE!
Oh. Mah. God. Yes, he got it. It’s Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade”. And the lines I was screeching are actually, “Rally round the family, with a pocket full of shells.” Of course my thrashin’ metal hubby knows this. He corrected my version softly.
I stopped my metal-dancing, which is me hopping from foot to foot and holding an imaginary microphone for my angry song: “Hm. So, it’s a violent song, hm?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. Well, I like saying ‘Pocket Full of Cheese’ better. ”
“Pocket full of SHELLS, Jennifer.”
“Yes, well, that’s the way THEY sing it. I’d rather have a pocket full of cheese, myself.”
I would. I like cheese. I like when hip-hop artists talk about getting lots of cheese. I know they don’t mean Gruyere, or Gouda or – gasp – Havarti, the blessed of the blessed cheeses. But it makes me laugh more to think about getting bits of Vermont Aged Sharp Cheddar instead of Benjamins, or Kasseri cheese instead of rifle shells. Velveeta shells & cheese, now THAT would be something in your pocket. A dreadful mess, yes, but what a nice non-violent message it would send the youth of today. Rally ’round the calcium!!
With a pocket full of cheese.
One of my favorite games is “name that lyric” and what better band to play with than the Ramones!?! I swear some of their lyrics aren’t what they say they are. Driving to Chicago with my sister with just a portable tape player in the car singing at the top of our lungs “20 20 20 four hours agoooo…” you know the rest.
ah sweet memories.
Oh, and I like cheese too! It doesn’t get better than cheese in your pockets.
http://www.kissthisguy.com
Now where did I put that butter bread?
What a nicer, healthier world this would be if gangsta rappers and hard core heavy metal dudes would carry around pockets full of cheese instead of pockets full of stuff to kill people with!
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Mmmm. Cheese. Seen Wallace and Gromit?