Fun facts about those songs you grew up with!

There’s usually a song in my head, which causes me to ask my wife, “What song’s in your head right now?”  Ever the hip chick, her answer is always something by Fleet Foxes or a little-known Van Morrison track.  I’m more likely to have a burned-out oldie spinning up there.  Even worse, if I try to be clever and change the lyrics, CCR’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain” becomes “Who’ll Stop Lorraine,” and Huey Lewis’s “If This Is It,” turns into “Is This a Zit?”

When I hear “Angel of the Morning,” there’s this one line.  Merilee Rush sings, “Just touch my cheek before you leave me,” but I change it to “Just brush my teeth…”  Maybe it’s an old disc jockey thing.  Our hearing is so shot, it’s a wonder we can hear anything at all.

Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” certainly wasn’t written this way, but when he opens the song by singing, “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee,” I always sing “peg leg” instead of “big lake.”  That’s always what it sounded like to me.  Sorry, Gordon.

No matter how hard they try, that Sandpipers song, “Guantanamera“will always be “One Ton Tomato” to me.  “I want a one-ton tomato…”

I’ve read that Hugo Montenegro’s classic theme to “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” includes chants and grunts that aren’t really words at all.  But they are to me.  I sing something different every time I hear it.  It may be “shrimp boat,” or maybe even “French toast.” How about “Ringgold” or “Red Bull.”  Who really knows?

In the 1960s, Dion had a hit with “Runaround Sue.”  The doo-wop background singers, according to the lyric sheet, are singing, “Hey, hey, um de hey, de hey, de hey, hey, um de hey, de hey, de hey.”  I don’t think so.  When I was a kid, the great Chattanooga DJ Chickamauga Charlie sang along with it one morning, and totally convinced me that what they were REALLY saying was, “Hurt, hurt…bumped my head, and it hurt, hurt.  Bumped my head and it hurt, hurt..” Ever since then, that’s how I sing along with “Runaround Sue.”  My apologies to you too, Dion.

By the way, you can’t always trust the labels on those records you grew up with.  Did you think “Wasted on the Way” was by Crosby, Stills and Nash?  Nope.  Truth is, it was sung by only Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.  This may come as a shock, but David Crosby was so “wasted” that day, he didn’t show up for the recording session.

Remember “Fooled Around and Fell In Love” by Elvin Bishop? That’s what it said on the label.  I played that hundreds of times, telling you it was Elvin Bishop singing that tune.  Well, it was his band, and Elvin did write the song.  But the man who sang it was Mickey Thomas, who later voiced the song frequently voted the worst ever: “We Built This City” by Starship.  Great, now that one’s in my head.

How many times have you heard “Someday We’ll Be Together,” and the DJ told you it was the final song by Diana Ross and the Supremes, since Diana was leaving to become a solo act?  The song was released in late 1969, but Diana had already split.  She wanted it to be her first solo record, but Motown thought it would sell better as a Supremes farewell.  The background singers were actually Julia and Maxine Waters, who were never Supremes.  Motown was right:  it became a number-one hit.

I used to get requests for “I Saw The Light” by Carole King, but it was actually Todd Rundgren.  That could be because Todd said he was inspired by Carole’s hit from a year earlier, “Sweet Seasons.”

Many listeners were sure that “More Today Than Yesterday” (sung by the late Pat Upton of Spiral Starecase) was done by Stevie Wonder.  No doubt Stevie would have nailed it, but it wasn’t him.

In fact, one of Stevie’s biggest hits was actually a group effort that included people whose names you’ve probably never heard.  The opening verse of “You Are The Sunshine of My Life” is sung first by Jim Gilstrap, and then Lani Groves.  Stevie doesn’t start singing until later.  All these decades, I just thought he was changing his voice.

Who else thought Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” was about that big city in Kansas?  Me too, but no.  Songwriter Jim Webb actually had Washita County, Oklahoma in mind.  Glen changed it to “Wichita” during the recording session because “it sings better.”

It may also surprise you to learn that some songs we thought were about boy-girl break-ups, were about something else entirely.  In that great 1975 hit “How Long (Has This Been Going On)” by Ace, lead singer Paul Carrack makes you think that a girl was cheating on him.  Truth is, the song was written in response to a band member who was leaving the group.

Finally, David Gates of the 70s group Bread had me thinking he’d give “Everything I Own” just to have a certain girl back again.  He later revealed it wasn’t about a former romantic interest.  His father had died young, and he was the subject of David’s emotional lament.  Now these words really hit home, don’t they: “Is there someone you know, you’re loving them so, but taking them all for granted…You may lose them one day, someone takes them away, and they don’t hear the words you long to say…”

That’s the power of music.  So often, a gifted songwriter is able to speak for us, better than we can say it ourselves.  As long as we can understand the words.