Several weeks ago I was listening to the radio in my car, and heard a song that was new to me on my way home from the grocery store. I wasn’t paying all that much attention to it, as traffic was demanding the lion’s share of my focus. It was a pleasant tune, but the lyrics took a weird turn. What did he say? That can’t be right, can it? Did I misunderstand? I turned it up. But the volume of the radio was not the solution. I heard the same words of that refrain again, only louder this time. “Sausage and roll…” What the heck? That doesn’t even make sense!
I looked at the heads up display on the car’s dash, hoping to catch the name of the artist and the title of the song. I was only a few blocks from home, which was fortunate, otherwise there would not be a chance on God’s green earth that I would remember the name of either by the time I got there. YouTube to the rescue! I needed to look it up, because “Sausage and roll” was ridiculous! Those of you that are country fans will know this song, because it has been at the top of the chart for far too many weeks now. Not that it isn’t a good song, but it is played at least twice every hour, all day, every day! Which by the way DJs, is not appreciated by anyone! Don’t care how popular it is! Nobody wants to hear a song over and over again unless you’re 3!
Turns out what I heard as “Sausage and roll” was in reality, “Thought You Should Know”. It’s hard to image how these two very different lines could be confused with each other, but trust me, it can be done. When you take Morgan Wallen, who has a fine voice, but who slides his words into each other, because it’s….well music, there can be a lot of rolling and bumping around of sounds, until in your head one word becomes another. I asked my daughter, son-in-law, and husband to listen to it with me to see if they heard the same thing I did. Mariah pulled it up on her television, but because that in itself is a delicate dance between one controller that you click, and another controller which you scroll, I didn’t know how to do that! Big surprise. I had to tell her the title. Consequently, when they listened to it they heard the correct version of the refrain. When I told them I heard “Sausage and roll” they laughed, yet asked to listened again. This time, unanimously they heard “Sausage and roll”, even though they knew that was wrong. That song is played incessantly, and still “Sausage and roll” is all I ever hear, until I force myself to form the right words in my head. My husband, Kim, can now only hear it my convoluted way too. Doesn’t matter that we know the words are, “Thought you should know”. Forever our ears will hear, “Sausage and roll”. Can’t help it.
Why is it we oftentimes hear things that are not there, but they sound so strikingly clear? It probably happens more often with musical lyrics than anything else. I believed for the longest time “Hot Blooded”, by Foreigner was “Hot butter….” I sang it like that for I don’t know how many years. Guess no one was listening. Hmmm! More likely I don’t make a habit of singing when anyone is around to listen, except God. Good thing! Even now I have to think about it to get it right. Another one is the chorus to “Fancy Like”, by Walker Hayes. You know it as the Applebee’s song. Cute song, catchy tune, easy to tap your toes to, but can be a bit of a tongue twister. I heard, “…whipped cream on the tot-toe…” like in potato and thought, gross! Who would put whipped cream on a potato? There’s another line in that song that caused my ears to do a double take, because I was darn sure you couldn’t say that on the radio. I had better take a look at those lyrics! Turns out my tot-toe was, “…whipped cream on the top too…”. The other line I heard wasn’t spot on either, and we will leave it at that. Kim heard the correct lyrics without any help from YouTube, until I sowed the seeds of influence in his brain. He now hears the bogus version as well, proving that fiction might actually be more persuasive than truth. Let that sink in!
I’m not the only one who sings along with my own version of the hits. Mariah admitted to singing, “Save the whales….” until her husband, Dusty, looked at her, listened closely to what she was singing and said, “It’s not whales, it’s world! Save the World!” Well now, that makes a difference. Though, when I watched the music video for this one I wished it had been about saving whales. Good message, but a little dark.
My granddaughter tells me I’m singing “Row, row, row your boat” wrong. That was a surprise to me! I’ve been singing this one since I was a kid. I was pretty sure I had it down. She cheerfully sings “…life’s a butter dream.” Butter dream? I don’t know what a butter dream is, but I like it! It makes me smile. If she happens to hear me singing, “….life is but a dream”, she will stop singing to set me straight, and get me back on track. If I continue the way it was written she’ll suggest I don’t sing along at all. Okay! I sing it her way. By the time she outgrows that song I will no longer know the real words, though I hope I’m around when she discovers them on her own. I would love to see the look in her eyes, and share that grin of revelation with her.
For whatever reason our ears hear what they hear. There is probably a science to it, though I don’t know what it is. You can always correct your alternate lyrics, or be like my granddaughter and keep them the way you like them best. Your choice. When I asked my son, Ben, what lyrics he always get wrong he responded directly, “The words I’m singing are the right words.” Though I can’t prove it, I’ll bet they aren’t!