Lyrics – Page 5

Most Impressive Train

There are only so many things that rhyme with “train”

London. 1850. Three gentlemen sit in their club, reading the Times. As Lord Wallace turns the page, a small piece of paper falls into his lap.

Lord Wallace: By jove! A train ticket for three! Now, who shall accompany me?

His companions look hopeful.

Lord Wallace: Sir George!

Sir George: Yes!

Lord Wallace: And…..

Lord Peters smiles expectantly

Lord Wallace: Isambard Kingdom Brunel!

Pan to Isambard Kingdom Brunel who is leaning nonchalantly against the wall wearing a stovepipe hat and smoking a large cigar. He removes the cigar momentarily

Brunel: Most agreeable.

Cut to a Steam Train as the music begins…

Indeed!
Have your tickets ready for we’re about to depart!
Every gentleman assemble on the platform!
And be sure to stay on your toes
We’re steaming up! Let us go!

I’m on a train!
I’m on a train!
Everybody look at me for I’m riding on a train!
I’m on a train!
I’m on a train!
Take a good hard look at the most impressive train!

I’m on a train you blighter listen to my tale!
Straight riding on a train on an iron rail,
Twenty miles to the hour messing with my brain,
You can’t stop me you bounder for I’m on a train!

Make a sketch quick, I’m on a train kick,
We’re drinking workers’ ale because it’s so thick,
I’ve got my timetable, for I’m railway savvy,
While you’re sailing the canals like a common navvy,

I’m stoking the engine, shovelling coal supplies,
The stack is smoking, throwing ash in everyone’s eyes,
But no one minds sir, for this is fast as it gets,
I’m on a train sir, don’t you ever forget!

I’m on a train sir! It’s going fast sir!
The economic potential of this is vast sir!
I’m racing along just like Stephenson’s Rocket,
With a wad of Great Western shares riding in my pocket!

Pay attention now! For this train is real!

No barge! I’m on a train you dirty bounder!
No horse! I ride rails you dirty bounder!
I’m on the engine with my fellows, dirty bounder!
This engine sounds like a bellows, dirty bounder!

Yes sir! If you could see me now!
My arms spread wide like a captured cow,
Going to take this train to France somehow,
Why not a tunnel? Anything is possible!

Brunel:
Never thought I’d be on a train,
The horsepower of this engine’s insane,
James Watt, take a look at me,
Never thought I’d see the day,
When a big train was steaming my way,
Believe me when I say, these tracks are broad-gauge!

I’m on a train!
I’m on a train!
Everybody look at me for I’m riding on a train!
I’m on a train!
I’m on a train!
Take a good hard look at the most impressive train!

Ringing in My Head

The Swedish Electropop Lyrical Massacree

In my oh-so-inflated opinion one of the best songs (not to mention video clips) of the last few years was Det Snurrar i min Skalle by Swedish electro-popsters Familjen. It’s a great track with only one problem – it’s in Swedish.

(Or more accurately, a dialect of Swedish the name of which temporarily escapes me..)

Now this isn’t really a problem. The song is what it is and works wonderfully even if monolingual ignoramuses such as myself can’t understand the words. But what if we want to sing along? Or for that matter simply want to know what the song is about?

Sure, you can look up a translation, but a straight translation of lyrics is never very inspiring. There’s no meter, there’s no rhyme and there’s bound to be some odd turns of phrase that sound fine in the original but are just weird when dragged kicking and screaming into another language. What you need is a more nuanced translation that takes the meaning of the lyrics and whacks it into something that would pass muster as a lyric in the new language. So where can you find such a thing for Det Snurrar i min Skalle? Well as far as I could figure out, nowhere. So I wrote my own.

This kind of work is always subjective. The translator (ie: me) has to try and balance their best guess at what the writer was trying to say with the needs of meter, rhyme and rhythm. The lyrics below are about 75%-80% accurate to my interpretation of the translations that I’ve come across, which isn’t too bad for a Sunday afternoon.

So, enjoy…

Ringing in My Head
(A probably fairly dodgy translation of Familjen’s Det Snurrar i min Skalle)

I, caught a little fire from you,
And now through my head it’s burning,
I, know what you’re about to do,
And it feels like the first time,

Let’s, show the world it’s you and me,
We’ll run to where they can’t find,
They, know that this was meant to be,
Can’t you hear them singing?

Just, as if it always had been planned,
Just like how the earth keeps spinning,
How, could you ever choose another’s hand?
You couldn’t, that’s the glory,

You, fill my head to overflow,
And I’m here to tell that story,
More, than I thought I’d ever know,
Inside my head it’s ringing,

I, caught a little fire from you,
And now through my head it’s burning,
I, know what you’re about to do,
And it feels like the first time,

Let’s, show the world it’s you and me,
We’ll run to where they can’t find,
They, know that this was meant to be,
Can’t you hear them singing?

Yeah, can’t you hear them singing?
Yeah, can’t you hear them singing?
Can’t you hear them singing?
Can’t you hear them singing?
Can’t you hear them singing?
Can’t you hear them singing?

Free Range Ablett

Some people don’t smell like they should

AFL ‘Superstar’ Gary Ablett Jr announced today that he’s leaving the Geelong Cats and moving to the Gold Coast Suns.

The movement of AFL players between teams is something that would normally rate on my interest radar somewhere below the antics of the fleas on Paris Hilton’s chihuahua, but I’m feigning an interest this time because it’s a great excuse to pull out a reference to a strange and obscure song by the strange and obscure (and probably defunct) Perth band O!, which goes by the name of Free Range Ablett.

It goes a little something like this…

Some people smell good!
Some people don’t smell like they should,
Some people smell like a free range Ablett…

Free Range! Free Range ababababa abababa,
Ababababa abababa,

And his faithful companion the…
Egg roll, Egg roll,
Free Range! Ababababa abababa,
Gary-gary-gray-gary-gary-gary Ablett!
And his faithful companion the…
Egg roll, Egg roll,

(Those lyrics may not be 100% accurate, and the song’s actually about his dad, but hey, let’s not let that ruin the fun :))

Tlot Tlot Tlot Tlot Tlot Tlot Tlot Tlot Tlot (Should I go on?)

A musical diversion

I was thinking the other day about Tlot Tlot.

Tlot Tlot were a Perth band from (I think) the 1990s. I don’t know that much about them to be honest, in fact I only know one of their songs. But that one song is a doozy.

Imagine you put the members of They Might be Giants and Barnes and Barnes in a room with a honky-tonk piano, a mixing desk and several sound effect CDs. Then got them slightly drunk. They might come up with something like that one song – a work titled Box of Gods.

Box of Gods is hard to pin down. It seems to be some kind of attack on either religion, or the commercialisation of religion (or maybe both). It’s stuffed full of wacky sound effects, distorted vocals and lyrics so nonsensical that it’s hard to tell if you’re hearing them right. But it’s energetic, crazy and catchy as hell.

Now, your odds of finding a copy of it (or the album it’s off Pistolbuttsatwinkle’atwinkle) are probably pretty low, but because I’m a generous guy I thought I’d post the lyrics (insofar as I can make them out). This will also have the effect of increasing Tlot-Tlot’s web presence by at least 10%, which has to be a good thing 🙂

So here we go…

Box of Gods – Tlot Tlot

(Playing tennis, in the Herald…)

(Bop! Bop! Bop!)

You bought me a box of gods,
I brought you down, I brought you down,
You bought me a box of gods,
I brought you down, I brought you down,
You bought me a box of gods,
I brought you down, I brought you down,
You bought me a box of gods,
I brought you down,

Now wouldn’t it be funny, if you could purchase,
Religion on a stick?
And wouldn’t it be funny, if you could buy,
A god to get you by?

(Playing tennis, in the Herald Sun)

You bought me a box of gods (Bop! Bop!),
I brought you down, I brought you down,
You bought me a box of gods,
I brought you down, I brought you down,
You bought me a box of gods (Bop! Bop!),
I brought you down, I brought you down,
You bought me a box of gods,
I brought you down,

Now wouldn’t it be funny, if you could purchase,
A god soap on a rope?
Wouldn’t it be funny, watching your father,
Break down into a lather?
And wouldn’t it be useless, to buy a used car,
From a man with an honest face?
And wouldn’t it be horrible, to scrub the bathroom floor,
With holy water purchased by the case?

(Just make sure, you wash behind your ears!)

(Bop! Bop!)
(Bop! Bop!)

Now wouldn’t it be funny, if you could purchase,
A costume just like this?
And wouldn’t you be better off, if you weren’t,
All thumbs and two left feet?

(Pin yourself, on the cross, in the Herald Sun)

(Bop! Bop!)

That’s your lot for the day! 😀

The Herd – 2020

Some more lyrics for y’all

Among doing other things today I tried to look up the lyrics to the Herd’s song 2020. As is often the case in this degenerate age, the versions of the lyrics I found were awful – seemingly transcribed by hearing impaired meth addicts. I was faced with no option but to transcribe them myself.

So here is a semi-decent version of 2020. Words and phrases I’m unsure of have been placed in brackets, and I’ve written out all numbers to make it clear how they’re pronounced. Enjoy!

(Oh, there’s a bit of adult language in there, so be warned)

The Herd – 2020

It’s not as if you didn’t get the warning,
You got the transcripts and recordings,
History has a way of signing us up in the morning,
If you’re a late starter make it easy to ignore it,
Later not recall it,

Yeah, you had unfettered access to the facts,
But the fact is your back is turned to the Atlas,
Looking like (jumping) in the grass,
Just to help you make your mind up,
Unknowingly the young sign up,

The enemy of our enemy is still our enemy,
So why were you (harming and resisting) insanity,
That’s how the Taliban began,
(But you’ve mostly) turn around,
And aim their weapons at Americans,

How’s it feel to be a widow-maker,
Taker of the father of the family,
Your tragedy is (playing),
That’s the stakes that scoff at the Saigon link,
Flash those pearlies, take us way past the brink,

And we you knew you were frauds,
Onwards we went to war,
Nothing could be said to promise you,
We’d already seen it before,

Someone could’a told you it’d end like this,
They did, you didn’t listen, you can take a trip,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,

No-one could have ever half sway your mind,
We’ve been there before but it’s not that time,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again

There’s something familiar,
’bout that story you told me,
The way that you mouthed it,
It’s not what you sold me,

Well yes I’m one of many,
Yet you ignored the signs,
You made it personal,
Don’t spin me them lies,

Sir, you can’t relax,
’cause it occurred on your watch,
History will judge you,
’cause you’re all that we’ve got,

Is anyone listening?
Are you f**king insane?
Am I twisted, watching as it plays out again?

And the truth is we knew this,
People aren’t stupid,
You play the innocent because you think we let you do it,
If we think you’re too ruthless,
Show you where the point of the boot is,
It’s all about where the f**king proof is,

You’ll keep an eye on that new kid,
He’s liable to do sh*t,
If you don’t keep a check on it, beyond your electorate,
Peace in Iraq man, stay in Afghanistan,
Lookin’ for Osama, getting killed by the Taliban,

War on drugs, war on terror, nine-eleven,
We knew where Johnny stood, where’s Kevin?
Don’t get me wrong, alarm clocks from heaven,
Going off when the country woke up in o-seven,

But there’s no letting up, no we’re just getting up,
Off the canvas, that very fact demands that,
We stay as vigilant as can be,
Transparency, Another AWB,
But we’ll see,

Even as we applaud,
And we show them the door,
Thought we’d warn you that we’re wary,
Cause we’ve already seen it before,

Someone could’a told you it’d end like this,
They did, you didn’t listen, you can take a trip,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,

No-one could have ever half sway your mind,
We’ve been there before but it’s not that time,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,

The Human Cure

I also like mashups!

I’m going to stick my neck out and plant my feet (now there’s an image) firmly in the pro-So Human camp. As far as I’m concerned it’s an enjoyable and fairly creative re-working of Close to Me, and detracts nothing from the original track.

So there!

(Yes, after a very rough week I’m back baby!)

Later…

OK, after trawling around the web a bit it’s become apparent to me that there’s not a decent copy of the lyrics anywhere (or at least not anywhere accessible from the front page of Google). The only lyrics available appear to have been transcribed by someone unfamiliar with an English accent, and who frankly didn’t care very much anyway (how else to explain the fact that large chunks are gibberish and even the bits copied from the Cure are wrong?). This severely faulty version has then been copied verbatim by every lazy bastard out there who’d rather just cut, paste and submit rather than reading through what it is they’re pasting in.

Well no more! I’ve just spent half an hour transcribing the song and while my version has a few holes (indicated with italics) it’s a hell of a lot more accurate. Enjoy!

So Human – Lady Sovereign

Me you, yeah yeah, everyone we’ve had one of them days, but listen me you cannot relate,
I’m a star, I’m an individual, uneducated¹ example of intelligence, I’m considered t’be cool,
Hot bodies, offended people, the mood offstage (bitten down a steeple??²),
Anyways, things change, always at the hotel, always, I’ll be gone again in four days,

I’ve been waiting hours for this,
I’ve made myself so sick,
I wish I’d stayed, asleep today, yeah,
I’m so human (yeah yeah),
It’s OK (yeah yeah),
For me to,
Feel this way (yeah yeah),
I’m still human (yeah yeah),
It’s OK (yeah yeah),
For me to,
Feel this way (yeah yeah),

Yeah… Yeah… Yeah…

Yeah, you me everyone, I got a little temper but I’m a funny one,
(da-da da-da??) the beat went on and I really fucking had enough,
You shoulda seen me runnin’ out the studio like Forest Gump,
(Drop shop??³) shut up, taxi, get away,
Trapped in the U.S. and my accent is my giveaway,
I need a bag of green to make it go away,
And this is another day of my life, and so I say,

I’ve been waiting hours for this,
I’ve made myself so sick,
I wish I’d stayed, asleep today, yeah,
I’m so human (yeah yeah),
It’s OK (yeah yeah),
For me to,
Feel this way (yeah yeah),
I’m still human (yeah yeah),
It’s OK (yeah yeah),
For me to,
Feel this way (yeah yeah),

Yea-ah yeay…
Yea-ah yeay…
Yea-ah yeay…

Doesn’t it feel much better, aha? When you’ve had a better day than yesterday?
Doesn’t it feel much better, aha? When you’ve had a better day than yesterday?
Doesn’t it feel much better, aha? When you’ve had a better day than yesterday?
Doesn’t it feel much better, aha? When you’ve had a better day than yesterday?
Yesterday, Yesterday, Yesterday, Yesterday,
(Yesterday, Yesterday, Yesterday, Yesterday)

I’m so human (yeah yeah),
It’s OK (yeah yeah),
For me to,
Feel this way (yeah yeah),
I’m still human (yeah yeah),
It’s OK (yeah yeah),
For me to,
Feel this way (yeah yeah),

Notes:
1: Could be “an educated” but I think “uneducated” makes more sense in context.
2: “Ridden down a steeple”? I really have no idea.
3: I honestly don’t have the foggiest.

Dog Box

Mondegreen Time

Note to self. As great as such a lyric would be, Hounds of Love by Kate Bush does not actually feature the line “I found a box that was powered by dogs”.

(Hey, it’s 39 degrees outside, I can be as stupid as I want 🙂

Goose Pimple Bone

Oh I’ll be a good boy, Please make me well, I promise you anything,Get me out of this hell

Well, I’ve been holed up ever since 3:30am Monday morning with a really nasty and persistent case of gastroenteritis. I’d write about what it’s like not being able to eat or sleep for four days straight, except that John Lennon did it so eloquently for me back in 1969 with Cold Turkey…

Temperature’s rising
Fever is high
Can’t see no future
Can’t see no sky

My feet are so heavy
So is my head
I wish I was a baby
I wish I was dead

Cold turkey has got me on the run

My body is aching
Goose-pimple bone
Can’t see nobody
Leave me alone

My eyes are wide open
Can’t get to sleep
One thing I’m sure of
I’m in at the deep freeze

Cold turkey has got me on the run

Thirty-six hours
Rolling in pain
Praying to someone
Free me again

Oh I’ll be a good boy
Please make me well
I promise you anything
Get me out of this hell

Cold turkey has got me on the run

Amen John, amen.

The D.P.Wyrm Plan for a Guaranteed Best Seller

Well *I’m* not going to write it!

You know, there’s an idea that’s been floating around in my head for some years, and now that I have the means to write blog entries quickly and efficiently, I figured I might as well write it up (oh joy!).

So. There are a number of popular, well known songs that have fairly interesting histories. I’ve been thinking that someone with some decent writing skills (ie: not me) could do a lot worse than to write a “popular history” style book telling these stories. Divide it up into one song a chapter, give it a snazzy title, get it on Oprah and you’d be on the New York Times best seller list in no time!

Suggested inclusions…

The Lion Sleeps Tonight – Originally written and performed as ‘Mbube’ by Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds in South Africa in 1939 this song went through a tortuous number of twists and turns before morphing into one of the most recorded songs in history. And (until comparatively recently) Solomon Linda’s family didn’t see a cent for it. There was actually a lengthy article about its history in Rolling Stone magazine some years back – a good jumping off point for this theoretical book.

House of the Rising Sun – Originally recorded as “The Rising Sun Blues” by ethnographers working in the Appalachian mountains in the 30’s (trying to preserve America’s folk music heritage before it was homogenized by the arrival of radio). It too went through a number of adaptions before turning into the version we know today.

Amazing Grace – The official story is that a slave trader named John Newton had a religious revelation on the deck of his slave ship one night, wrote the words, and immediately quit the slave trade – becoming a passionate abolitionist. It didn’t actually play out like this in reality – he remained in the slave trade for another six years at least and didn’t speak out against it for another 30 years – but it still makes for a fascinating story.

So there we go, add in five or six more songs with interesting histories and you’ve got yourself a best seller! Just be sure to send me appropriate royalties 🙂

It Was Twenty (Five) Years Ago Today

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round

People say I’m crazy, doing what I’m doing,
Well they give me all kinds of warnings, to save me from ruin,
When I say that I’m OK, they look at me kind of strange,
Surely you’re not happy now, you no longer play the game?

People say I’m lazy, dreaming my life away,
Well they give me all kinds of advice, designed to enlighten me,
When I tell them that I’m doing fine, watching shadows on the wall,
Don’t you miss the big time boy, you’re no longer on the ball?

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go,

People asking questions, lost in confusion,
Well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions,
Well they shake their heads and they look at me, as if I’ve lost my mind,
I tell them there’s no hurry, I’m just sitting here doing time,

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go,
I just had to let it go,
I just had to let it go,