50 Fun Facts About Lyric

What is the proper name for a misheard lyric?

Sylvia Wright coined it in a 1954 Harper's essay after mishearing a Scottish ballad as a child.

The term for a misheard lyric came from a child hearing 'laid him on the green' as what?

The ballad was 'The Bonnie Earl o' Moray', printed in Thomas Percy's collection of 1765.

In 'Purple Haze', Jimi Hendrix asks to be excused while he kisses what?

The mishearing is so famous that Hendrix played up to it on stage, pointing at his bassist as he sang the line.

Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Bad Moon Rising' is endlessly misheard as warning about what?

John Fogerty eventually started singing the wrong version live, on the grounds that everyone else already was.

Which 1963 garage-rock single triggered an FBI investigation into its supposedly obscene words?

The lyrics were innocuous but nearly unintelligible; the investigation ended with no prosecution and made the record a classic.

Who wrote and first recorded that song, back in 1956?

He built it on the tune of 'El Loco Cha Cha', one of the clearest Afro-Cuban fingerprints in American pop.

Which 17th-century Italian astronomer is named in the words of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?

Producer Roy Thomas Baker said every new take of that name meant splicing another length of tape onto the reel.

What is structurally unusual about 'Bohemian Rhapsody' for a hit single?

Freddie Mercury called the result a mock opera, stitched together from three separate songs he had written.

Which Arabic exclamation, meaning 'in the name of God', appears in that same operatic section?

Rival factions shout it while fighting over the narrator's soul, between the thunderbolts and the very very frightening lightning.

In Don McLean's 'American Pie', 'the day the music died' refers to what?

The crash killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, and the phrase became the popular name for it afterwards.

How long is the full recording of 'American Pie'?

That made it, at the time, the sixth longest song ever to enter the Billboard Hot 100.

Which pop star took a shortened 'American Pie' to number one in at least 15 countries in 2000?

McLean's own recording went into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2017.

Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' takes its title from what?

Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill wrote 'Kurt smells like Teen Spirit' on his wall in marker; he took it as a revolutionary slogan.

Which band's loud-quiet dynamics did Kurt Cobain say he was trying to copy in that song?

He described the attempt as writing 'the ultimate pop song', which is not how most people file the result.

'Hey Jude' began life as 'Hey Jules', written to comfort which child?

Paul McCartney wrote it after John Lennon left the boy's mother, and it became the first single on the Beatles' own Apple label.

What chart record did 'Hey Jude' set in Britain?

Its seven-plus minutes, most of them that repeated coda, spawned a decade of imitators trying the same trick.

John Lennon always denied that the initials in 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' stood for what?

He credited the imagery to Lewis Carroll instead, particularly the chapter of Through the Looking-Glass where Alice drifts in a boat.

What actually gave that Beatles song its title?

It depicted a classmate called Lucy Vodden, and Lennon liked the caption enough to build a song around it.

'Every Breath You Take' is sung from whose point of view?

Couples still choose it for first dances, which Sting has spent forty years politely pointing out is a mistake.

At whose Jamaican writing desk did Sting begin that song?

The desk was at Goldeneye in Oracabessa Bay, where James Bond had been written three decades earlier.

Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the U.S.A.' is narrated by whom?

Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan both mistook the anthemic chorus for flag-waving and tried to borrow it.

Who wrote 'I Will Always Love You'?

It was a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner as she went solo, cut at RCA Studio B in Nashville in June 1973.

How long did Whitney Houston's version stay at number one on the Hot 100?

It was a record at the time and made her the first female artist with a diamond-certified single.

Who wrote 'Nothing Compares 2 U', years before Sinead O'Connor made it famous?

He gave it to his side project The Family in 1985, where it sat on an album nobody bought until 1990.

Who wrote and first recorded 'Respect', two years before Aretha Franklin's version?

Franklin rearranged and rephrased it in 1967, and it became a second-wave feminist anthem rather than a man's plea.

'Sweet Home Alabama' was written as a reply to songs by which artist?

Lynyrd Skynyrd objected to 'Southern Man' and 'Alabama' blaming the whole South, and name-checked him in the lyrics.

'Puff, the Magic Dragon' began as whose poem?

He was a 19-year-old Cornell student in 1959; Yarrow later hunted him down to give him a credit and a share.

Iron Butterfly's 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' is a slurred version of which phrase?

Doug Ingle had worked through a gallon of wine before playing it to the drummer, who wrote down what he thought he heard.

Which Christmas hymn is quoted inside that same track?

Ingle wanted to 'touch the spiritual'; the drum solo, meanwhile, nods to the Congolese Missa Luba.

Why did Billboard remove 'Old Town Road' from its Hot Country Songs chart in 2019?

The ruling started a public argument about what counts as country music, and the Billy Ray Cyrus remix answered it commercially.

How did Lil Nas X know to ask Billy Ray Cyrus for the remix?

He tweeted the idea a day after the song's independent release, during the rise of the Yeehaw Agenda meme.

Leonard Cohen is reported to have drafted how many verses of 'Hallelujah'?

He filled notebooks in a New York hotel room, reportedly sitting on the floor in his underwear banging his head on the carpet.

Which film turned 'Hallelujah' into a standard, using John Cale's arrangement?

Cohen's own 1984 recording had gone almost unnoticed; by 2008 more than 300 versions existed.

Whose 1994 recording of 'Hallelujah' later reached number 259 on Rolling Stone's greatest songs list?

He was working from Cale's 1991 rearrangement rather than the original album version.

Which commedia dell'arte stock character is named in 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?

The line asks whether he will do the fandango, a Spanish dance that has nothing to do with Italian comedy at all.

How much did the Kingsmen pay for the one-hour session that produced their famous single?

It was only meant to be an audition tape for a summer cruise-ship residency, and the band split the bill.

Sinead O'Connor's most famous cover appeared on which 1990 album of hers?

It became her signature song and briefly soured her relationship with its writer, though they made peace before his death.

Which two celebrated Black session singers sang backing vocals on 'Sweet Home Alabama'?

Clayton described a long silence on the phone when she was told the title before agreeing to the session.

Roughly what share of Sting's music publishing income did 'Every Breath You Take' generate by 2010?

It won Song of the Year at the 1984 Grammys and remains the Police's only US number one.

Which folk trio made 'Puff, the Magic Dragon' a hit in 1963?

One of its members had written the lyrics from a student's poem four years earlier.

Before McCartney had words for 'Yesterday', what placeholder title did the Beatles use?

The melody came to McCartney in a dream at Jane Asher's family home, and he spent a month checking he hadn't unconsciously stolen it.

In 2017, 46 years after release, who was finally credited as co-writer of 'Imagine'?

Lennon himself said much of the lyric and concept came from poems in the 1964 book Grapefruit, and that he had been 'a bit more macho' in leaving her off.

Why did Paul Simon say 'Mrs. Robinson' names Joe DiMaggio rather than Mickey Mantle?

DiMaggio was baffled by the line, telling Simon he hadn't gone anywhere and had just done a Mr. Coffee commercial.

Bernie Taupin's words for 'Rocket Man' were inspired by a short story by which author?

The story, from The Illustrated Man, is about an astronaut whose job keeps him from his family for months. Taupin composed the opening in his head on the motorway.

David Paich had never seen Africa when he wrote Toto's hit. Where did he get its scenery?

Guitarist Steve Lukather joked he would run naked down Hollywood Boulevard if the song became a hit. It went to number one in the US.

Bill Danoff said the title of 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' came to him while driving where?

He and Taffy Nivert were on Clopper Road heading to a family gathering in Gaithersburg. Danoff grew up in Massachusetts but thought the word wasn't musical.

Steinman said 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' began as a love song for a musical about what?

Its working title was 'Vampires in Love', written for a Nosferatu project. Steinman later slotted it into his stage show Dance of the Vampires.

The much-misheard 'deuce' in 'Blinded by the Light' refers to what, per Springsteen?

Springsteen wrote the song with a rhyming dictionary after Clive Davis said his debut album lacked a single. Manfred Mann's cover took it to number one in 1977.

1982 claims of Satanic backmasking in 'Stairway to Heaven' led to a hearing where?

Assemblyman Phil Wyman wanted warning labels on records with backward messages; the song was played in reverse for the committee.

After the 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' sample dispute, how much did Richard Ashcroft receive?

All royalties went to Allen Klein's ABKCO and the credit became Jagger-Richards. In 2019 Jagger and Richards handed the rights back to Ashcroft.