Pat’s Point of View

Do you find you often can’t decipher song lyrics? Me too. Currently I’m baffled by Black Fingernails Red Wine by Eskimo Joe in which, as far as I can tell, the singer states “I don’t understand the point of fingers” (allegedly the correct lyrics are “I don’t understand the point, I’ve been good” but I’m sure it’s a conspiracy).

Some classic examples that have confused me in the past, are:

Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix: “excuse me while I kiss this guy” instead of “excuse me while I kiss the sky”.

Stand By My Woman by Lenny Kravitz: “I can’t go on without a ho” instead of “I can’t go on without her”.

Going Gets Tough by Billy Ocean: “Well go and get stuffed” instead of “When the going gets tough”.

Money For Nothin’ by Dire Straits “Money for nothing and chips for free” instead of “money for nothing and chicks for free” (hey, I was a school boy and going to Red Lea after school for hot chips was much more important than any girl!)

One more I thought for sure I was misunderstanding was What You Waitin For by Gwen Stefani, which I heard as “take a chance you stupid hoe”. But when I checked, that is the actual lyric! Guess that makes sense, considering the artist.

ps: yes I got my hearing tested last week, it’s almost perfect! :)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Music, Quotes. If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to leave a comment or follow @patrickkennedy on Twitter.

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About the author

Patrick Kennedy is a user experience strategist and design researcher based in Sydney Australia. He leads research activities that improve the user experience of cross-channel products and services; helping both designers and business decision makers in bringing those products and services to fruition. Read more.