Rush lyrics you can't stop mishearing

[Empty Mindless Spectre]

The screaming part of Freewill: Each of us, a cell of awareness. In fact I think I'll leave. <some gibberish> with one song and dance. An unfortunateness far too free.

I know the right lyrics, but I can never actually hear them.

 

It confused me forever that the liner notes said:

 

"If you choose not to decide, you still haven't made a choice".

 

I thought it was contradictory to the message of the song, and I didn't hear it. I even had a couple of record store conversations about this (remember record stores....those were awesome...). It wasn't until many years later that I learned that this was a misprint and I was right all along.

 

Of course, this begs the question of how the hell do you misprint something to say the exact opposite of what it says.

 

For some reason I remember it actually reading :"If you choose not to decide, you cannot have made a choice" but I could be wrong...

Also seems to me that I recall hearing that Neil wrote it that way intentionally, but Geddy didn't want to sing it that way because he didn't believe it to be true. So Geddy changed the lyric to reflect how he saw it. Again, this is all just off the top of my head, so someone please correct me if I have this incorrect.

[jnoble]

from Grand Designs the line "Like a teardrop in the ocean" always sounded like "like a ditto in the ocean" to me. And then I immediatly picture a white piece of paper with some school work on it floating in the water :ebert:

[StanGetz]

An angular mass of new yoghurts.

 

Sprawling on the fringes of the settee.

 

I have held the whiskered tails of immorality

 

There are also some tracks where I 'predicted' the wrong rhyme upon first hearing the song, and now I just can't forget my 'improved' version:

 

Sunlight dances through the leaves

Soft winds stir the sighing trees

Lying in the warm grass

Feel the sun upon your ass

 

I can do, what you do

You just do it better

I can cry, like you cry

It just makes me wetter

 

:D

 

I think that "Feel the sun up in your ass" would also work.

 

I'm drawing a blank on what song "lemony cake" is referring to.

[Empty Mindless Spectre]

An angular mass of new yoghurts.

 

Sprawling on the fringes of the settee.

 

I have held the whiskered tails of immorality

 

There are also some tracks where I 'predicted' the wrong rhyme upon first hearing the song, and now I just can't forget my 'improved' version:

 

Sunlight dances through the leaves

Soft winds stir the sighing trees

Lying in the warm grass

Feel the sun upon your ass

 

I can do, what you do

You just do it better

I can cry, like you cry

It just makes me wetter

 

:D

 

I think that "Feel the sun up in your ass" would also work.

 

I'm drawing a blank on what song "lemony cake" is referring to.

 

"There's no bread

Lemony cake"

 

Ring a bell?

[Aikenrooster]

Limelight: I swear he says "the universal beam" later in the song. As, of course, "fish islands."

[Lorraine]

I was just about to call it a night when I saw this thread and was reminded of something I saw the other day.

 

Here's a quote from Oscar Wilde:

 

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars."

 

Now. You don't suppose Neil clipped his lyrics from this man, do you???

[Bangster of Goats]

I was just about to call it a night when I saw this thread and was reminded of something I saw the other day.

 

Here's a quote from Oscar Wilde:

 

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars."

 

Now. You don't suppose Neil clipped his lyrics from this man, do you???

 

Neil has indeed acknowledged the Oscar Wilde quote/inspiration in The Pass.

[ThatLightInYourEyes]

"A boy lies in the grass with one leg stuck between his teeth" —The Analog Kid

 

I can't believe I thought for years that this was supposed to be a metaphor for something.

[StanGetz]

An angular mass of new yoghurts.

 

Sprawling on the fringes of the settee.

 

I have held the whiskered tails of immorality

 

There are also some tracks where I 'predicted' the wrong rhyme upon first hearing the song, and now I just can't forget my 'improved' version:

 

Sunlight dances through the leaves

Soft winds stir the sighing trees

Lying in the warm grass

Feel the sun upon your ass

 

I can do, what you do

You just do it better

I can cry, like you cry

It just makes me wetter

 

:D

 

I think that "Feel the sun up in your ass" would also work.

 

I'm drawing a blank on what song "lemony cake" is referring to.

 

"There's no bread

Lemony cake"

 

Ring a bell?

 

Thanks, I didn't make the Bastille Day connection at first.

[Supersyl]

Watched the bootleg of my first Rush show ever tonight (April 08 1983, Montreal Forum) and re-heard an old misheard lyric from that time: "Everybody needs reversible narrity"... Whatever that means! :D :Neil:

[Spaghetti Lee]

From "Vital Signs":

 

Everybody need a SALT filter

[pip65]

On Fly by Night, I always hear "My ship isn't coming but I just can't pretend" as "chickens are coming but I just can't pretend".

[len(songs)]

On A Farewell To Kings, I always thought that the line went "Eyes cast down on the families' resistance". Now, after learning the correct lyrics, I hear "the famoleast resistance".

[bluefox4000]

In Anagram instead of

 

Image just an eyeless game.

 

I heard and still hear

 

Image just an eyeless skank.

 

Mick

[Segue Myles]

In Anagram instead of

 

Image just an eyeless game.

 

I heard and still hear

 

Image just an eyeless skank.

 

Mick

 

You saying my mum is blind?

[Entre_Perpetuo]

I have so many I could post, but I took to long reading the thread :D

 

My personal favorite is "pictures that you plug into your eyes," though. :P

[ThatLightInYourEyes]

A boy lies in the grass with one leg stuck between his teeth

[savagegrace26]

I thought I was completely well versed in Rush lyrics until I watched Grand Designs live from the CA tour on Youtube recently. I have always heard "Like a daily variation, a diamond in the waste" - it didn't really sound right but I guess I never bothered checking that one until I heard "Like a teardrop in the ocean, a diamond in the waste" (it's kind of hard to decipher in the studio version)

 

Also I could never figure out what Geddy was saying at the beginning of My Favorite Headache since it came out. I only discovered a couple of years ago what it was (since the album release didn't include printed lyrics). Anyway this is what it has always sounded like to me (and still does):

 

Just between the eyes and just anyway (or jews anyway)

 

instead of:

Just between the ice ages anyway

 

It confused me for years

 

 

Wait, also this part I always hear as:

 

One man standing on the plains of Abraham watching the DAMN sunrise (instead of a damaged sunrise)

Edited July 11, 2014 by savagegrace26

[Spaghetti Lee]

Wow someone actually knows some lyrics from "My Favorite Headache" ha ha...

[len(songs)]

"Some worldviews are spacious, and some are merely spaced" ==> "Some reviews are spacious, and some are merely space" Equally fitting, if a bit clunky. Edited July 12, 2014 by len(songs)

[len(songs)]

Oh, and now I hear "Bakey bakey scones in a deep Sahara of snow" in 7COG... Edited July 12, 2014 by len(songs)

[Cygnus 2112]

A boy lies in the grass with one leg stuck between his teeth

 

This gets me everytime as well.

[len(songs)]

"And all the powers that be

And the gods of history

Would be changed forevermore"

[Narps]

At the speed of love nothing changes faster than the speed of love.....

[len(songs)]

At the speed of love nothing changes faster than the speed of love.....

Umm, I think that that is, unfortunately, correct.

 

EDIT: Yup, I checked Anthems. That's the correct line.

Edited July 14, 2014 by len(songs)