Pour Some Shook Up Ramen
My brother Joel came to visit just after Christmas. Not only was it my first chance to spend some quality time with my only male sibling, but it was a great reminder of how much he and I have in common.
Joel and I look the most alike. If you can get past the different hair and eye colors, we have similar facial bone structure. I know, I know, he’s a boy and I’m a girl, but look closely. It’s there.
We both have monster-long fingers (seriously, I’m 5’4″ and my fingers are longer than my husbands). But Joel beats me in the “Ugliest Thumb Category.”
And we both sing the wrong lyrics to just about everything. However, I didn’t know I had this little deficiency until after I was married.
I used to tease Joel mercilessly because I never made a lyrical snafu. But who wouldn’t make fun of a kid singing, “Stayla, Styla, Ahh, Ahh, Ahh, Ahh, Stayla” instead of “Staying Alive”? I mean HONESTLY. When asked, Joel said he thought “Stayla” was a woman’s name.
This little commonality was pointed out as we were driving around Houston one evening. Kelley Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone”came on the radio. Joel started singing, “Since you’ve been gone, I can NOT breathe for the first time.” I corrected him. That’s when Jamie started laughing hysterically (maybe not hysterically, but as hysterical as Jamie ever gets) and pointed out that he had, on occasion, done the same thing for me. Like…
Joel and I look the most alike. If you can get past the different hair and eye colors, we have similar facial bone structure. I know, I know, he’s a boy and I’m a girl, but look closely. It’s there.
We both have monster-long fingers (seriously, I’m 5’4″ and my fingers are longer than my husbands). But Joel beats me in the “Ugliest Thumb Category.”
And we both sing the wrong lyrics to just about everything. However, I didn’t know I had this little deficiency until after I was married.
I used to tease Joel mercilessly because I never made a lyrical snafu. But who wouldn’t make fun of a kid singing, “Stayla, Styla, Ahh, Ahh, Ahh, Ahh, Stayla” instead of “Staying Alive”? I mean HONESTLY. When asked, Joel said he thought “Stayla” was a woman’s name.
This little commonality was pointed out as we were driving around Houston one evening. Kelley Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone”came on the radio. Joel started singing, “Since you’ve been gone, I can NOT breathe for the first time.” I corrected him. That’s when Jamie started laughing hysterically (maybe not hysterically, but as hysterical as Jamie ever gets) and pointed out that he had, on occasion, done the same thing for me. Like…
- ACDC did not sing about “Dirty Deeds and the Thunder Chief” but about how those dirty deeds were “done dirt cheap.” If you listen to the baseline, you could totally hear how I thought the song had some Native American ties.
- No song actually talks about “a loaded-gun complex.” But that still makes more sense to me than the real lyrics to Fall Out Boy’s song “Sugar We’re Going Down.”
- And my most personal favorite, “Pour Some Shook Up on Me” from Def Leppard. By the way, T-Mobile made a commercial out of someone else messing up these very lyrics. The guy in the ad thought the lyrics were, “Pour some shook up ramen, in the age-old glove.” His girlfriend was on the phone with a librarian to get the exact wording so she could really clown him.
But Joel and I will not fret because we are not alone. There are several websites devoted to misheard lyrics, kissthisguy.com and amiright.com, to name a few. YouTube posters have also capitalized on other people’s confusion and created entire music videos singing the wrong words.
If you want to get a good laugh at someone else’s expense (and have nothing better to do), check them out.
