‘Internet Ruins Everything’

I

moody’s world

of hate..!

wonder, firstly how many magazine articles have started with the words ‘I wonder’, and secondly, how many magazine articles have arisen from animated discussions whilst cold drinks are being taken? I’m guessing at more than just a handful.

As the only discussions I will generally enter into are about either music, some history or Italian-American Organised Crime 1931-1985 (my Mastermind chosen specialist subject for a future episode), I’m usually left alone to peel the label from my bottle of Bud or, on one of the rare occasions that any of the above subjects arises, will get involved in what I believe is known as interaction with fellow human beings.

This being an entertainment based publication, you’ll be pleased to hear that the

‘animated discussion’ in

question was about music (once we’d got past the usual talk of old sweets and childhood telly) and how little mystery there is left in just about any aspect of it thanks largely to what is readily available to you online. Whilst I’ll readily admit that my job, like just almost everyone else’s nowadays, would be nigh on impossible to perform to any sort of acceptable standard without it, and I’d have a very tough time defending this article’s title in front of a panel of experts, the internet has a lot to answer for as far as letting a little too much light in on the magic is concerned.

Anyone of a similar age to me may remember that a big part of buying Smash Hits magazine as a child (or standing, reading it in the shop) was to closely examine the printed lyrics to current chart singles, although there were only around 4 or 5 in each edition from what I can recall. Nowadays, of course, things are very different and even the lyrics to a Porcupine Tree album track can be brought up with a couple of clicks of your mouse.

My argument (for an argument it was…) involved an overdeveloped love of

nostalgia on my part and how a song lyric that you may have sung to yourself for over 30 years can now instantly be shown up to have been wrong all that time.

I feel pretty secure in the knowledge that everyone will have done this and, even when they realise in adult life that what they were singing weren’t even real words, they would rather have continued on to old age in blissful ignorance.

For me, Abba singing ‘…when I called you last night from Tesco’ in the opening verse of ‘Super Trouper’ is far more pleasing than the correct lyric of ‘…from Glasgow’, wonderful city that it is.

There are, as you’d imagine, many websites dedicated to the actual lyrics from just about any song you care to mention, as well as those that deal with some of the most common misheard lines.

The aforementioned example from Abba is an actual one of mine from when I was (very) young but I notice it does make it onto www.kissthisguy.com This site, as you may be aware, takes its name from the commonly quoted bit in Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ - ’…’scuse me while I kiss the sky’, and invites entries from the public (hence they vary considerably in quality and level of mirth-making).

I won’t pad this piece out to the required amount of words with a list of others but I do particularly like Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘…there’s a bathroom on the right’ from Bad Moon Rising, although I can’t imagine anyone of sound mind ever thinking that’s what John Fogerty included in one of his finest moments.

So thanks a lot ‘internet’…not only can we now follow what our rock stars are doing every minute of the day, but we can also find out exactly what they’re singing about, which is something my nan always had a particular issue with.

Also, like Moe Syzlak, I was a lot happier before I found out that Dame Edna was a man, a LOT happier…but that’s not for here.

Moody

P.S. Special thanks to the internet for its invaluable assistance in researching for this article.

100% ENTERTAINMENT MONTHLY

APRIL 2010

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