BEFORE THE WEB, JIMI HENDRIX WAS GAY AND GEORGE MICHAEL COULDN'T DANCE

By: B -- 8/16/06

I discovered the World Wide Web in tenth grade, somewhere around 1996 or 1997. It was during computer class in high school, and I remember being utterly confused over its usage. None of my classmates had any clue either. We’d grown up believing computers’ only relevant function was for playing Oregon Trail and Number Munchers, yet all of a sudden we were being told there was this whole new universe of content. The news was jarring.

We clicked on the Netscape button, listened to the computer’s awful shrieking for about ten minutes as it dialed in, and just like that we were faced with the daunting black hole of possibilities known as the web. Though it seems ludicrous now, everyone’s first experience on the triple-dub was confusing and intimidating. (If you want to envision our faces as the teacher described the internet, try explaining a Blackberry to your grandparents. Blank stares abound. You might as well be speaking Portugese.)

We knew no website addresses and had no agenda, so we simply found a search engine and began plugging in any sort of query we wanted answered. Some tried setting up an e-mail address, others looked up sports scores, I suspect some forward-thinking pervs immediately thought of porn … but as for me, the one and only thing for which I used the web was finding music lyrics.

Strange but true. I was heavy into hip-hop at the time, and my goal was to learn each and every word to my favorite cuts from Biggie Smalls, 2Pac, Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri (don’t laugh; his first album was the shiz), etcetera.

For some reason I’ve always had trouble deciphering lyrics, so the research was necessary. Plus, I was confident in my mad skillz to flow like no other (or like no other white people in my high school, at the very least), thus an intimate knowledge of the words I was spitting was of utmost importance. So I researched and researched (and failed the projects I was actually in the lab to do) and researched some more. I printed off so many pages of lyrics my sandals-sporting treehugger teachers routinely collapsed in tears.

I’m not exaggerating in the least when I admit to devoting two whole years of surfing the web for lyrics. My focus eventually shifted from rap to other genres, but until I discovered the wonders of Napster and porn during my freshman year of college (thanks roomies!), my sole purpose of logging onto the web was to find lyrics.

I was reminded of my web-search formative years the other day when I visited an old favorite website, kissthisguy.com. The site is a cache of misheard lyrics (named after the famous Jimi Hendrix “Purple Haze” line) submitted by readers. I remember randomly finding it a few years ago, and due to my long-standing fascination with lyrics, spent hours upon hours laughing at the submissions. The site’s content immediately became my favorite conversational ice-breaker. For a time there, I visited ktg.com every day.

Unfortunately, my most recent visit was no fun at all. There’s just too much content nowadays. I used to lazily scroll through the submissions, clicking on any old song I recognized, but that’s just not possible anymore. There are about a million listings, and most songs have multiple submissions. The vast content has basically crippled the user from spending any amount of casual scrolling n’ searching; you either go there to search for a specific song or you don’t go there at all. And that’s just really sad.

But the visit wasn’t a total lost cause. For one thing, I was able to re-locate my favorite submission on the site. It stems from Wham’s classic ‘80s song “Careless Whispers” (full disclosure: this has always been one of my favorite guilty pleasure tunes). While the correct chorus wording is, “I’m never gonna dance again / Guilty feet have got no rhythm,” one reader admitted to singing, “I’m never gonna dance again / Can’t you see I’ve got no rhythm?”

Now, as far as mishearing lyrics, it doesn’t get a whole lot funnier than that. For someone to believe the entire melodramatic ballad was devoted to a person complaining about being a crappy dancer is such a hilarious premise I still laugh this very day. I’m smiling right now. No kidding.

Another benefit of my recent visit to ktg.com is that it reminded me of my two favorite misheard lyric stories from members of my family. And since this is my website and I’ll write what I want to (write what I want to, write what I want to), allow me to recount.

My uncle Joe’s monotone singing can make cheery toddlers weep and birds drop from the sky. Being within earshot once he starts up is a horrific experience, compounded by the fact that he routinely screws up the words to most songs. Yet nothing deters him; he just keeps on shriekin’ on, laughable mistakes or broken windowpanes be damned.

Perhaps his most infamous misheard lyric, discovered when he was proudly shouting the words at the top of his lungs in the car with his wife, was the chorus of the Steve Miller Band’s “Jet Airliner.” While the obvious correct line is, “Big old jet airliner / don’t carry me too far away,” – come on, even I knew that, and I fucking hate the Steve Miller Band – Joe sang, “Big old Jed and Lionel….”

That’s right: Jed. And Lionel. He thought Steve Miller wrote a song asking two “big old” dudes to please not carry him away. Hand to God, he actually sang these words. Why, no one knows.

But then, this is the same guy who lists Hope Floats as his favorite movie and has been known to paint his toenails (not that there’s anything wrong with that). So maybe his mistake was more a case of wishful thinking.

Still, Joe’s apparent Freudian slip of a misheard lyric takes a backseat to my Aunt Barb’s story. Years ago, while drunk-singing the chorus to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” among an arm-in-arm circle of friends at a wedding reception, Barb squeezed her eyes shut and shouted, “Hold me close, I’m tryin’ to dance here!” The DJ’s record screeched to a halt and the reception guests turned to stare. A lone spotlight lit up and shone down upon her. The circle hastily disbanded; arms returned to the owners’ side. The entire dance hall went silent and stared at young, drunken Barb as she helplessly looked around for support.

There was no support to be found. The silence was so deafening, so painful, that Barb began to long for her recurring nightmare of showing up to school with no clothes on; such a scenario seemed like a fantasy compared to the current real-life situation. Somewhere, in the back of the hall, someone lightly coughed. Barb turned to her parents to find them shaking their heads disapprovingly. Then, all at once, the entire reception exploded into a gale of laughter. Cackles and guffaws bounced off the walls, the guests pointing at Barb while clutching their bellies and clapping friends on the back. Barb turned and sprinted towards the exit, wiping hot tears of shame from her face as she ran. And to this day, Barb remains emotionally stunted by the embarrassment.

Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what happened. But Barb’s misheard lyric, while so fundamentally absurd most assume it’s just an urban legend, is undeniably true. And there was laughing and poking fun; I know that much. Because, really, how could there not be? Thinking the song was a directive to a dance partner to hold him closer because he’s trying to dance…why, that’s so classic it brings a tear to my eye.

Thankfully, I’ve never committed such an egregious lyric-related blunder. And I owe it all to the beloved web.

Speaking of which, if you’ll excuse me, I have to return to searching for porn. Those lost years researching lyrics obviously had its benefit, but I’ve been playing catch-up, porn-wise, ever since.

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