Last night, the 4th of July, as my brother, sister, brother-in-law, nephews and I were riding home from watching the fireworks displays around town, we were listening to a 70s, 80s, and 90s station, and believe it or not, we heard the song, Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers. It had been waaaaaaaaaaay tooooooooooo long!
Side note: Fantastic "Bad 70s" song for Ipods and mp3s everywhere including for me (except I don't have an Ipod or mp3)
Additional Side Note for no real reason: The Bay City Rollers were the first guys I ever noticed, as a child, on the Teen Beat and other mags of that ilk. Before the Cassidy boys or Leif Erickson. Before any of the Gibbs. They were the first guys I ever knew in those mags. Not that I ever bought one. I didn't!!!
Anyway, my brother, Brett, who has commented infrequently on this site before, made the astute point that not only was this song fun music but that it was also educational for its spelling content. So it got me to thinking, what songs can you name off the top of your head (NO CHEATING on Google or other search engines!!!) in which words are spelled out? Let's brainstorm.
And I'm not talking about children's songs like The Mickey Mouse Club Song, Bingo, or The B-I-B-L-E (That's the Book for Me)... that's not what I'm talking about at all. No, what I'm talking about is music by professional musicians in the rock, pop, soul, R&B, country, etc. categories.
Right now, I can only come up with four, but I know there have to be more. My four are:
Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers (spell out "Saturday" in the song)
Respect by Aretha Franklin (song title is spelled out in song)
Safety Dance by Men Without Hats (at the song's intro, "Safety" is spelled)
Gloria by Van Morrison (song title is spelled out in song)
I'll list any more I can think of in the comments.
Alright, who's got more? Wow us!
American Fast
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So, let's talk about Christian fasting.
Last week I had to prep to teach Isaiah 58, which basically says "Ya'll are
fasting to get me to hear you. Why don...
3 years ago
15 comments:
D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Tammy Wynette (hate that twangy thing!)
Don't know if this counts, but in Limp Biskit's re-make of "Behind Blue Eyes" there's a voice spelling out "A-I-N-P...Discover" and it sounds like one of those early educational toys. I've heard the original, but actually like the original.
Oh, hubby says he prefers Gloria by Hendrix. :o)
WandaV
Oh, and there was a silly song with the part "R-a-g-g M-o-p-p, raggmopp, buh do dah dah."
I'm running short on sleep. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
WV
"D-I-V-O-R-C-E by Tammy Wynette"
I should have gotten that one! Great memory Wanda!
Lola by the Kinks (where they spell Lola and cola)
S.O.S. by ABBA (where they spell SOS)
Glamorous by Fergie (where she spells glamorous) and Fergalicious (where she spells her name and a few other words)
GOTTOBTRU by Steven Curtis Chapman and Toby Mac of DC Talk (where they spell the song title)
Also, PYT by Michael Jackson (where he also spells TLC) and ABC by the Jackson 5 (where you have the added benefit of their counting)
There's also the church youth group favorite I Am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, which ought to count since youth sing just like the pop songs (it also goes faster and faster each verse. How many songs do that?).
I don't know the song, but a co-worker tells me that Travis Tritt spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E in a song.
Lastly, there's a song that spells L-O-V-E that I haven't been able to completely remember.
Not to be a backbreaker, because you know how I value your input Kennyboy, buuuuuuut... since when is "S.O.S." a word? "ABC"? "PYT"? Those are words like YMCA is a word, and you saw that I didn't break that classic out. Nice diabolicalgeniusing there. There's probably a country and western song with "B.Y.O.B." in its lyrics, but I couldn't count that one either.
MUCH CREDIT, however, for L-O-L-A, and C-O-L-A. Those are great remembrances!!! How could I forget The Kinks? I love Ray Davies.
Fergie? Who's he? ;) Is that Fergie like in "Fergie went a-courtin'"? (I kill myself sometimes :)
I was talking to my sister about this subject, and she also brought up "I Am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N". I told her that that song wouldn't count, but since you actually come on the blog, I'll say "Good Job" to you on that one. I'm a giver.
Also, I'll only allot partial credit for Steven Curtis Chapman and Toby Mac, because we were talking both music and education, and while they spelled "Got" and "To" correctly, they mispelled "Be" and "True". How can kids today learn from that?
If Travis Tritt spells "trouble", that's a good find by your friend. I wouldn't know a Travis Tritt song from a George Straight song from a Tim McGraw song from a Garth Brooks song, so it's impressive he even could remember that. I might know them from a Randy Travis song, but only if the word "whippoorwill" is in the song. Do most of those guys even still sing?
Kudos to you for the song spelling out "love", especially if you can actually find it.
Very well done, overall! I think you're ahead so far. Well, you might be tied with me if I give credit to your friend instead of you for Travis Tritt's "trouble"... but your friend is much like my sister. Not here.
How about these:
Respect by Aretha Franklin (sock-it-to-me)
YMCA by The Village PEople --> Like SOS not exactly a word
-Doug
Douglas,
Respect was in the original post, and I noted YMCA in my reply to Kenneth in the comment before yours.
So let me total that up for you. That's, let's see, that's a grand total of... just let me check my math... yep, that's it. That's a grand total of zero points for the Dougmeister. Thank you for playing.
Just yankin' your chain, Doug-o! Keep 'em coming!
Indeed Rich!
Your friend is an idiot! Woo Hoo!
-Doug
There's a song that used t play when I took my kiddos to the skating rink. Hated the song, but in the middle the woman sang, "It's bananas -- B-A-N-A-N-A-S" Oh yeah. The title is "I Ain't No Holler Back Girl". Bleck! I won't blame you if you never heard it before. In fact, I might envy you!
WandaV
Heard of it? That's my girl, Gwen Stefani.
'Course she likes her some explicit lyrics like my other girl Fergie. So it isn't "it's bananas", but "this sh*t is bananas" that she sings.
So double points for Wanda and minus 500 for everyone else.
Uuuuum! I'm tellin'!
Ken almost cussed on this blog!
Wanda started it.
Plus it really was more of an almost vulgarity than a cuss, since cuss is really just a colloquialism for curse and a curse is really only when you place a curse on someone or damn them to somewhere (Oops. Was that a cuss?)
If you like, I can post on the differences between curses (cusses), swear words, obscenities, vulgarities, coarse language and euphemisms.
Or if you like, you can just ask Laura Leigh. She knows, too.
You must be talking about a different Laura Leigh than the one I know and that commented on this blog, albeit not this particular post.
Also, "damn" the way you used it was not a cuss (or curse) word, but I don't think a person could do that ("damn" someone somewhere) anyway, so can they really "cuss" in that way at all?
From your line of thought above, though, it sounds like the colloquialism has transferred from it's original root (curse) to its new meaning, which would be vulgarities or obscenities. Not that I'd know anything about either of those, thankuverymuch. You, and the other Laura Leigh that doesn't comment on this blog, on the other hand, seem to know quite a bit on the subject matter.
Back to the post, however, has anyone mentioned:
R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. by John Cougar Puma Jaguar Lynx Tomcat Lennon Kennedy Mahoney Adams Mellencamp
yet?
And I forgot before but Todd Snider spells out the title of his song Beer Run singing, "B-Double-E-Double-R-U-N, Beer Run."
How 'bout those?
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