I'll Never Leave Your Pizzas Burning

I love music, but I am not a lyrics person. This might seem unusual given that my life revolves around words, but I could care less about what the song is actually saying because I’m more concerned with whether or not it’s fun to sing. However, I am pathetically ignorant when it comes to tone, rhythm and pitch. Growing up, I always ignored my sister who would tell me to be quiet because my singing was ruining the song for her. After years of her telling me this I eventually began to wonder if she was right, so I decided to record myself singing. I set up my tape recorder, locked my door, grabbed a microphone, I mean a hairbrush, and then belted out my best version of “Can’t Hurry Love.” I remember thinking that I sounded pretty damn good, but then I played the recording and I was devastated; what I heard sounded more like a cat in heat than an actual person singing. Since this realization, I turn down every invitation to play Rock Band because I’m afraid that my lack of musical ability will result in a loss of friendships.

Back to not being a lyrics person…I am known for misinterpreting song lyrics and I often sing along to my own version until someone kindly corrects me. For instance, I recently realized that I have been singing the wrong lyrics to the well-known song “Beast of Burden.” It didn’t occur to me until I was with a friend and the song came on the radio. After the first verse, my friend suddenly turned the volume down, “hold on, what do you think the words are?” she asked. I thought for a moment and then told her: “I’ll never leave your pizzas burning?” The song is called “Beast of Burden,” she said, as if this should have been enough for me to realize my mistake. When I failed to make the connection she said, “it’s I’ll never be your beast of burden, not—I’ll never leave your pizzas burning!”

Then there’s Widespread Panic’s song “Climb To Safety;” but what I always heard was “come and save me”—another instance in which I butcher the lyric that has the song’s title in it.

Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light” is one that I will always mess up. I don’t know how anyone can listen to this song and not think it’s “wrapped up like a douche, another rumor in the night.” (The real, less cool, lyrics are: “revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.”)

Less offensive is my interpretation of Alanis Morrissette’s “You Oughta Know,” the chorus of which I always heard as: “It’s not fair to deny me of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me.” And Toto’s “Africa” I heard as “I left the grains down in Africa…I left the grains!” Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” has a tricky first verse, which I now mumble after learning that it is not “as I, turned up the column door, my faded winter coat, the springs blow in my mind” (the real lyrics are “as I, turn up the collar on my favorite winter coat, this wind is blowin' my mind”).

It never occurs to me that what I am singing doesn’t make sense because there’s no room for reason when you’re busy screaming out the wrong lyrics at the top of your lungs while driving down the highway. I’ve learned that I offend people with my singing, and now I am learning that I also offend people with my lack of concern for correct lyrics. It’s happened several times where someone corrects me, I acknowledge that I am wrong, but then I continue to sing my version. The people who care about lyrics really find this annoying. But whatever, I think my lyrics—“I’ll never leave your pizzas burning”—sound better, even if I sound like a cat in heat as I sing along.