An introductory squeak

Hello.

I have a habit of mishearing song lyrics. Quite often, these mishearings put an unusual spin on my understanding of the what the song means.

For example, during the interval at a comedy show on Saturday, a dull as dull pie radio friendly rock song came plodding out of the speakers. It was the kind of song which isn't bad, but is distinctly unmemorable. Apart from one curious thing. Every time the chorus came around, I became convinced that the growly man singer (these kind of songs always have a growly man singer) was croaking, 'hard boiled, I like hard boiled'. I don't think that actually was what he was saying, but I quickly became convinced of it. As far as I was concerned, Growly Man Singer was telling us of about his favourite kind of egg. Which is bizarre, but is probably a bit more interesting that what he was singing about - girls, love, his credit card bill or whatever else GMSs like to kvetch about in a musical fashion.

Anyway, let us go back to my very first misheard song lyric. The song was 'Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da' by the Beatles. It was the early 80s. I was very young and going through a puritanical phase in the way that small children sometimes do. This meant that I took mortal offence at anything which sounded remotely like swearing.

I think I must have heard the song on the radio. Wherever it was, I was shocked at by it. I thought Paul McCartney was quite clearly singing 'oh bloody'. And doing so repeatedly. On the radio. I was outraged. And the more I thought about it, the more offended I was. Especially because I quite liked the song. ‘Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da’ is quite a catchy tune for a small child to sing and I was getting a bit fed up with having to ‘censor’ myself and sing the alleged ‘bloody’ really quietly, like a dodgy radio edit. I think this would have been about the time that my attitude to bad language began to change from 'ummmm' to 'tee-hee'.

Before too long, I discovered that Paul McCartney wasn't actually swearing and so it was sing the song to myself without fear of any kind of reprisal. Saying that, I'm pretty sure Macca says 'bra' at one point. Filth.