Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Red, Golden Dreams ....

This morning my son was happily singing 'There's a lie, there's a lie, ah, ah, ah', over and over again. I got really curious so I asked him what the heck was he singing and he started dancing and showing me moves to the now synonymous John Travolta's signature move in the movie 'Stayin' Alive'. Then it hit me, he was actually trying to sing 'staying alive, staying alive'... and I laughed my head off till my sides hurt:D

I'm reminded of my own lyric generating days, back then (about 20 years ago) I would just babble my way through songs, as long as they sounded the same, I would sing to my heart's content! My classmate and I used to sing this Air Supply song 'Making Love Out Of Nothing At All' like nobody's business not knowing the actual meaning of the song. Heck! If we knew we probably have whispered the song then! People probably thought we were some horny girls! LOL

Anyway, back to the lyric thingy... I loved listening to Duran-Duran and Culture Club in the early nineties and one song that particularly was constantly stuck in my head is CC's 'Karma Chameleon'... I would sing 'red, golden dreams' which was what I thought were the actual words of the song instead of 'red, gold and green'... Hehehe... I'm sure CC's Boy George would have frowned listening to my lyrics. BTW, what on earth happened to him?? Back then I thought he was the most beautiful guy on earth!

I really can't remember the amount of times I was singing songs with the lyrics totally not in tune to the actual song... hehehe... and the worse part is I would believe that they were the actual lyrics until one fine day, months or even years later (yes, years... hehehe) I would actually discover that I was wrong all along. I'm sure we've all at one time or other in our lives would have definitely gone through the same experience, right?

Back then, the internet was practically an unheard of word. No online lyric search sites, no anything. The only way to get the actual words to songs those days were to buy these pretty expensive lyric books (there was this pretty famous one that I forgot the name) or to listen and copy the lyric from a radio cassette player.

Back then my sister and I would try to write down the lyrics by playing, pausing and rewinding the radio cassette player just to get the lyrics (where got internet those days, let alone a lyric search site). My dad (when he caught us in the act) would scold the life out of us because he thought we were trying to wreck the player! So, we would quietly do it when he was not around. Boy, you can probably guess how old I am from the fact that I mention cassettes... LOL!

I remember my first ever cassette (they were the in thing back then) was this Bee Gees and John Travolta album. One song I particularly like is 'Moonlight lady'... well, I think that was the title. Too bad I lost the tapes, would have been a collector's item now. I remember telling my mom I wanted the Bee Gees cassette (I was 9 years old then) and I think it cost only RM5.00! Mom didn't want to buy for me but I was persistent, well... persistence paid because she got fed up of my rantings and got it for me in the end. When we reached home, I ran into the house, quickly played the cassette and I was so happy cos it was my own first cassette. I was gleefully smiling and laughing around the house all day. My sisters thought I was going crazy!

My son probably doesn't even know what a cassette or radio cassette player is now. You tell him CD, he knows la... hehehe... Soon, he's probably gonna be asking me for his own iPod or something. The closest I could come to an iPod back then is the 'Walkman' but that was one huge piece of machinery compared to the MP3 players nowadays. And with the huge number of lyric sites available freely, I'm sure I would never get any lyrics wrong. But I guess singing 'red, golden dreams' was kinda fun too... hehehe!

21 comments:

  1. Yay, I'm the first to comment :)

    Oh, I used to sing this Tears For Fears song which went a little like this, 'high time, made a stand, shook up the views of the moccasins' with the real lyrics being 'high time, made a stand, shook up the views of democracy' and I was happily singing it out loud for months till one fine day someone actually told me I was singing crap ... LOL! *blush*

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  2. OmG! I had a good laugh reading your post. How could I forget! Those childhood memories we had sis was soo priceless.

    I also thought Boy George was the prettiest girl/boy alive! LOL

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  3. Congrats for being my 1st commenter, yay!:D It would be interesting to know if Moccasins have views! 'Hey, your feet stinks' or something... hehe

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  4. Nessa- Great post! I was laughing with the stayin alive! I can just picture it! Boy George has gone WAY over board on the makeup! But I do love that song Karma Chameleon! I don't remember Moonlight Lady! May have to Itunes that! I sing the wrong words loudly and proudly! Take care my friend!

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  5. I know! I think I can pretty much sing the whole of Karma Chameleon too now...those days there were so few cathcy songs as compared to now and I could memories quite a lot of songs (the "worst" was Ice Ice Baby - remember that? LOL)

    Those were the funny old days.

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  6. LOL! I can relate to your son. I've had my fair share of lyric blunders too in my lifetime ... hehehe ...

    The worse thing is singing it out loud and thinking you know the lyrics like some show off but then a few months later, you find out how wrong you were ... malu like hell ... LOL!

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  7. You reminded me of Bunga Mawar & Kedukaan again. I dunno why. LOL.

    LOL those days, yeah! We tend to sing some songs without even knowing the "actual" lyrics. Back in school, my favorite would be Kylie Minogue's "Locomotion". God knows what lyrics I used, but I couldn't careless. As long as it has the same tunes. :P

    The last time I read about Boy George was that.. he was serving a community service (menyapu) after some charge (which I can't remember what). He looked fat tho.

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  8. Ann - Yeah, I wish we had captured those childhood memories on tape! I think we were both crazy about Boy George back then... hehehe

    Barrett - If only I had a videocam with me when my son did that dance while singing 'there's a lie...' Oh well... better luck next time:D

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  9. Jewelle - Now, how could I ever forget Vanilla Ice! He was the first 'white' rapper back then if I'm not mistaken.

    MD - Yeah, I've had those 'memalukan' moments myself!:D

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  10. Aiyoh Cindy! Don't remind me of 'Bunga Mawar & Kedukaan'. Mau compose songs la konon sia dulu2... and you don't want to hear the tunes! LOL

    It's a pity he ended up being a sweeper!! Kasian...

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  11. heheh, its been a lonnnngggg time i didnt hear anyone mention cassette..i used to play , pause and rewind to get the lyrics too!haha...

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  12. Shana - Itu la bah, paling sakit hati kalau the tape tersangkut kan? Those were the days:D

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  13. Hahaha1 I thought Boy George was singing Red Coat on Cream. It wasn't really cool to like Culture Club at our school, so nobody ever realised I was singing the words wrongly.

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  14. Nessa! I'm almost scared to say that I had the biggest crush on Boy George back then! Now he's turned into this chubbs guy who got in trouble with the law several times...and he's no longer cute LOL! ;)

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  15. Agnes Mildew - Hello! Thanks for dropping by. 'Red coat on cream!'... that's too funny:D Back in 1984, Culture Club was 'the' band at our school... haha

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  16. Marzie, I think those days most of the girls had a crush on him!:) My cousin had his posters all over her bedroom, bought all things that had his picture on them!

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  17. Awww. That's just adorable. My 3 year old son is now addicted to singing "Wake me up before you go go" by Wham. He heard it on the radio a couple of weeks ago and started laughing hysterically.. :D

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  18. This is so adorable. Thanks for sharing the anecdote about your son. Childhood really is the best...kids are so free and are rarely embarrassed, and just sing, dance. So great.

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  19. Shemah, I love Wham! I wonder what happened to the other guy... Singing is good, you never know he might join Akademi Fantasia one day:D

    Hi MissLadyBug! Glad to have you here:) Yeah, I miss being a kid again, not having to worry about responsibilities and financial stuff!

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  20. My first cassette tape? Glen Campbell / Rhinestone Cowboy ...there's been a load of compromises, on the roads to my horizon, but I wanna be where the light is shining on me.....

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  21. Hey Speedcat Hollydale! Nice having you here:D

    'Like a rhinestone cowboy
    Riding out on a horse in a star spangled rodeo
    Rhinestone cowboy
    Gettin' cards and letters from people I don't even know
    And offers comin' over the phone'

    Going down memory lane... I think I was about 3 or 4 years old when I heard this song for the very first time!:)

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