When I was a kid, we had a satellite dish. The way to find TV shows to watch was to literally point the massive dish at a satellite and then flip through the channels to see what was there. We discovered crazy shows like Boys in the Hall on the Canadian version of MTV called Much Music. We also discovered The Comedy Channel.

One day after school, I picked up the remote and punched in the command to go to satellite G5 and flipped to The Comedy Channel. There was Michael Winslow doing his impersonation of Jimmy Hendrix’s song Purple Haze but instead of singing Excuse me while I kiss the sky he sang Excuse me while I eat this guy and then went on to mouth the rest of the solo in the way only Michael Winslow can. I had no idea what a mondegreen was, and had no idea that kiss this guy was basically a meme before there were memes, but young teenage me thought Winslow’s joke was the funniest thing ever. I later learned sometimes Jimmi himself would sing kiss this guy while pointing at his bassist Noel Redding. Haha.

Are you sure the lyrics of the songs in your head are the right lyrics? I’m not so sure anymore. A couple years ago I learned a U2 lyric that had impacted me deeply was imagined. The song: In God’s Country from their album The Joshua Tree. Ever since I was 12 I have heard:

I stand in sums of pain
Burned by the fire of love

I looked up the lyrics a couple years ago when I covered it and learned the words Bono wrote were:

I stand with the sons of Cain
Burned by the fire of love

Twelve-year-old Joe’s brain thought sums of pain was a cleverly poetic way to say IT HURTS! But, sons of Cain?! That invokes a positionally unchangeable divide. The wrong side of murder. Tainted blood in your veins from blood you didn’t spill. Montagues and Capulets. The hell of forbidden love.

Damn it Bono. What a devastating lyric. Almost leaves me in sums of pain.

Listen to In God’s Country by U2.

Talk soon...