RE: Johnny

["Gart, Mitchell" <Mitchell.Gart>]

Dylan has one that goes "I received your letter yesterday, about the
time the doorknob broke" (Desolation Row).  Somebody asked him once if
the doorknob was the subject of the letter, or the letter was received
at the same time the doorknob broke.  He laughed at the questioner and
wouldn't answer.

- Mitch
 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-babel-list
[mailto:owner-babel-list] On Behalf Of rslovacek
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 3:56 PM
To: babel-list
Subject: Re: Johnny

    They're called "Mondegreens".  Check out
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Resources/essays/mond
egree
ns.html

    "Misheard lyrics".  You can add your own  :)  It's a fun site.


    As for the immediate question,  I can hear it as being
interchangebly
"heroin" and "heroine", though the latter, I think, would be very dated
for
such a feminist/humanist as Patti.

>>The conclusion was that Patti, as an artist and a clever person,
probably
intended it that the lyric could work both ways, and enjoyed the
ambiguity.
Maybe this one is the same way.
Personally I had always heard "sperm coffin" but if it works the other
way for
some people, so much the better.<<

    Yah, I've read interviews with Robert Hunter saying that whenever a
listener hears his lyrics differently than he'd written them, then
that's just
as valid as what he'd actually written.
    Which is a good thing, since the Dead, along with Dylan, are who I
can
hear saying different things than the "official" songbooks or
lyrics-page
says.  Well, Dylan just changes the words all the time anyway, but
still...

  My own classic Dead mondegreen is one I'll still swear by, thirty
years
later, from "The Wheel";  "If the Joker don't getcha then the Blind Man
will",
instead of the lyrics in the songbook, "If the Thunder don't getcha then
the
Lightning will".   (I like mine better  :)



--Bob