Learn to forget

There are many songs I have heard many times, which I like very much, but where I discover that I've misheard some of the lyrics. And I'm not talking about early R.E.M.; mumbled words don't count.

The most recent instance:


In "Soul Kitchen" I thought the line that followed "The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes / Streetlights share their hollow glow" was "Your brain seeps through with no surprise." And hearing the song again a few days ago, I realize it's "Your brain seems bruised with numb surprise."

I don't know why.

It's not as though my original interpretation was ever the case, but clearly at some point my brain thought it heard words with similar sounds—mostly similar vowel sounds—and satisfied itself with that. From then on I dwelled in a realm where paying further attention to the lyric was unnecessary, because seeping brains certainly struck me as something Jim Morrison may have written. It seemed to have a peculiar internal logic, although I cannot even begin to attempt now to explain how I held that belief.

It's not like the (as far as I can tell) far more common "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" in "Purple Haze"; that is pretty much the simple bleeding of the one word into the first part of the next—"the" and "s" does sound very much like "this" when sung. Granted, kissing "this guy" makes for a much less psychedelic idea than kissing the sky, so that strikes me as something people who didn't really get Jimi would hear.

I fancied the notion that I at least kind of got the Doors. I owned all their albums. I knew Jim Morrison's middle name. I'd seen a good tribute band multiple times. I understood what "Horse Latitudes" was about. By no means was I as serious a fan as some people, but I was more than merely someone who kinda liked some of their songs (and perhaps owned the greatest hits collection). I even owned the X cover of "Soul Kitchen" so I'd even heard Exene Cervenka sing the words (although, admittedly, that is a much faster version, so making out the words in that one were even less likely).

At some point over the last couple decades should I not have been able to reach the proper understanding of the words Jim sang? All it took was paying close attention. Or heck, just looking them up online; it's not like there's any shortage of websites that have been up for years where this information could be acquired.

Clearly my brain was bruised with numbness of what had seeped through.

~

I notice on the KissThisGuy site (the "archive of misheard lyrics") that "Soul Kitchen" is not listed at all. Apparently I am the only person who heard what I thought I'd heard.

I'm not sure whether the unique nature of the error makes me feel better or not.