Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Misheard Lyrics Japanese-style; in which I discover soramimi kashi

Bear with me for a moment, I need to set this up: since his name came up in a recent interview I did with Mike Watt - see the next two Nerves -- I've been readin' up on John Fogerty and considering seeing his Thursday show at Deer Lake Park. Not really my thing, but Watt also has me listening to Petra Haden's acapella cover version of the whole of The Who Sell Out, and I'm finding it utterly delightful, beyond what I could have imagined; it's been a long time since I was a Who-lovin' youth (or a CCR-lovin' youth), since both bands were kind of eclipsed and replaced by punk, for me, which made listening to the status quo kinda uncool, particularly since its representatives tended to beat punks up. Having set aside certain albums of my early youth, I am occasionally now delighted and surprised to discover that some of it still holds something for me. Hence Fogerty - might be an interesting event, actually. Or it might not.

ANYHOW, I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Fogerty, and there discovered that there is actually a name for misheard song lyrics (and such), the "mondegreen" (a whole archive of which, in the world of rock, can be found here). Apparently Fogerty, amused by a particular mishearing, sometimes now renders "There's a bad moon on the rise," in his song "Bad Moon Rising," as "There's a bathroom on the right" in concert. Amusing enough - and do explore the Wiki mondegreen entry linked above - but what really delighted me was learning, by following the links, about soramimi kashi - a related Japanese media pastime involving lyrics that, when misheard as Japanese, are very funny indeed. For instance: "You Give Me All I Need," by the Scorpions, sounds quite like "雪見オナニー" (yukimi onani) - or, "watching snow and masturbating."

This pleases me a great deal, as does the rendition of the Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as
"アホな放尿犯" (Aho na hōnyōhan), which translates into "Idiotic public urination" (something more common in Japan than Canada). Likable Japanese girlblog here on the topic, with some further links; the only really delightful ones I've bumped into thus far are from the Wikipedia article (For example, apparently Filippa Giordano's "Casta Diva" has a chours of "A noi volgi, a noi volgi," which to a Japanese can't but be heard as "あの イボ痔 あの イボ痔" (Ano iboji, ano iboji) - or "Um, I have hemorrhoids, um, I have hemorrhoids."

Anyone else got any good'uns?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love soramimi-hour!It is popular among young Japanese.We can see it on you tube.But it is difficult for English speakers to understand it.
Sumiyo

gbdfjsh said...

I'll ask Ma-chan when we chat tonight... Love the Beatles one...Aho=Kansai-ben. Nandeyanen! Hee hee.