Songs That Make You Go "Wait, Hold Up"

Whilst travelling around this sceptred isle of the UK, (No I don't know what it means either, but it sounds good), I listen to a lot of music from many genres and decades.

Every now and again a song appears that just doesn't make sense. I'm not talking about non English songs, or gibberish lyrics, or even songs about Native American history. (Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden if you're wondering!).

I am thinking of the songs that have normal lyrics but the content just doesn't make sense. It's hard to explain, but I'm sure you will understand what I mean once you've read a couple of the chapters in this blog.

As always, there will be five examples (I'm beginning to think I have a thing about the number 5!) of songs that I think qualify for this blog.

Unfortunately, because I'm old  not as young as some of you, these songs may have been released before you, dear reader, were born. With this in mind, I will include a link to a Spotify playlist at the end of the blog for your listening pleasure.

Pictures are of the band or artist that had the most fame with the song.

This song is about a guy's love for his neighbour and the fact she is moving away. Now, where it gets weird for me is the timescale. Supposedly the bloke has been living next door to Alice for at least 24 years. So given that he wouldn't have known about her for the first couple of years of his life, this would put his age to at least 26.

In the lyrics it states...

"Sally called when she got the word And she said, "I suppose you've heard 'bout Alice""

Normal phone call at this point.

Then....

"So I rushed to the window and I looked outside And I could hardly believe my eyes As a big limousine rode up into Alice's drive"

So, has he not spoke to Alice or Sally(his other neighbour) in a while ? Have there not been removal trucks prior to the limo turning up? Or does he just stay in his house all day playing Call of Duty ?

Then the chorus kicks in...

"Oh, I don't know why she's leaving, or where she's gonna go

I guess she's got her reasons, but I just don't wanna know
'Cause for 24 years I've been living next door to Alice
24 years just waitin' for a chance
To tell her how I feel and maybe get a second glance
Now I gotta get used to not living next door to Alice"
Stranger and stranger, clearly he and Alice have not been speaking for a while and either she has been avoiding him for almost a quarter of a century, or he's extremely shy or agoraphobic. He clearly has feelings for Alice but hasn't done anything about it. 

The second verse...

"We grew up together, two kids in the park

Carved out initials deep in the bark, me and Alice"

So growing up they were clearly close and it seems there was some affection between them to carve their initials on a tree (This would put their ages at around maybe 10 or 11 based on the ability to use a knife for carving into trees and for emotions towards someone of the opposite gender. Making his age now even older at around the early thirties range.)

Following another chorus the song continues...

Sally called back, and asked how I felt
She said, "I know how to help, get over Alice"
She said, "Alice is gone, but I'm still here

You know I've been waiting 24 years"

Judging by these lines, not only has the protagonist in the song not approached Alice, he has also been ignoring the interest shown in him by Sally. He obviously knows Sally has a crush on him and has done for 24 years. Is she hideously ugly ? Who knows. And why hasn't she moved on when it's clear he isn't interested?

In the spirit of many internet forums I will add, at least to this first song, a TLDR...

TLDR: Guy doesnt tell neighbour he loves her for 24 years and ignores the advances of another neighbour for the same time.

After the last long entry, I'll present you with a shorter one. There is one line in this song that doesn't make sense, but it is repeated throughout the lyrics and also in the opening lines.

"Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak
Somewhere in this town"

Now presumably, if there is going to be a jailbreak, it would be easy to assume that it will be at...oh, I don't know...the jail ? It would be hard to create a jailbreak from the cake shop, or the school playground, or the florists, or the....well you get the idea!

Right from the first line there are inconsistencies in this song...

"Daddy was a cop on the east side of Chicago"

East Side you say? Well, as we all know(or I hope we do) Chicago sits on the shores of Lake Michigan. Was he stationed in the Lake? There isn't an East Side of Chicago. Well, apart from a very small suburb in the Far South of the city near to the Illinois-Indiana Line, which at the time of Capone was a quiet neighbourhood miles from the city.

The song continues after a verse and chorus with the lyric..

"And I asked someone who said 'Bout a hundred cops are dead!"

Any conflicts with Al Capone in Chicago were between rival gangs of mobsters rather than the police, who were mostly being paid off by various gangster mobs. Certainly any clashes between criminals and cops wouldn't be severe enough to have killed 100 police officers.

The first verse is the problem with this song...

"Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like on
A-Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby, kiss me" 

For a start Frank recorded the song in 1964, five years before the moon landing. Even though the Apollo program had started by this date, it's a bit of a stretch that NASA would consider a singer to join the highly trained astronauts on the launch pad.

And as for playing amongst the stars, never in a hundred years.

Jupiter, with an average temperature of around -140 degrees celsius is hardly going to have a springtime. Although, with a warmer atmosphere surface Mars could have seasons, we still haven't put a person on the planet.

And then we come to the last lines of this verse. I can't in any way figure out where "flying to the moon" would translate to "hold my hand" or "baby, kiss me".

Although this song is more or less correct, there is one glaring mistake that stands out. I'm not sure about the parts of the song that are sung in Spanish though. Anyway here's the line in the song...

"Now watch me make a movie like Albert Hitchcock"

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the famous film-maker Alfred Hitchcock? He did have a brother, but his name was William. Perhaps there was someone else? Well, there was an Albert S Hitchcock alive at the same time as the birth of Alfred. Perhaps Pitbull was referring to this character ? Albert Spear Hitchcock however, was an American botanist that specialised in the study of grasses, and, as far as anyone knows, never made a movie.

There is another song that comes to mind, but it was a minor hit in the UK only and is a parody of C.W.McCall's hit Convoy. It is called Convoy GB and was sung by a band called Laurie Lingo and the Dipsticks, in actual fact two DJs from the BBC's Radio 1 at the time. You can see the lyrics HERE and I will add the song to the Spotify playlist.

I'll also add Run To The Hills by Iron Maiden because I mentioned it and it's a great song!

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

I'd just like to add that this is a light hearted blog about songs, I know that most artists and songwriters use a certain amount of poetic license just to make the song scan and flow better. This blog is not meant to be taken seriously.