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Saturday, August 17, 2024

Not the Same Old Song - Part 50

'Scuse me while I kiss this guy

The 1967 song Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix contains one of the most widely misheard lyrics in popular music.  The words begin:

                                                Purple haze all in my brain
                                                Lately, things just don't seem the same
                                                Actin' funny but I don't know why
                                                'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

But a lot of people heard that last line as

                                                'Scuse me while I kiss this guy

I have even seen a YouTube recording of a concert where supposedly Hendrix actually sang "kiss this guy" as a joke.  And you know what?  In both the original recording and the joke, it's impossible to tell whether Hendrix is singing "kiss the sky" or "kiss this guy".  He pronounces them exactly the same.

In my version, I did not cover the entire original song; I repeated some of the lyrics so we get to hear "kiss this guy" multiple times.  So, 'scuse me while I kiss this guy!

2 comments:

Boz Bochner said...

I was one of those people. A lot of misunderstanding because of AM radios in cars... did not really hear a lot of lyrics correctly until they became remixed and digitized.

SickoRicko said...

I always heard it as kiss the sky.