A classic moment in the recording studio yesterday: I was required to read the lyrics to Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World (well, it said Louise Armstrong, but....). My partner DD of course wanted me to sing it, but I wasn't having that - even with the extreme huskiness brought on by my latest cold, there's no way I could begin to do justice to Satchmo's gentle growl. (It is unclear why they couldn't have dispensed with me and DD for this bit, and just used the original Armstrong recording. Well, apart from the copyright issues, of course. But this is China - that's never held them back in the past!)
Anyway, nobody had been bothered to source the lyrics from the Net (the Chinese seem to be very, VERY bad - I know not whether it's laziness or incompetence or something else; maybe just a failure of imagination ["Ooh, you mean they have song lyrics on the Internet? I never would have thought of that!"] - at searching the Internet for anything in English), so some poor flunkie had had to try to transcribe the lyrics.
You know that bit where he praises
The bright blessed day,The dark sacred night ?
No, no, we've been mistaken all these years.
It's actually:
The dogs say goodnight.
Accidental genius!!
This seems like a good time to remind you that a month or two ago I set up a thread for recording misheard lyrics like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment