Indecipherable Lyrics: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Some songs feature lyrics that appear to be complete gibberish. The listener might sometimes be able to hazard a guess at what's being sung, [[Something Something Leonard Bernstein|but such a guess is overwhelmingly unlikely to be anywhere near the mark.]]

The difference between this and [[Lyrical Shoehorn]] is that this would be where nonsense isn't intended... it just sort of happened. Maybe the recording sucks. Maybe the singer is singing too fast to be heard clearly. Maybe he was drunk off his ass and thus couldn't pronounce his own ''name'' clearly, much less sing coherently. But there is a difference.

 

 

Compare [[The Unintelligible]] and [[Singing Simlish]]. If the lyrics are unintelligible except for one line or two, then that's [[Something Something Leonard Bernstein]].

 

{{examples}}

== Generic examples ==

* [[No More Heroes]]: Bad Girl's theme. "I love you ''something something'' yes no ''something yadda something like this,'' so let's go."

* The opening theme to the TV series ''The Adventures of Pete & Pete'' is notorious for its "unknown line," the third line of the title song "Hey, Sandy," which for years remained a mystery to fans. Recent sources have begun speculating anew as to the exact wording of the line, however no confirmation has been forthcoming from the artist as of yet.

* Dancehall reggae is notorious for this.

* [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] can often fall to this, especially if this is present in trailer music.

* The opening music to the first [[Rune Factory]] game is nearly indecipherable. Even if you try to figure out what the lyrics are, they still don't make any sense.

 

== Bands ==

* The obvious example is "Louie Louie", performed by the Kingsmen in 1963. The song was a radio hit with a totally indecipherable slur of syllables, and some of the song's popularity came from public discussion of what the song was about. As rumors flew wildly, the song even caught the attention of the FBI, which investigated the song, believing that a song slurred so seriously must contain obscenity or pro-drug propaganda. The FBI agents were never able to decipher the song's mushy audio, and charges were dropped. The singer admitted he was so drunk that he couldn't remember exactly what he did sing at the time. (Other sources say that he had vocal strain that day, and was a little far from the mic due to its being so high.)

** Famously, ''[[Bloom County]]'' spoofed this during the 1988 election with an ad by the Meadowcrats (the political party formed by the main characters) which tried to use the candidates' respective interpretations of the lyrics to show their character.

*** Bush: "Messy Paul Anka moons a dove" (most of the transcriptions were ''less'' intelligible)

** Actually, there WAS one obscenity in it. At one point the drummer makes a mistake and shouts "oh, fuck!". Careful enough listening and loudness should do the trick.

* Snow - ''Informer'', particularly the chorus. At one point, MTV actually ran the video for Snow's "Informer" with subtitles.

** According to ''[[Never Mind the Buzzcocks]]'' (see above), it's about him opening a bed shop using cheap "leaky boom-boom down" to stuff the pillows with.

** Special mention should go to the last part of the song "Fantasmic". Then again, even with the lyrics next to you, you don't have a clue what it all actually means.

*** Sure you do. It's one long [[Nerdgasm]] about the [[Disney Animated Canon]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WVP3JUCwGQ No, really].

* "Forgot You Now" By [[Mary and The Black Lamb|Mary and the Black Lambhas]] a few parts sung in a static sounding way with a crazy guitar solo playing on top of it. Some of it can be understood but the last line is very hard to pick out.

* [[Stealth Parody|Anal Cunt]]'s lead, Seth Putnam, sings in a screechy voice. You can make out the words, but only under the right conditions or if you have a really good ear.

*** Reportedly, when Al asked Kurt Cobain for permission to do the parody, Cobain asked "It's not going to be about food, is it?" and Al responded "No, it'll be about how no one can understand your lyrics." That was what really sold Kurt on it.

* As ''[[Family Guy]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drm3kTpks7Q pointed out], several Sting songs are incomprehensible except for a few words.

** Parodied in the film ''27 Dresses'' where the drunk protagonist sings the chorus wrongly, in front of an audience.

* "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida": [[Funetik Aksent|Its intended title]] was "In the Garden of Eden."

* There are parts of [[Barenaked Ladies]]' "One Week" that dosey-do into this trope. Also parts of REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It."

** There's a reason the latter is the [[Trope Namer]] for [[Something Something Leonard Bernstein]].

** "One Week" is at least as nonsensical. The parts that actually have some logic aren't so bad, once you get used to how fast it goes.

*** This Troper has never had any trouble understanding either of those songs. Well, no trouble understanding what the words were, anyway.

* [[Marilyn Manson]]'s "The Beautiful People".

** Likewise several 2D-heavy [[Gorillaz]] songs - El Manana for instance.

* Pretty much everything by Joe Cocker, especially "Feelin' Alright".

* "Mmm Bop", by Hanson

** The same could be said for almost any Hanson song, at least the ones with Taylor on lead vocals. One of the infamous leaked demos features Taylor singing gibberish in place of the unfinished lyrics; it sounds nearly the same as any other Hanson song.

* ''Wooly Bully''.

* [[Kate Bush]]'s "Leave It Open", in which the vocals are distorted to the point of incomprehensibility because Kate played the original recording backwards, did her best to imitate the sounds she heard, and then played the resulting recording backwards for the final song.

** Although not from ''Ten'', their song "Yellow Ledbetter" makes an amusing Misheard Lyrics [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLd22ha_-VU video]

* "Carousel of Progress" by [[Joy Electric]].

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l12Csc_lW0Q El Mudo].

* ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEulQJkc9UE murmur twins]'' from ''[[Beatmania|beatmania IIDX]]''.

** And who could forget... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bybkLlNbaaw GOLD RUSH!] Try making out ''any'' words other than "Make it! Make money!" and the names of the Beatmania games. I dare you.

*** [[Mondegreen|IT'S MY TWINKIE!]]

* The closing music to "WKRP in Cincinnati"

* <s> "[[Mystery Science Theater 3000|Fish Picker Pig Licker Ice Snickers]]</s> Kiss Kicker '99" by The Fontanelles, as preformed by the band itself in ''[[Hobgoblins]]''

** Also, the ending part in Plug In Baby is so high and poorly pronounced that Matt doesn't even bother to sing it when playing this song live, making strange noises or even just ignoring it at all (and maybe throwing himself on Dom's drums or whatever)

** Both of these, however, pale in comparison to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yaYO0_NXhc Execution Commentary] from the Plug in Baby EP. Just... listen to it. Hell, check any official page for lyrics. Chances are it'll read {{spoiler|(Indecipherable screaming)}}, which, frankly, is rather to the point.

* Anything by Sean Paul.

** Not exactly intentional - unless you're used to it, understanding a strong Jamaican accent is challenging enough when the speaker is simply ''talking''.

* For a more obscure example, check out "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP0rxQ7peL0 Zombie]" by Methusalem. Good luck trying to decipher the other lyrics besides the song title.

* Subverted by Sigur Ros, since some of their lyrics are in a made-up language called "Vonlenska" (an Icelandic word, rough translation is "Hopelandic") , although they also sing some songs in Icelandic.

** Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance (and solo) fame also sings in a made-up language that has no "real" meaning.

** [[Enya]] also announced an album with a similar concept.

* The cover version of ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEt8xJ_m4QM Hot Limit]'' by John Desire, which can be found in ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]] 5th Mix''. It was a Japanese song by T.M.Revolution, translated into English and sung by an Italian band trying to sound like they're American. 'Nuff said.

** It's so bad, that the [http://wiki.animutationportal.com/We_Drink_Ritalin joke lyrics] from the [[Animutation]] based on this song, [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/45257 We Drink Ritalin] fits better than the original!

* The first Meat Puppets album, from when they were more of a noisy hardcore band, was consistently unintelligible even for [[Hardcore Punk]]: Curt Kirkwood seemed to be imitating the frequently slurred vocals of The Germs' Darby Crash, only taking it even further. Interestingly, if you find the official lyrics for the album, it was full of very silly and tongue-in-cheek songs about mundane things like cats and spending all of one's money on marijuana, as opposed to the [[Word Salad Lyrics]] they started using once you ''could'' understand them.

* Two words: Chacarron Macarron. Although apparently it is actually gibberish.

*** According to the lyrics page on Truant Wave, the line IS "''salad'' days are over." (made somewhat more clear by the fact that he follows this line with "the meat is at my door").

*** To be fair, "knead" and "need" are homophones. It's not exactly his fault if you can't figure out which he's saying.

* Italo-spacedisco group Laserdance's "Digital Dream", their only full-on vocal/lyrical song. The vocoder renders about half of the words unintelligible. Worse, there aren't even any liner notes.

* An excerpt from a recent Bill Simmons article (a running diary of [[Professional Wrestling|Wrestlemania XXVI]]) demonstrates this well:

* Mark E Smith of The Fall has made a career out of notoriously indecipherable wordplay (accompanied by equally inscrutable music).

* I have yet to meet a person who understands what the hell Sean Paul is singing in Temperature aside from 'love' and 'temperature'

and girl I, wanna be the papa you can be the mom, oh oh! }}

** A thick Jamaican accent is tough enough to understand while talking, rapping/singing with one just makes it even worse.

* Most of The Black Dahlia Murder's first two albums "Unhallowed" and "Miasma" are impossible to understand without reading along to the lyrics. The higher vocals are almost indecipherable, while some of the low ones can be figured out after a few listens.

* [[Metalocalypse|Dethklok]] frontman Nathan Explosion [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this hilariously:

'''Nathan:''' Um, no, but I could stick it in. Doesn't matter. No one can understand what I'm saying, anyway. }}

* Most songs by [[Cirque Du Soleil]] are sung in the indecipherable faux-language of [[Speaking Simlish|Cirquish]].

* Dragonforce, Dragonforce, [[Rule of Three|Dragonforce]]. It's fairly easy to guess (at least vaguely) what any given song is about, though, since most of the band's music is about fire, war, and dragons. The bridges in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ts9b4QI-mY&feature=related "Starfire"] deserve special mention here.

* The [[Ominous Latin Chanting|Ominous [insert language here] chanting]] in the songs in ''[[The Prince of Egypt]]'' can make some versions nigh incomprehensible.

* The Nightcrawler's "Push the Feeling On" (the dub mix and subesquent remixes): "Ir in their lives again ir in their li to pull us" ad nauseam.

** Actually [http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/direngrey/cleversleazoid.html Clever Sleazoid], like [http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/direngrey/childprey.html Child Prey] before it, ''is'' a three minute stream of [[Engrish]], though the listener can be forgiven for not realizing either song contains actual words in any language.

* [[The Dingees]]: "Ronnie Raygun" and "Conspiracy Against the Youth" from ''The Crucial Conspiracy'', and "Capital Imperial" from ''The Rebel Soul Sound System''. The singers are hard enough to understand when they're singing clearly, but on these lo-fi hardcore punk tracks, it's well-nigh impossible to make out anything.

* [[Starflyer 59]] has a lot of these, especially in their first couple of albums.

* Lampshaded in [[Flight of the Conchords]] in the song Leggy Blonde, which even the subtitles cannot decipher:

mumblemurblemrr panties on }}

* Not a band, but Dennis Edwards' 1984 song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH3rx8LhrQo "Don't Look Any Further"] has a chorus that nobody understands and that may not even be in English.:

}}

* ''Bleeding Heart Theory'' by Straight Line Stitch has the word "SUFFER!" screamed repeatedly in the chorus, but it sounds for all the world like "SHERBERT! SLOBBER!" if you don't know what it's ''supposed'' to mean.

* Wakusei's cover of [[The Pixies|"Gigantic"]], owing to the fact that they're a Japanese band who apparently attempted to learn the original's lyrics phonetically. The chorus is much more intelligible than the verses, although they ''do'' consistently pronounce "gigantic" with two hard g's, making it sound like the separate words "gig" and "antic".

* Try understanding the lyrics in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zd6DrceGyI "Ants"] by ''Devin Townsend''... Good luck.

** And its spritual predecessor, "Weenie Beenie" (which is already in an album chock full of [[Word Salad Lyrics]], but like "White Limo" has modulated vocals to top it).

* Most of Mew's discography, [[Word of God|intentionally]] [[Mind Screw|so.]]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Music Tropes]]

[[Category:Indecipherable Lyrics]]