Something Something Leonard Bernstein: Difference between revisions

Ner hner ner, ''your gleaming swords...:''|[[Discworld|Ankh Morpork]] Anthem, [[Terry Pratchett]]}}

 

 

This is that song where the lyrics [[Motor Mouth|move so]] [[Patter Song|quickly]] or are [[Mondegreen|so]] [[The Unintelligible|garbled]] that you know only the one word or phrase that is shouted very clearly.

The name of the trope comes from "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" by [[REM]]. It begins "That's great! It starts with an earthquake..." and then (aside from the [[Title Drop]] in the chorus) your guess is good as ours until the only part of any of the verses that anyone knows properly: "LEO-NARD BERN-STEIN!" So attempts to sing along to usually go "something something Leonard Bernstein".

 

 

Compare [[Mondegreen]], [[Second Verse Curse]], [[Chorus-Only Song]], [[Refrain From Assuming]] and [[Single-Stanza Song]]. Related to [[Indecipherable Lyrics]], the point here being that there is at least one word or phrase that everyone will know and shout out with gusto to make up for not knowing the rest. This phenomenon is often caused by the [[Perishing Alt Rock Voice]].

{{examples}}

==Anime==

==Unsorted==

* The [[Trope Namers]] as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OENjixZd_Oo covered] by Canadian folk band [[Great Big Sea]] is, believe it or not, even worse for the confusion; the speed is upped about 30% and a number of additional instrumental tracks (like the fiddle) are added. And it's so much ''fun''!

** Parodied in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "Homer the Moe", where R.E.M. makes a guest appearance (already without Bill Berry at the time) and Homer further [[Mondegreen]]s their song:

You symbiotic stupid jerk, that's right, Flanders, I'm talking about you! }}

** [http://comics.com/pearls_before_swine/2007-05-27/ The R.E.M. example was] [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' and again in ''[[Tommy Boy]]'', where they remembered the line "6 O'clock, TV hour," which starts off the second verse.

LOOK AT ME WITH A BRAND NEW HYUNDAI. ("You'd better run, you'd better take cover") }}

** There's also Peter's Christmas album. Among others, he mangles one line from "Little Drummer Boy" into "I brought these gifts for you, they're [[Ass Shove|up in my bum.]]"

* "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen: The fact that no one could understand anything except "Louie louiiie" launched a Congressional investigation into the possibility of dirty lyrics. The general assumption that the slurred lyrics were something dirty inspired a number of covers, including Iggy Pop's downright ''profane'' version.

** Which makes the fact that it almost wound up the state anthem for [[The Other Rainforest|Washington State]] even more hilarious. Ask some state residents and you'll find more than a few who think it really ''is'' the official anthem, rather than the fan preferred version.

** "Louie Louie" is famous for this, and is often picked on for it by [[Music/Dave Barry|Dave Barry]]. There was also a commercial in the late '90s which featured the song and scrolled nonsensical gibberish in place of actual lyrics to parody how difficult it was to understand the song.

*** ''[[Bloom County]]'' did a Sunday strip during the 1988 Presidential elections where each of the candidates (George Bush, Michael Dukakis, and Bill the Cat) [http://web.archive.org/web/20080719170850/http://tafkac.org/songs/louie_louie_real_words.html translated the song] based on what they could understand, as if it would tell the public something about them all. Since the ad was sponsored by Bill's people, it takes jabs at Bush ("Iran-Contra thing makes me phlegm") and Dukakis ("Kitty she leads me everywhere") while saying Bill's translation, which isn't even legible English half the time, "revealed a simple honesty".

* "Even Flow" by [[Pearl Jam]] - "Oooooeeeeeeyeeeeeahahhhhhh... da da da da da da something concrete". And most of their other songs, but this one gets made fun of the most once people realize they don't know it.

** The style Snow was using, dancehall complete with a Jamaican-esque accent, also causes problems with other artists using that same style. If someone claims they know the lyrics of a Sean Paul song just from listening? Odds are they're lying. "We be burning... da da da da."

* ''[[Family Guy]]'' ranted about this that you can understand only the last three words of Sting's songs - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRUpPDMqqsw It's funny because it's true? You decide.]

** And to some, Kick the Bass by the same group is worse - "Great song, and I only know the first line." It's apparently about {{spoiler|girls and parties}}, but good luck figuring that out with the mushy audio and the lyrics not fitting in with the overall feel of the song.

** The ''first'' first ''Transformers'' [[Transformers: The Movie|movie]] had an entire soundtrack full of this.."

* "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals; if the high falsetto alone didn't make it near impossible to sing along to, there's also the fact that the only bit you'll get is part of the chorus: "She drives me crazy and I can't help myself."

* The [[Covered Up]] of Traffic's "Feelin' Alright" by Joe Cocker. Can't understand anything but "Feelin' Alright, not feelin that good my self..."

{{quote|UHMUNGAYRODAPLEEDONNAOVAHAYDFEHEHPEDDADONKEHWIDHEY I GOT A TELEPHONE CALL FROM ISTANBUL}}

* [http://www.kissthisguy.com/1829song-blinded-by-the-light.htm The infamous cover of] [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s "Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Most people think can only pick the title out of "She was blinded by the light, revved up like a Deuce, another runner in the night" due to the enunciation of many of the lyrics.

** Made even more irritating by the fact that the original lyric is "Cut loose like a deuce." Apparently Mann couldn't figure out the lyrics to the song he was covering, in a cross between this trope, [[Adaptation Decay]], and [[Did Not Do the Research]].

** It doesn't help that the way Mann's singer sings "deuce" makes it [[Mondegreen|sound like "douche".]]

** Notably, the Eric Prydz song "Call on Me", which sampled the chorus of "Valerie", inadvertently lampshaded this trope—in that Prydz sampled the lyric "Call on Me" as pretty much the only lyric that was understandable from the original song. And even ''that'' isn't recognized perfectly: see the [http://jamestown.ytmnd.com/ "Colony" fad] on [[YTMND]].

* "[[Robert Burns|Auld Lang Syne]]" is a difficult one because the original poem was in Scots which made it too hard for the Sassenach to ken its meaning apart from the first line "Should auld acquintance be forgot...". So then people tried to make English versions but more than one were made so nobody knew the same version and since the only time you sing it is when you're drunk at 00:01 on New Year's Day, in a large crowd of people who all have different versions with the only guy who really knows it being that one really keen Scottish guy, you never actually learn any of those version and just stick to "ouagh aaugh AAAUGH Aaughu AAUUGH '''AAUGH'''".

* Made even ''worse'' in the ''[[Raving Rabbids]]'' version, which is delivered about an octave above its usual pitch. Meaning that half the words can only be heard by your dog.

* And an oldie along the same lines: Does anyone know more of the lyrics to "La Cucaracha" than simply the title phrase?

{{quote|"La cucaracha, la cucaracha! Enchilada blah blah blah!"}}

** The grasshoppers in ''[[A Bug's Life]]'' don't know them either.

* The beginning of [[Nightwish]]'s Fantasmic basically goes "Wish upon a star, nwlasfjdkcldnsfcnsal, take my [[Mondegreen|ham]], nwsdlkjncklcxfndskjl..."

{{quote|"Wish! Upon, a star, believe in will, the realm of the king, of fantasy, the master of, the tale-like lore, the way to kingdom I adore, where the warrior's heart is pure, where the stories will come true", repeat.}}

Well, yeah, that one's a wordgasm about the [[Disney Animated Canon]] sung in stereotypically unintelligible "I'm-a twenty-years-trained real-life opera-singer", so it also fits under [[Indecipherable Lyrics]] for two distinct reasons, and [[Word Salad Lyrics]], which thus also makes it Troperrific, which [[Heavy Meta|fits]]. They're 'good'. }}

** It's all over in older Nightwish songs. Can anyone understand anything Tarja says the first time they listened? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ I thought not.]

** It happened again in [[Persona 4|the sequel]]- although 'Reach Out To The Truth' is a much better battle theme, it's almost impossible to make out any of the lyrics other than "I face out, I hold out, I reach out to the truth of my life" and "can you let me out, can you let me out, can you set me free from this dernernerIdunnotherest".

*** To add insult to injury, it's also frequently heard as as [[Mondegreen|"All the LESBIANS, oh yeah LESBIANS,]] can you SET ME FREE" and then descends into glarble territory.

** Continued again in the remake of [[Persona|the first game]], though with singing instead of rap:

{{quote|Save me from that blooooody destiny! How do feel said jeema ahfewjfhweiulehwf like this!}}

** Another good example from Maximum the Hormone: "What's Up People?" See if you can remember any of the words aside from "Hey Hey", something that sounds like "ravenga".

** The word is ''ningen'', which is Japanese for human, but most people probably heard it as the N word.

** A''nother'' [[Buffy-Speak|nother]] good example from Maximum the Hormone, Zetsubou Billy - "Kira! Even a Kira! My name is Kira!..."

* [[Duran Duran]]'s "Hold Back the Rain", being a mishmash of decent enunciation and indecipherable mushmouthery (and [[Word Salad Lyrics|the lyrics don't make a lot of sense in the first place]], further confounding efforts), is full of this. Like the end of the chorus: "Na da gerroh so help me, please... ''hold back the rain''!"

{{quote|'''0:01:''' For our first match, tag-team championship belts are on the line: R-Truth (a rapper/wrestler) and John Morrison (an entertaining Jim Morrison ripoff) challenging the champs, The Big Show and The Miz (carrying two belts apiece, for some reason). R-Truth came out prancing and singing his hit song, "What's Up?" The lyrics go like this: "Shshshn cnbcnsbdb fhdehsh fhdhs dhdhan dbdjdndjd dbdbdbdbdb shshsnhs ffrhdhhjs xbcxbbffgfhhj WHAT'S UP? WHAT'S UP? WHAT'S UP? WHAT'S UP?" I don't think he wrote that one with Burt Bacharach and Carly Simon.}}

* [[Blur (band)|Blur]]'s "Song 2" goes, "WOO-HOO!" The rest of the refrain consists of semi-distorted English-sounding rambles. The verses are slightly easier to understand, but [[Chorus-Only Song|it's not like anyone knows those anyway.]] Considering the refrain was used nigh-everywhere in adverts and the like, especially in America, it gets this treatment a lot.

* "Prisencolinensinainciusol," by Adriano Celentano - mostly because aside from a few [[Title Drop]]s and the occasional "all right," "baby," and one carefully enunciated "girls," it's complete [[Word Puree Lyrics]].

* According to [[Eddie Izzard]], the United States National Anthem is this to most Americans.

** "'''''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5iu_JNvPII FIIIIIIIVE GO-OOOOOOOOLD RIIIIIIIIINGS]!'''''"

*** "It's because we're human. We only like to learn a little bit of a song. I mean, above that, the words could be anything -- but then they hear that bit, and people go ''berserk'' at that point. You have people running in from other rooms. '''''FIVE GOLD RINGS!!!'''''"

* "Rap is a Man's Soul". It's almost impossible to make sense out of the verses (even if you ''know'' the words). However, most of the people here know the chorus.

'''[[Memetic Mutation|RAW, RAW, FIGHT DA POWAH]]'' }}

** "Libera Me (from Hell)" is worse, unless you're fluent in Latin.

'''Mafalda:''' So? Many people like dogs and nobody understands what "woof" means. }}

* The pre-chorus of "Always" by Erasure, made famous from [[Robot Unicorn Attack]] seems to go "When it's cold outside, da da da da daaay, HOLD ON THE NIGHT, THERE WILL BE NO SHAME!"

* Sinbad pointed this in one stand-up show where he used "Hip Hop Hooray" by Naughty By Nature (the one where the chorus involves chanting "Hey! Ho!" and waving your arms) as a sort of theme song. At one point when the song is playing, he stops to remark "Y'all don't know the other words, do you? It's like, 'Ma-namanamanamana (hereitcomes) HEY! HO!'"

* Pere Ubu, a weird band to begin with, have a song call "Street Waves," in which the only comprehensible words are "I ride a street wave." As they don't ever release their lyrics, no one's even sure about this part.

* "El Mañana" by [[Gorillaz]]: "Do da faaaaaaaiiiii. Maybe in time, you'll want to be mine. So ma gaaaaay..."

** "Re-hash": "It's the sweet sen-sation, oh bah de dop/ a lot of situations, doh bana stop. It's the crash spots, oh boy/ it's' the money an' stuff....

*** "Feel Good Inc" is this to a lesser degree. After the initial 'City's breaking down on a camel's back' people tend to go silent til the chorus.

*** "Punk" has only two discernible words, "shut up".

* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWM7aqQYrFA They're Red Hot]" by [[Red Hot Chili Peppers]]. The first time you listen to it, you'll probably only be able to make out the occasional "red hot", if you're even that lucky.

** The [[Covered Up|original version]] by Robert Johnson is somewhat slower and easier to understand.

{{quote|STEAK KNIFE, CARD SHARP, CON JOB, BOOT CUT, kisifsifdfaiiisfdsavagccgdifhsuvdfajgeiraghgioaewkigdhauhfjdlv, DOG TOWN, BLOOD BATH...}}

{{quote|The fire in your brain willghafjafjafinsainn, yuweaheaejk, enebenebmenegheinn, so don't ghebeda, afahafweweqwainakekweainqwiewieqwain blahblahblah FIGHT LIKE A BRAVE...}}

** "Tubes in her arm" and "the night nurse" is maybe the most anyone can catch [[Nothing Is Scarier|which is half of why the song is so disturbing.]] Most of their recordings are fairly primitive for studio work, so you get this in spades. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X9ygjkIPf8 "Zyklon B Zombie"] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8riZnope7Ak "Hit By A Rock"] have only the [[Title Drop]] decipherable as a couple of extra examples that are also creepy listening. TG managed to make this into a horror trope.

* The Red Dwarf theme song for some people. "Nananannananaanaaa MANGO JUICE!"

* [[Marilyn Manson]]'s "The Beautiful People". Most people only know the words "The beautiful people, the beautiful people".

* [[Disturbed]] singer David Draiman's style has a way of doing this for three reasons:

3. His style involves [[Scatting]] to create a vocal melody to work best with the song then applying lyrics later, making him occasionally mumble the lyrics since this is how he first experienced it (which created the scat section in "The Game"). }}

** For the most part, just about the entire discography could count (though "Voices", "Sons of Plunder", "The Night", "Asylum" and "[http://twitter.com/#!/DAVIDMDRAIMAN/status/77664430401404929 This Moment]" are particular stand-outs).

* [[In-Universe]] example for the animated adaptation of ''[[Dr. Seuss|Horton Hatches The Egg]]'':

{{quote|'''Horton (singing)''': Rise, and shine, and so on and so forth...}}

* This was Bernie Mac's response to Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" when he hosted the 2001 Billboard Music Awards.

{{quote|Y'all don't know any of the words, you just like the "It Wasn't Me" part.}}

* ''[[The Doobie Brothers]]'' has, at the very least, "China Grove", which this troper admits to not even understanding the refrain of for years: "Well the people 'n' the peep, noo joo me cross<ref>Well, the preacher and the teeacher, Lord, they're a caution</ref> / they are the talk of the town... People are some kind the strange / damn Mrs. Perkins again<ref>The lyrics are different, though, as the first verse says, "The people of the town are strange, / and they're proud of where they came", and the second verse says, "They say that the father's insane, / and dear Mrs. Perkins' a game."</ref>.... WOAH-HO, CHINA GROVE!"

** One way you can pick out someone from San Antonio is that they know a bit more than the above lyrics in said song, because "China Grove" is a song about a community called China Grove in south San Antonio. There's a bit about "old San Antone" and another one about "they just keep on lookin' to the East" in the song that refer to S.A. and is thus instantly pick-uppable for S.A. natives. Oh, and it's "dear Mrs. Perkins' a game".

Dum da da da dum da da da SPACESHIP! }}

* Every [[wikipedia:Patter song|patter song]] ever written! Gilbert and Sullivan? To begin with, the Major General song and ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQGrQPZMLK8&feature=related It Really Doesn't Matter]'', in which they actually lampshade it—the line "this particularly rapid unintelligible patter isn't generally heard" is repeated several times! [it should be noted here that, theoretically, while the ''actors'' are singing, for the most part the ''characters'' aren't supposed to be, rendering this line even more amusing] Admittedly, the singers in this sort of situation are generally of a degree of skill such that they ''do'' enunciate every word clearly, but at that speed? And even if you can hear and understand it (not a given in a theater!) that doesn't mean that you know the words; most people likely can't recite much of the Major General song beyond "I am the very model of a modern major general"!

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd2e0Sv2J9k SASKATCHEWAN] by Les Trois Accords. The song is probably insanely easy to sing along to in French, but all English singers can do is SasKATchewaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

* "99 Luftballons" (which translates to 99 Air Balloons, NOT 99 Red Balloons, but that's [[Berserk Button|a whole different issue]]), is sung entirely in German except for two words.

* Due to the fast pace and Irish accents, no one knows the verses in ''The Rocky Road to Dublin.'' For the most part you can get the chorus, but it still sounds something like "One, two, three, four, five! Huthehaandturnum, down the rocky road and all the way to Dublin. Whackfaloldida!" (Well, that last bit is just noises.)

** "Hunt the hare and turn 'er down the rocky road: all the way to Dublin. Whack-fo-lal-de-ra." (Those 'noises' are called lilting.)

{{quote|Every Flo Rida song is basically just gibberish 'til the chorus anyway. Nobody cares! "Bah bah bur rur, Leonard Bernstein...." Whatever!}}

** And [[The Rap Critic]] calls this on Mystikal (even comparing him to [[Looney Tunes|Yosemite Sam]]), saying the only line he understood was "I came in here with my dick in my hand!".

** And, of course, "I Am The Walrus"- "mumble bumble mumble pornographic priestess...". Though that was [[Word Salad Lyrics|total nonsense]].

** Parodied in a skit on [[Saturday Night Live]] with the fake commercial for ''J-Disc Presents: Ten Beatles Classics You Kind of Know the Words To. Sung by the Kind of Know the Words To Singers.''

* From the unofficial [[Homestuck]] [[Christmas Episode|Christmas Album]], the lyrics to [http://homestuckgaiden.bandcamp.com/track/the-squiddles-save-christmas The Squiddles Save Christmas] seem to [[Parodied Trope|literally]] be "Squiddles, Squiddles, Squiddles, something Squiddles."

* Lampshaded in Sesame Street's "What's the Name of that Song?", "La de da de dum, la de da de dum, what's the name of that song...?" through "La de da de dum, la de da de dum, something something nice, la de da de dum, la de da de dum, I think it repeats itself twice..."

Protects the valley something something something something alive

KUNG FU PANDA! }}

* Sephiroth's [[Leitmotif]] from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''. ''[[Ominous Latin Chanting|Something indecipherable, probably Latin, something something something]]'' '''SEPHIROTH!'''

* Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina", specially for those who don't speak Spanish (or a similar language) is a [[Chorus-Only Song]] where the chorus is "something something gasolina!" eight times.

* Letter's To Cleo's "Here And Now" has a chorus that's mostly unintelligible due to Kay Hanley going into [[Motor Mouth]] mode: "ah huh huh ba ba, ba ba ba ba ras ababa ska, ah huh huh ba ba, ba ba ba ba sherbanowa sherbanowa HERE AND NOW! HERE AND NOW-OW-OW!"<ref>translation: the comfort of the knowledge of a rise above the sky above could never parallel the challenge of an acquisition in the here and now, here and now</ref>

* "Hilikus" by early [[Incubus (band)|Incubus]], due Brandon Boyd's fast rapping: "History has a tendency to blohkkadappappaladopeppelisaboutbaddelissadogoodta, fordehqwyegqwamme<ref>block out the popular beliefs about the leaders of the time, so glisten with my</ref> syllables irhqwmehiqwaebdatto, webbeeaeguyeawguheddoteieaeibm<ref>and ponder the thought, maybe they should have had to dedicate more</ref> to it, GO!"

* In theory, the theme to ''[[The Neverhood]]'' has lyrics. In reality, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXQ2lvgpHiE it sounds like this]:

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Music Tropes]]