Got a good beat, and you can dance to it

When I was a kid, I used to watch American Bandstand every Saturday morning. I thought it was fabulous, and I always wanted to be one of those kids who danced on the show every week. Soul Train never did it for me, maybe because I thought Don Cornelius was creepy. But American Bandstand I loved, there was just something about Dick Clark. He never tried to be cooler than he was, you never saw him trying to wear hip clothes or growing his hair long and wearing peace signs or love beads. He just loved music and loved presenting it to audiences.

My favorite part of Bandstand was the segment where the played new music, and he asked a guy and a girl to rate it. Inevitably someone would use the phrase, 'it's got a good beat, and you can dance to it.'

I was thinking about this the other day, when I realized how often I just listened to a song for the beat, and didn't really pay attention to the words. A couple of years ago, I was at the Long Island Romance Writer's lunch when one of my tablemates starting talking about how she's very careful about what her daughter listens to. She mentioned the song 'Milkshake' by Kelis and what the song was about. I had absolutely no idea that this song was about oral sex. It completely went over my head, because I was too busy grooving to the beat of the song. Oops! After she told us that, I started thinking about the lyrics I remembered and it made sense.

The same thing happened to me in college. I was dancing around our flat in London to Cindy Lauper's 'She-bop' when my flatmate Chip told me that the song was about the art of self-love.

"Really?" I said, sounding I'm sure hopelessly naive.

"Yeah," he replied, "Didn't you hear the bit about the pages of Blue Boy magazine."

Umm, yeah, but I just didn't think about it. Duh!

Have you ever listened to a song, and completely gotten the lyrics wrong? I knew a girl in high school who thought the lyrics to the Eric Clapton song was 'Lay down salad,' instead of 'Lay down Sally.' And that doesn't even make sense! Another guy thought the G0-Go's song 'Our Lips are sealed,' was 'I love Cecile!'

Question of the day, have you ever heard a song, and then been completely suprised by what the song was about? Or have you ever completely gotten the lyrics wrong?