June has been an incredibly busy month. I should have enough blog material to last me into fall, but finding the time to write has been a challenge.
Aside from the long list of projects on our to do list, I’ve been preparing inventory for a craft fair I will be doing next weekend. I’m both excited and nervous about the craft fair, but I’m selling with a group of very talented artists and crafters who I’m sure will divert any attention from me, so that is a bit of a relief. I’m not sure I could handle being out there on my own with even the slightest possibility of having every passerby pass me by.
So, what does any of this have to do with Brutus or Prudence? Well, not much. I was attempting to do some reading last night before bed and I read the word “prudence”. Somehow that word clung to my temporal lobe and made a grand feast for those little ear worms that have plagued me for most of my life. Throughout the night I kept waking to the tune of “Dear Prudence”, the Siouxsie and the Banshees version.
This morning, with the song still ringing in my ears, I remembered a post I wrote last year on my (slowly dying) music blog about the last time this song was wedged in my brain. I guess, I will share it with you here:
Originally posted June 6, 2012
Dear Prudence (Siouxsie and the Banshees version)
Go ahead and laugh at me. I laugh at myself all the time. When I first heard this song I thought Siouxsie was saying “Dear Brutus” ( I heard this version before I heard the original) as in Marcus Brutus from Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. It makes sense doesn’t it? The music has a dreamy quality to it and the lines “wont you come out to play / greet the brand new day”… I can hear the senators as they call out to Brutus to join them in their plot to kill Caesar and rejoice as Caesar’s death will usher in a bright new day for Rome and all her citizens!
I later learned the name of the song was Dear Prudence and was really about Prudence Farrow’s deep dive into meditation while visiting an ashram in India. So I guess the song is more comparable to Eat, Pray, Love than to The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Apparently Prudence became so deeply absorbed in her meditations, her friends, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, wrote this song as a plea to Prudence to come out and join the world and all it had to offer. My entire Brutus theory fell flat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh_x8uBUbkc
It’s too bad the song turned out to be about Prudence Farrow. I actually thought I was onto something with the Brutus scenario. Still, when I hear this song I think of Brutus and his conflict.
(Ok, now you just listen to this song as Siouxsie sings it and TELL me it doesn’t sound like she is saying Brutus.)
Why do you say, “slowly dying music blog”? I really miss that blog 😦
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Thanks. Well, I just don’t post there much anymore for some reason. Thanks for your nice encouragement. Every morning I wake up with a song to write about, but the day just gets away from me. If I were a better writer I’m sure I’d have no problems just throwing something together everyday, but it takes me a little longer to write a thoughtful post than it would someone with a natural talent for writing – like you.
And BTW, I always so appreciate your reading and comments!
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Aw, I think you’re a great writer! I hope you go back to your music blog someday. I’m neglecting mine a bit too … I have so many music stories to tell, but I like feeding them little by little unlike my regular blog which doesn’t have a theme so I could be all over the place. But back to you — I honestly loved your music blog better than a lot of the other ones I read because to me you wrote from the heart. Others are a bit stagnant.
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Well thank you for the positive feed back!
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haha! Love this! It sounds like Brutus! I found this post really entertaining. 🙂
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Thanks! I felt really dumb because it is a Beatles song! I should have known that – even though I was only about 14 when I heard the Banshees version and the Beatles were a bit before my time. I love the Beatles, but never heard their version before.
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Marie, re hearing the wrong words to songs, there isn’t an app for this, but there is a word — “mondegreen” (see Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen). Humorist Dave Barry had a section on this in his “Book of Bad Songs” (1997). My favorite is the Credence Clearwater Revival song “Bad Moon Rising”, where the line “there’s a bad moon on the rise” has been heard as “there’s a bathroom on the right.”
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i’ll be sure to read that article. Sounds interesting.
My stepdad used to sing “there’s a bathroom on the right” lol.
How about “I wanna be your pizza burning”? (Beast of Burden by the Rolling Stones.)
thanks so much for the link.
Cheers!
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Matthew, that was a fascinating and funny read. I had heard some of those mondegreens (cool to have a word for it now) but I was shocked that the FBI was ordered to investigate “Louie Louie” . AND I am happy to know after all these years where the title of the book Catcher in The Rye” comes from. Sadly, i haven’t read it – I tried, but never could get through it, but I would often ask people who have claimed to have read it why it was titled that – no one ever could tell me.
Thanks again!
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Dinner Party Download (internet radio program) did a fascinating segment on the Louie Louie story several years ago, with accompanying cocktail recipe. Just found it — it’s still online. Here it is if you want to listen to it:
http://www.publicradio.org/columns/dinnerpartydownload/2010/05/episode-49-wallace-shawn-fbi-vs-louie-louie-no-kidding.html
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Thank so much. i read the article -might try to make that drink in the near future – I think I’m gonna need it…
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