Vicky Biccy's Blog

Learning to listen

A colleague confessed today that he had trouble understanding Leonard Cohen’s famous song ‘Hallelujah’.

“I mean, ‘She broke your phone and she cut your hair’– what’s that about?”

When we explained that the lyric actually reads ‘she broke your throne’, the song took on a very different meaning! This inspired me to do some research into misunderstood lyrics. Here are a few of my favourites:

From Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody":
“Is this the real life, is this just Battersea?” (The actual word is ‘fantasy’)

From Bon Jovi’s “It’s my Life”:
“For Tommy and Gina who milked that cow” (Should be: For Tommy and Gina who never backed down).

From REM's "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight":
“Come and eat your bacon.” (Original Lyrics: Call me when you try to wake her up.)

Little misunderstandings can cause a lot of laughs… or a lot of trouble. Humans can be very bad listeners. We hear a few words and connect the dots, and rush in with a response before we’ve heard the whole sentence. Maybe we could all do with learning to listen – I mean really listen, with eye contact and without interrupting – the way that makes people feel that we really value what they have to say.

It might just save us from going through life wondering why the Beatles sang ‘All we need is slugs’.
 

Created on Thu 16th April 2009 14:00