I"m 49 and have only just realised that "Atomic" has the word "sacroiliac" in it. "Back to back/Sacroiliac/Spineless movement/And a wild attack." BRAVO. What other unexpected words are there in world-famous songs that I don't know about?
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Not quite the same, but I was gobsmacked when Paul Weller got 'tranquility of solitude' into That's Entertainment in 1980. I'd always disliked The Jam (aged 14!) because I was scared of skinheads who liked their stuff, but I realised he must be quite clever and not a thug because of that! 😁
My son was very surprised when we explained to him that the famous musical theatre composer & lyricist Stephen Songtime was actually named Stephen Sondheim. He (my son) was 21 years old at the time.
It's probably pushing the boundaries of 'world famous' but I always liked the use of 'stigmatisation' in Les Yper Sound by Stereolab. I suppose they were a bit boffiny though.
Nobody tops Joanna Newsom. In No Provenance (pretty good by itself) she squeezes in ‘etiolated’ and , best of all, ‘hydrocephalitic’ to describe drooping peony flowers in a rainstorm.
The only other time I head Sacroiliac was in "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash.
The link between the songs is Blondie - their track "Rapture" was one of the first rap songs and references GM Flash
"Fab Five Freddy told me everybody's fly
DJ's spinning I said my, my
Flash is fast, Flash is cool"
'Drainpipe', obviously, as in the Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band's 'My pink half of the drainpipe.'
Sting had 'Scylla and Charybdis', because he's a pretentious twat (Wrapped around your finger).
Blondie had 'theosophy' too, in 'Always touched by your presence dear'.
As a 15 year old I was very impressed with Tom Sawyer by Rush and fact one verse had the words government, discontent and permanent in successive lines, plus the phrase , ‘the friction of the day’
Barterers And Their Wives by The Left Banke has not just 'barterers' but also 'wifely' in it. Possibly not what the dancers on TV's Where The Action Is! were anticipating.
Snack Attack by 10cc has the word 'pacamac', which I'll venture to suggest is sufficiently outdated to qualify as unexpected. Especially in a song about food.
Vagabond. We don’t hear nearly enough about vagabonds these days. Elton John was kind enough to bring them back to our attention in “Can you feel the love tonight”.
Just spent 5 minutes worrying that you'd gone senile, as no way has atomic got sacroiliac hidden in it. But I was in anagram mode, not song lyric mode...
There is a whole thread to be had of Scritti Politti using the thesaurus, but the extensive use probably disqualifies them on the basis that such use is no longer ‘unexpected’! (Pharmacopoeia, Tupamaros and immutable in one song!)
My favourite is "a panoply of song" from June Hymn by The Decemberists. The same song features the rather more prosaic line "pegging clothing on the line" - that's some kind of genius going on there.
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For a sky-high fee, of course.
"So many suckers on my sacroiliac
It's like a rap-sack, backpack"
Got it stuck in my head for the next week now…
The link between the songs is Blondie - their track "Rapture" was one of the first rap songs and references GM Flash
"Fab Five Freddy told me everybody's fly
DJ's spinning I said my, my
Flash is fast, Flash is cool"
I'm 68, been in a care home and didn't know how many there were around!
Sting had 'Scylla and Charybdis', because he's a pretentious twat (Wrapped around your finger).
Blondie had 'theosophy' too, in 'Always touched by your presence dear'.
Science in the home
Late nights all alone with a test tube, oh, oh, oh, oh”
Daddy's doing Sister Sally
Grandma's dying of cancer now
The cattle all have brucellosis
We'll get through somehow
Play that dead band's song 🎶
Sadly, Warren joined them far too soon.
Although
🎶 Grandpa pissed his pants again 🎶
Has to be one of the more startling opening lines in music.
https://youtu.be/WsJlqgoSC_Y?si=WDyF2l0DFBwdcU3k