This Corrosion Lyrics Quibble

[James Blast]

especially yours Brother Lee Love

[paint it black]

this is the song which makes a big E shape and which has a chorus which also makes a big E shape (according to a press thingy i have somewhere)

oh and the original TC demo also came in a big E shape too

much more important than the lyrics, the E shape is

he's always changing the lyrics SKOS live probably the most obvious

[Being645]

[stufarq]

Sheet music often has incorrect lyrics. I've seen lots of examples, some of them differing wildly from the actual lyrics (and suggesting that, like the notorious Japanese lyric sheets, someone just listened to the record and wrote what they thought they heard).

Lyric sheets occasionally have inaccuracies but these are usually misprints, last minute changes after going to press or the difference between what the lyricist wanted as the official lyrics and what the singer chose to sing on the take that the producer selected.

I'd go with what's on the lyric sheet.

[Dan]

I doubt a random transcriber would decide to add all the quotes, so I think the lyrics in the sheet music were at least correct at the time they were submitted for copyright (or whatever the term is). Then by the time the song was recorded he'd already changed 2 words. Then later added more lyrics and changed it some more for the album version. The album version being the more recent of the two would therefore be the "correct" lyrics.
If you asked Eldo to write out the lyrics today (and if he could be bothered!) then there'd probably be some changes again (even if only different in the line spacing and punctuation).

[stufarq]

An example of misheard lyrics in sheet music. The Ultravox lyric book for The Collection has the third line of The Thin Wall as 'They shuffle with a bovine grace'. The correct lyric (as printed on the Rage In Eden sleeve liner three years earlier and repeated elsewhere) is 'bullfight grace' - which makes sense where the later one just doesn't. But it's easy to see how it could be misheard that way. In fact quite a lot of the lyrics to that song in the book are wrong but sound similar, reinforcing the theory that they've been misheard by some transcriber.

[Dan]

Are you sure? On listening to it, it sounds like bovine grace to me.

Hang on why are we talking about misheard anyway? The lyrics in the sheet music are correct as per the 7" version with the exception of "do you hear me call" when he sings "do you hear at all", but the former appears in the demo version so that can be explained as a last minute change. Plus I'd be surprised if A.Random transcriber would mishear those 2 words which just happened to be correct in the demo version. I see this as evidence that the lyrics were correct when Eldo submitted them.

Sure, you can quibble about things like told/toll'd but it's a pun which only works when you listen not when you read. That's the whole point - the 2 words are phonetically the same... and you can only write one of the words not both unless you add footnotes or put both words in brackets or something, but that'd be going too far in aiding the listener to understand the lyrics and Eldo would never do that!

[stufarq]

Are you sure? On listening to it, it sounds like bovine grace to me.[/quote]
Sorry, I put those the wrong way round! The correct lyric is 'bovine'; the sheet music book had 'bullfight'. The book also has mistakes like 'the surface on the visions move' instead of 'the sound is on'; 'discretely calls' instead of 'a screenplay calls'; 'and those who see' instead of 'sneer'; 'they try by night' instead of 'drive'; 'their power gains a gain no more' instead of 'their power game's a game no more'; and, oddly, 'grey men' instead of 'old men'.

Hang on why are we talking about misheard anyway?

Evidence that sheet music can get it wrong and specifically that it might be transcribed by someone listening. The original question was about an extra 'the', which could have been added by someone mishearing a pop star grunt.

The lyrics in the sheet music are correct as per the 7" version with the exception of "do you hear me call" when he sings "do you hear at all", but the former appears in the demo version so that can be explained as a last minute change.

It's in the full length version, edited into the 7" from a later verse.

Sure, you can quibble about things like told/toll'd but it's a pun which only works when you listen not when you read.

I didn't notice the pun until I read the lyric sheet.