Watching the first part of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, I realized that I’ve been mishearing a word in “Get Back” since 1969. The lyric references “sweet Loretta Martin,” not “sweet Loretta Modern.” I will consider “sweet Loretta Modern” my very own mondegreen.
I have more thoughts about this documentary, but that’s all for now.
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Friday, November 26, 2021
Modern mondegreen
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comments: 5
The evolution of the lyrics to Get Back were one of the best parts. I've also always thought her name was Modern!
The part where they considered making the song about immigration policy was eye-opening, reminding me that they were shooting this footage just after the events portrayed in part one of Small Axe (the film about the Mangrove Nine).
I'm glad they didn't end up using those lyrics, though, because I think a casual listener of the song would have gotten from it that Pakistanis, etc. should get back to where they once belonged. Similar to the way Born in the USA is used by right-wingers despite the rest of its lyrics.
I agree — it’s really hard to hear those lyrics as unmistakable satire. Imagine how they might look in light of Eric Clapton’s rant about immigrants.
I think Modern is much better than Martin (I think she must be related to the Kinks’ Lola), but Martin is at least better than what Paul started with — Marsh.
Speaking of mongereens, as Christmas approaches I I see that a certain mondegreen approaches canon. I referred to a word in the 12 days of Christmas, mistakenly sung as "four calling birds."
I grew up in a British Commonwealth country, Canada, and I can assure the proper wording is collie birds, as in collie meaning black. That's how we sung it in elementary school.
I went down this rabbit hole just far enough to find an 1856 publication (Google Books) that has “collie birds.” As the kids say, woah!
Wikipedia notes that the first published version (1780) has “colly birds.” Woah again.
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