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Many song lyrics contain suggestions or
notions that conjure images of strange
apparatus. Some of these make sense,
but
others are of an entirely impractical
nature.
At The Museum of Dubious, and
Sometimes Diabolically Stupid, Lyrical
Apparatus (to give it its full title)
a growing
collection of these devices
finds a home.
Better known instruments, such as the
guitar built to illustrate the Beetles White
Album track: "While my guitar gently
weeps", hold pride of place. In this
example, beads of water run
continuously
down the strings like a tacky water
feature.
"The piano has been drinking" by Tom
Waits depicts an instrument being
perpetually fed bottles of beer by a
mechanical arm, as it wobbles and
drunkenly plink
plonks.
Beyond the instruments there is the Hall
of
Mysterious and Magical Anomalies. Here
it
is possible to have a quick snack as a
freshly cooked egg tumbles out on
request
from an automated hen, based on the
lyrics made famous by Burl Ives in the
wonderful Big Rock Candy Mountain Song
- "And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs".
Numerous other examples follow, but I
won't list them here. You can discover
them yourself when you visit The
Museum
of Dubious, and Sometimes Diabolically
Stupid, Lyrical Apparatus.
The Big Rock Candy Mountain Song
http://www.marysvale.org/brcm/song.htm
need its own section [xenzag, May 01 2007]
The Straight Dope: Warm Smell of Colitas
http://www.straight...lassics/a5_001.html
"Little Buds". [jutta, May 01 2007]
Brian Eno Theme Park
Brian_20Eno_20Theme_20Park
Keep your musuem entry ticket for a discount at the Brian Eno Theme Park next door [hippo, May 04 2007]
like an empress/lepress/Mt Everest/Memphis/a lymphus/the leopards/a lettuce
http://www.amiright...d/artist/toto.shtml
there are many wrongs and only one right [BunsenHoneydew, Jul 07 2007]
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Annotation:
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With (a scale model of) Kilimanjaro rising like (a scale model of) Olympus above (a scale model of) the Serengeti. |
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My daughter did a (very good) drawing of the Big Rock Candy Mountain, which included all the things mentioned in the song. |
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"Visit the Steely Dan room!" |
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+ I've always wanted to climb the *Stairway to Heaven*. |
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Get on up, stay on the scene ... |
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//With (a scale model of) Kilimanjaro rising like (a scale model of) Olympus above (a scale model of) the Serengeti.// |
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You would have to put Olympus in front, or it would look like Kilimanjaro rising like Kilimanjaro above the Serengeti. |
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"Sometimes a heart is just like a wheel" - I
just may illustrate this one for bicycle
application - multi-valve version. |
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"I see a red door and I want it painted
black" - endless conveyor belt of red doors
, being painted black, then circulating into
another room where they are quickly
sprayed white, because it is the "white
room with black curtains". (Rolling Stones/
Cream) |
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"Colitas" is apparently a type of really strong, pine-scented marijuana. |
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The song went through several drafts, and the lyric originally was "Warm smell of some good shit," but the produces felt that the term "shit" might be taken as a scatological reference. So "colitas" was used instead. |
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This ironically had the opposite effect. The original liner notes did not have printed lyrics, so many people assumed that the line was about the effects of "colitis", an inflammation of the large intestine. |
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I always assumed it was an abbreviation of chicolitas. |
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...and a pair of Desmond Dekker's flaming ears? |
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And a ceiling to dance on. |
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... and a 40% complete skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis strung up to the ceiling with diamonds? |
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[froglet], I thought you'd disconnected from the interweb? |
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Basic human needs are not forgotten, however, as there's a bathroom on the right. |
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Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was made for this museum. |
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Psst, [marklar], [froglet] already covered that one, up there ^^^. |
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The interior of the museum will be painted a whiter shade of pale. |
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Wow, is that what he was refering to? It was the diamonds in his post that made me think of it. |
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And if you see a man with carrying a plan round there, don't take any money off him - it's fake.
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Some dry ice pumped over a scale model of a lake. Perhaps have a model casino on the edge. |
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How about a man lying over a river of turbulent water, now that's Art. |
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//[froglet], I thought you'd disconnected from the interweb?// |
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Saying that I am is one thing, doing is another. My family made a huge collected effort to pressure me to keep my computer downstairs with the internet, and my mum refused to allow me to bring it upstairs to my room, so I have to make do with disconnecting it when I'm working or when I should be working. |
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Unfortunately staying away from temptation is becoming hugely difficult. |
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I'd expect a suitably sizable, starkly lit and disturbing room; one would enter, seek arboreal shade in a corner only to discover the (wait for it) Fake Plastic Trees.
(radiohead) |
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Or you could buy one of those old soviet-bloc cars that had an attachment for stealing legumes as you drive by a pea-field (that is, if you like pea-nicker Ladas) |
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A single building wouldn't suffice to hold the odd artifacts showing up in songs of one of my favorite bands. There'd be a small supermarket specializing in fresh, bagged vegetables (1), a marina for amphibian vehicles (2) (it replaced a demolished parking structure (3) that offered fur detailing (4)); fortunately, the very, very large piece of sleepwear (5) on display can double as a tent and cover the throwing apparatus for the bejewelled projectiles (6) and writing implements (7). (How do they light all that with just a glowing pet bird? (8)) Don brightly colored hairpieces (9) and cranial extensions (10), take off your boots (11) and watch your step - you don't want to fall into the tunnel to the other side of the world (12) or crush the skeleton piece behind you on the floor (13) as you proceed to the popular rotating sculpture (14) doubling as an upwards escalator (15). |
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"A coffee colored cadilac" |
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I would pay well to go to this place. |
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"Visitors to the museum are asked to refrain from stepping on the Blue Suede Shoes exhibit"
(Is anyone else struggling with this? I have no idea what [goff], [Jinbish], [Sludden], [gtoal], [jutta], [James Newton] or [Ian] are talking about) |
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It's very cryptic - [gtoal] was kind enough to write out his clue in full, referrning of course to Rupert Holmes' "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" |
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From [Ian]'s last one, I've got as far as skateski (or rollerskates-key) but I have no idea where that one's going. |
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The thing is, I'm not very musically literate - or perhaps I just tend to listed to stuff that nobody else has ever heard of. |
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[edit] Ahh Ian, thanks - what was the wheeled shoe bit about? |
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Perhaps outside there could be a green field, with a cold steel rail for comparison. |
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Ahh, [Absinthe] - now you're talking my language. Perhaps next to that field/rail combination, we could erect a polished crystalline arrangement of carbon, with pencils sticking out of its nostrils and a pair of underpants on it's head. |
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And Ian, I know that one now! I would have been quicker to get it - if I'd remembered that it was sung to the tune of what might be represented by a really big piece of farm machinery, that had just been delivered from the shop. |
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And she'll promise you more than the garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you and laugh while you're bleeding
But she’ll bring out the best and the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself 'cause she's always a woman to me
(BILLY JOEL "She's always a woman to me")
I can see a vary cool room out of this |
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Perhaps, for the convenience of museum visitors, there should be a bike with a basket and bells on to make it look good, which they can ride, if they like to the nearby beach with a dead Arab on it. |
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Yes, that would be nice, and a female member of the monastical order, relaxing on a really well padded sofa. [danger, tenuous] |
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[edit - weeks later [090707], it took me a while to figure out what I was going on about with this one - it's still rubbish, but I was able to retrieve the answer] |
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[another edit - now [260110] - years later now, and whatever it was, I haven't got a clue] |
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Or do misheard lyrics not count? |
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//Or do misheard lyrics not count? //
Don't be ridiculous - they would be in the Museum of Mondegreens |
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Man, and there I was, trying to remember whether that The Cure song involves a bicycle on the beach. |
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Ian, that's either shameless self-promotion or a nice segue... |
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Is there a special wing for songs like Elton John's Solar Prestige A Gammon and Bill Cosby's Hikky- Burr? Rubber Biscuit? |
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I don't much care about these lyrics. |
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We're definitely going to need a main boulevard, where it is possible to walk the streets behind a green sheet of glass.. a million miles below their feet... |
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Oh, and someone's got to do a display of a giant dildo crushing the sun. That should probably remain in a dusty corner somewhere though. |
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Well, I think I'm going to step away from this idea for now. |
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'Is that a caricature of Mitch Miller being restrained?'
'Indeed it is'
'Will he be released soon?'
'I think it unlikely'
'You will not let him go?'
'Almost definately not'
'Please let him go'
'I refuse. We will not be unrestraining him in the near future, definately not, most certainly not'
'Oh, then I'll move along to the Abba exhibit....' |
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Speaking of mondegreens, I am pretty sure Kilimanjaro rises like "an empress", not like "Olympus". One of us is wrong |
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... and it turns out (according to teh intarnetz) that it's me. [link] |
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"SIlver magic ships you carry, Jumpers, coke and sweet mary jane....Sugarman, met a false friend."
I'd like to see that exhibit! |
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I can't wait to see the heathen frog exhibit, with the big hands, gnomes, and buttered fries. |
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// I am pretty sure Kilimanjaro rises like "an empress", // Actually, for a long time, I heard it as a female victim of Hansen's Disease. |
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the building's sprinkler system could contain dyed-purple water. |
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To get to the museum you'd have to cross
a bridge - over troubled waters (Hmm -
not very subtle that one. Must try harder). |
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Actually, it would be a person laying across troubled waters in a bridgelike fashion. |
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[hippo], [marklar] already did that one.
He even managed to cunningly work in the vocalist's name.
Bun to [marklar] |
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//the building's sprinkler system could contain dyed-purple water//
And you would, of course, enter through the exit portal, but only if wearing soft-fruit coloured soft headgear - the sort of thing you might find in a charity shop. |
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Oh yeah, so I did, I forgot about that one. |
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kudos to [marklar] for cleverness; unkudos to [marklar] for forgetfulness |
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I never was very good at cryptic crosswords |
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Best avoid the "Lovin Spoonful" cafe |
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I'd forgotten about this one. [hippo]: 3 years ago, yesterday, I was talking about "Smoke on the water" by Deep Purple. No pun - just a literal diorama. |
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I just hope I don't run into the man going 'round taking names. |
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If you look really hard around the museum you may find a model of the human organ responsible for blood circulation, fashioned from a lustrous yellow precious metal. |
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......but you have to keep searching |
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There is also an area where you can pardon yourself whilst
smooching with clouds. |
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I always thought the lyric was "Excuse me while I kiss
this guy". Well he did say he was acting funny. |
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I just want to see the knights in white satin. |
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A Scandinavian house with waxworks of a Middle-Eastern deity and an American president. |
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//Get on up, stay on the scene ...//
More Steely Dan? |
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If you'll excuse me, I'll be in the cephalopodal horticultural exhibit, avoiding the sun. |
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[the answer to my previous anno, before I forget, is Swede Home Allah 'bama]. |
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