Songs where the songwriter confuses A with B

It would almost be better if she were misreading!

In Madison Avenue's "Don't Call Me Baby", the singer says, "You're sure misunderstood" in reference to a particular man's eligibility to refer to her as 'baby'.

What she means is that he's 'misinformed' about his position. It would also work to say, "You've surely misunderstood". This has bugged me since 1999.

In 'It's Alright' Sterling Void confuses "dictation" and "dictatorship". This has bugged me since 1989.

It's surprising is that Neil Tennant just rolled with it in the PSB cover version. I'd have thought it'd be the sort of English up with which he would not put.

I think "Tom Sawyer" by Rush is more about Huckleberry Finn, but I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"What they say about his company..." Who? Becky Thatcher? The daughter of the county judge? What are they saying about her? Tell me.

Acc to this, it was based both on Tom Sawyer (as an individualist) and Pye Dubois's "Louie the Warrior": https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-the-song-tom-sawyer-by-rush

Lil Yachty re: his like "My new bitch yellow / she blow that dick like a cello": "I fucked up. I thought Squidward played the cello. He don't. That's a flute. I fucked up."

(also, he actually plays the clarinet)

"What you say about his company is what you say about society" - my guess is this more about respecting individuals' non-conformity and freedom of association (e.g. Tom skipping school and hanging out with whoever he wanted); I don't think Peart was racist at all but I'm not sure this was really meant to be a statement about racism, except in the sense that everyone should have the same individual freedoms.

"Dictation" can mean "the act of commanding arbitrarily" so it is correctly uses in "It's Alright".

Perhaps, but the phrase is not idiomatic and sounds a little strange. Anglophones do not describe North Korea as a place where "dictation is being forced". We call it a dictatorship.

"What you say about his company is what you say about society" -- My interpretation was more like, whatever horrible things they would say about Jim, well, you could say the same damn things about society as a whole.

That would probably be a more meaningful statement. I'm just not sure it's what Peart intended.

He was obsessed with themes of solitude, individualism, non-conformity, and liberty at that time, including on much of the rest of the album, and it's what comes across in his quotes about this song as well.

Darren Hanlon's "Cheat the Future": "Over three hundred thousand stars make up the solar system"
I saw him perform this live, and beforehand, he explained that he realized too late that the solar system has just one star (and was mixing up "galaxy" and "solar system").

I think a lot of "Tom Sawyer" can be explained by the fact that it was slapped together rather quickly. It doesn't make tons of sense, just sounds sorta cool.

Usually Peart's lyrics are quite transparent, but "Tom Sawyer" makes no sense to me. Unlike the New World Man or the Digital Man, I don't even know what we're supposed to think about this character.

Back to the main topic, I think Kanye does this a lot in a kind of troll-y way. The one that comes to mind is "I keep it 300, like the Romans."

Lyrically, "Tom Sawyer" is credited to Pye Dubois and Peart, and was apparently adapted from Dubois's poem, which I can't find rn, so that's probably why it's different from Peart's usual style and may not all fully cohere. I don't think it's incomprehensible that the character is a tough-minded free thinker whom we are not supposed to put down as arrogant, though.

but did he con his pals into painting that damn fence?

Ha, I think that might be what "he gets high on you/And the space he invades, he gets by on you" is getting at - he looks out for himself, even at your expense sometimes. It's about today's Tom Sawyer, so a modern-day warrior who is like Twain's hero.

The space he invades is clearly a reference to the popular arcade video game "Space Invaders."

However I suspect Peart was actually thinking of Frogger.

It doesn't make tons of sense, just sounds sorta cool.

Very willing to let this be the final word on this subject!

In "Durham Town (The Leavin')" Roger Whittaker, when singing of the river whose banks he used to sit on as a boy, confuses the Tyne with the river that Durham actually stands on, the Wear.

In "Lee Remick" by the Go-Betweens, Robert Forster confuses Ireland, where he claims the eponymous heroine comes from, with the USA, where she actually came from.

Xpost I remember someone writing into Points of view about that one, after Roger Whittaker had performed it on Top of the Pops. In 1968.

To be fair, in the song he sits on the banks of the Tyne watching the ships leaving. He doesn't say they were leaving Durham. They'd be more likely leaving Jarrow, South Shields or Newcastle.

(late 1969,apparently)

Hefner's 'Mary Lee' has the line "this dear has trestles hanging from her ankles", he definitely did not mean this

Jarvis Cocker wrote the song 'Manon' for Pulp about a man, without realising it's a women's name

TS: 'Lee Remick' by the Go-Betweens vs 'Lee Remick' by Hefner

George Harrison "I want to tell you"

The middle-8 has it "But if I seem to be unkind, its only me it's not my mind that is confusing things"

A couple years later he admitted he should have had it the other way round, ie "But if I seem to be unkind, it isn't me it's just my mind that is confusing things"

I wonder if he ever sang it live with the corrected lyric?

In Fickle Friends’ recent song “Turns Me Bad” the vocalist sings:

“There's something about you that I'm craving for
The way that your body makes me want more
The way that I'm losing my school of thought”

I assume she means “train of thought”, but I guess causing someone to lose an entire school of thought would be quite something.

Ooh, good one.

In "Down at the Arcade", Lou Reed confuses the Temptations with the Four Tops.

I suspect the Four Tops song 'Reach Out I'll Be There' is what he had in mind, not the Temptations' 'I'll Be There'.

Dan Fogelberg's "Hard to Say" includes the lyric

It's never easy and it's never clear
Who's to navigate and who's to steer
And so you flounder, drifting ever near the rocks

I think he meant "founder." But is that confusion or just not-quite-right usage?

I think "flounder" is correct, actually. One of its definitions is "to be in serious difficulty". To founder is to come to grief on the rocks, so he's not quite there yet.

In "Down at the Arcade", Lou Reed confuses the Temptations with the Four Tops.

LOL. Lou was often confused in his songs.

Although as anagram points out, 22 years after Lou's song, the Temptations did record a song called "I'll Be There". Confusion or startling prognostication?

In the Springsteen song "Wages of Sin," he sings "We keep paying wages of sin for the wrongs that we've done." But wages of sin are something you earn, not something you pay.

Lou was often confused in his songs.

Was he? I'd love to be half that confused, lol.

One example I did uncover (which I mentioned on The Blue Mask thread): as far as I can tell, via some online research, Syracuse U. didn't play a football game on 11/22/63 – which calls into question the details of a verse in "The Day John Kennedy Died." But Lou may have be misremembering, or (of course) using poetic license.

(I’m also assuming “upstate in a bar” means Syracuse, but he may have been somewhere else.)

Have college football teams ever played early on a Friday afternoon? Maybe the day after Thanksgiving, but 11/22/63 wasn't that.

In "Sad Song" by the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed is confused. He claims to be in love with Mary, Queen of Scots, stating that in 1493 'everything is like it should be'. However Mary was not born until 1542. Moreover he claims Henry V would have broken his heart, yet Henry died in 1422.

Maybe his European History class which covered those dates was that same afternoon.

tbf a lot of his study time was probably spent trying to comprehend how someone shot John Kennedy in the face.

In "Sad Song", Lou did admit "how wrong (he) can be".

in that fucking journey song steve perry sings that his character was "born and raised in south detroit". there is no area in detroit referred to as south detroit, though there is a neighbourhood called southwest detroit

Compare "Kids in America"

New York to East California
There's a new wave coming, I warn ya

wtf is "East California"?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Eastern_California_county_map.png/250px-Eastern_California_county_map.png

I don't know either, but it looks like it has something to do with going back to Annandale.

wtf is "East California"?

it's near south detroit