2003-09-19 - 6:49 p.m.
It's occurred to me before, and now it occurs to me again, and I still don't know what to make of it: buried deep in the irritating singsongy hook of J. Geils Band's "Centerfold" is a musical phrase that for some reason so reliably calls to mind that Band-Aid jingle about being "stuck on Band-Aid brand" that I cannot prevent myself from imagining cheerful-looking wounded children singing in their backyards. I don't know how seriously the band wanted the song taken, but it's definitely harder than they might have hoped.And speaking of juvenility and "Centerfold," as soon as I was reminded of the song's similarity to the annoying jingle, my brain offered this little prize to accompany it, like the olive in some twisted and sinister martini: years ago during a conversation about misheard song lyrics, a friend of mine told me that he knew someone who could not resist singing along with "Centerfold" without grafting on a layer of sophomoric thought: "my anus is the center hole." This is where I might normally offer something snide and mocking, but I prefer to let the young man's perspicacious observation speak entirely for itself.
I will, however, capitalize on the convenient song-lyric segue by presenting you with this:
The Very First Mirabile Visu Song Lyric Challenge!
Here's how to play.
1. Read the lyrics below. They are the lines of the first verse of a song which I, deaf to its pleading, have shoved mercilessly line by line through the semantic meat-grinder of Multibabel. The lines below are the result of five passes each, like this: innocent lyric -> mangled French -> mangled English -> mangled German -> mangled English -> mangled Italian -> mangled English -> mangled Portuguese -> mangled English -> mangled Spanish -> barely-recognizable English.
2. Attempt to discern what song I have Multibabelled.
The winner of the Song Lyric Challenge will, in true Strong Bad fashion, receive a high-five if male, a make-out if female.
Now then: read, cogitate, de-Babel:
I lack to the kiss the treason
the kiss without scruple of the vanity
smooth and you who you blacken and vellutato
hard to satisfy next to me
and the recognitions of all he landslide and the eyes and the heart
and that works in the startings of the espesamiento of the Geizes
as this begins it of small he little necessity
lasci to the external course hardly my part of the piece
