April 20th, 2009
Psychoderelict: Part 4
For the longest time, I had thought that the line, “How can you stand this solitude after all that bloody fun?” was “How can you stand the solitude up on that bloody farm?” Ray High has a mansion in the country, after all, so I thought he had a farm as well. There is a name for mishearing a line or a lyric in this way, altering the meaning of what you hear, and it’s ‘mondegreen.’ There are websites of mondegreens, but do you have any from your own experience? Put them here!
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
The main character of Alex Robinson’s 2005 graphic novel, Tricked, is called Ray Beam. In the story, he was the lead singer with a chart-topping, ultra-popular band called The Tricks, but left them to pursue a solo career. As the story starts, he is booze-soaked, depressed, has been suffering from writer’s block for four years, and is thoroughly, thoroughly punchable, but living in a mansion, much like Ray High from Psychoderelict. Townshend, of course, pursued a solo career both during and after his time with The Who, and his last album, before Psychoderelict, was The Iron Man, a children’s musical based on the book by Ted Hughes, in 1989 – four years before Psychoderelict. I wonder how much inspiration Robinson drew from Townshend and Psychoderelict for his graphic novel. I remember a small Ray High/Ray Beam moment in Tricked, when Ray’s manager suggests the fairly awful title ‘Hi Beam’ for his next solo album.
Tricked is a terrific, complex, interesting yarn, and well recommended. I’d like to write more about it, but I’m afraid it’s been years since I read it and I don’t have a copy with me at the moment.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I’m so happy to have found that word – mondegreen.