![blinded by the light wrapped up like a douche blinded by the light wrapped up like a douche](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Rpq35wyDi7I/hqdefault.jpg)
Except that his lyrics aren’t quite right either. It ends with one of them cracking and setting everyone straight. But then it turns out that their lyrics are at least as ridiculous. One of them starts singing “Blinded by the Light” with ridiculous lyrics. The skit involves four friends playing poker. And indeed, toward the end of my years in graduate school, I came upon this skit from a very short lived sketch comedy show The Vacant Lot. So why not douches or Chevy 270 engines?Īll of this is grist for comedy. But while “Hooray” is a very funny song with much to say that is even more true today than in 1937, “Blinded” really has nothing to say. The opening lyrics are so engaging that most people forget what happens afterward. “Blinded by the Light” also has that “Hooray for Hollywood” problem.
![blinded by the light wrapped up like a douche blinded by the light wrapped up like a douche](https://pics.awwmemes.com/iam-fire-amideathe-the-desolation-ofsmaug-blinded-by-the-light-53493147.png)
But more broadly it’s a metaphor getting on with your life and getting out your hometown.” In addition to everything else, you’d believe me because that is what most people think the meaning of every Bruce Springsteen song is. So the song is about hesitating at the start of race when the light changes color. How about this one, “The deuce, of course, was short for the Chevy 270, straight-6 engine popular among drag racers in the 70s. And admit it, you’d believe me if I gave you some lame meaning for the line. What’s brilliant is that we humans are so great at finding meaning in meaningless things that doubtless millions of people have given those lyrics some meaning. In the Earth Band version, it is supposedly “Revved up like a deuce.” But of course, everyone hears, “Wrapped up like a douche.” But also, the original line makes the meaning clear, “Cut loose like a deuce.” What meaning? No meaning, just a pleasant rhyme. One is that he doesn’t pronounce “deuce” as “douche” the way that Chris Thompson does in the Earth Band. For those of you similarly in the dark, it is, “An unsecured loan certificate issued by a company, backed by general credit rather than by specified assets.” But I heard what I think is a better line out of context, “But death insures equality and dubious integrity.” It is only at the end of the verse that Ian pays off the metaphor with, “Their small-town eyes will gape at you / In dull surprise when payment due / Exceeds accounts received…” That’s one of the reasons that Janis Ian is a great songwriter and I’m just a guy with a knack for appreciating great songwriting.īut by far, the best lyric mishearing is from Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s version of “Blinded by the Light.” The original version by Bruce Springsteen doesn’t really have the problem for a couple of reasons. My favorite is in the Janis Ian song “At Seventeen.” One line toward the end of the song is, “In debentures of quality and dubious integrity.” I can probably be forgiven, because I had no idea what a “debenture” was. "Blinded by the light.wrapped up like a douche.Like many people, I have a great love of misheard lyrics-especially my own. I know Springsteen wrote the original, but I have this suspicion that Manfred Mann sniffed a bunch of pixie dust and changed the words.īy the way, if you want to know more about this song, you can wiki it in this case, I think ignorance is bliss. This is the song that sounds like it's just rhyming random words. Especially 'In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat.' That line may have saved my life." I know exactly what you're talking about. Says, "Dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in it's funny bone,Īnd some new-moan chaperone was standin' in the corner,Īnd some fresh-sown moonstone was messin' with his frozen zone, reminding him of romanceĮvery time I hear this song, I think, "Wow Manfred Mann, you sure have a way with words. Some brimstone baritone anticyclone rolling stone preacher from the east Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong,Īnd go-cart Mozart was checkin' out the weather chart to see if it was safe outsideĪnd little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a ride Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin, With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older, In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded By the Light Lyrics So I guess it's not "Blinded by the light / wrapped up like a douche" after all. With the SURU show over, there's only one way to recover: a "Lyrics In Print" post.