Gig bloopers - did I sing that???

Subject: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Maryrrf
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 09:16 AM

Like most people who do anything remotely Irish I've had a lot of gigs recently. Gigs that take place right after work are hard because my work absolutely drains and exhausts me and I can't stand it(I'm gearing myself up for a change of jobs)but that's another topic. Anyway I find that fatigue is a big factor in forgetting lyrics, etc. This week I sang (by request) Fields of Athenry. I always try to do it well, with proper emotion, but somehow I sang "Against the Crammin' and the Frown" instead of "Famine and the Crown". Quick glance told me nobody noticed but then I had to continue the song while supressing giggles. My last song was "The Parting Glass" which I try to do in a solemn, moving way only instead of saying "I'll gently rise and softly call" I sang "I'll gently rise and softly fall". Ridiculous image came to my mind and it was hard to supress the laughter, but as far as I could tell, although everybody seemed to be listening they didn't appear to notice. Just goes back to our stage fright thread - even if you make a mistake nothing terrible will happen!

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Charley Noble
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 09:37 AM

There's nothing can fill my heart with more cheer,
Than to lie in a pub with my face in my beer.

Alternative last lines to "The Old Rose & Crown" which cropped up unbidden one night.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: gnu
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 10:09 AM

" although everybody seemed to be listening they didn't appear to notice."

Simple explanation is that the Irish are a well mannered and conservative bunch, especially in a pub.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 10:37 AM

Well, either that or they were watching the singer's chest instead of listeniing to the words! :>)

A

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: MMario
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 11:13 AM

When I was learning "Sailor's Prayer" for some reason the finla line of the verse kept coming out "Who sell bad steel to whalers"

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 11:19 AM

Honestly, there is one song where I "spoonerise" a couple of words consistently, but I seem to be blocking the memory at the moment.

Not specific to gigging, but I have, a couple of times, started belting out the chorus to a parody when someone was doing the straight version. I'm not exactly quiet, but usually I'm quick enough to catch myself.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 12:15 PM

Not a gig, but in church! There's a hymn that is usually sing as line1, line2, line3,line4 but at Easter is more commonly sung line1, Alleluia, Alleluia, line2, Alleluia, Alleluia etc etc.

I started singing the long version when every else was singing the shorter form and was a complete verse out of sync with everyone else before they managed to kick me into noticing!

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: sophocleese
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 12:52 PM

My partner likes to sing The Millworker's Song but he has a hard time remembering to sing "My grandfather blew in off the water." instead of "My grandfather blew off in the water." A small change perhaps but it makes a difference.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: gnu
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 02:51 PM

I know this doesn't count, but the lads and I used to sing, "And never ya dare, to go give old McGuire, the F***IN CHAIR." Late in the evening at a family reunion, I gave eyes all round and received nods, so I did it the way we always did, but none of the other lads did. Embarassing ? Slightly !

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 04:46 PM

And then there was the memorable moment when, during a rendition of John Prine's "Paradise", instead of "Mr. Peabody's coal train" I sang - loud and clear - "Mr. Coalbody's pee train".

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: khandu
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 06:33 PM

Not really a "gig" as such, but nonetheless, it was before quite a few people. I wasn't singing, I was give a sermon (years ago, when I was a minister).

I was speaking of Samson killing 1000 Philistines with the jaw bone of an ass. But when I said it, it came out "the ass bone of a Jew". A few people giggled but I could not figure out why. I reiterated my point and said it again. More laughter from more people.

To my embarrassment, I actually said it a third time before my own ears caught what I had said. By this time, the whole congregation was ROTFLTAO!

I have made a few spoonerisms while singing, but they do not bother me after the ass I made of myself on the pulpit.

khandu

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 06:49 PM

Not *my* gig, but I once alerted those present at a sing to an upcoming concert by the New Lost Silly Ramblers.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: gnu
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 06:50 PM

A friend of mine that I met in Wabush, Labrador, had a radio program in Cold Lake, Alberta, a Canadian Air Force base. John left his employ, never being able to recover from report one day that the pilot of a fighter had ejaculated to safety.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: John P
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 08:03 PM

Once when we were doing "The Trees Grow High", instead of singing "all the young men playing at the ball" my wife splurted out "all the young men playing with their balls". We had a huge audience but sadly enough I don't think anyone noticed.

John

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: 53
Date: 16 Mar 02 - 11:30 PM

They are fun to look back on, but terrible when they are happening.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 04:34 AM

We did a presentation on "Songs of the American Civil War" a few years ago.

We did the parody of "Hard Times Come Again No More" called "Hard Crackers Come Again No More." When we did it, we had a hard time singing "hard crackers" instead of the "hard Time" we were all conditioned to - but afterwards, I found myself singing "hard crackers" instead of "hard times."

In the same presentation, our lead sang that immortal line "He is trampling out the vintage where the rapes of grath are stored."

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: SeanM
Date: 17 Mar 02 - 04:43 AM

Not so much a 'spoonerism' but still a wonderful blooper for a group I was with...

We were singing "South Australia" acapella, and keep in mind we'd been doing this one for a while... As we were rolling along, we simultaneously all forgot the same verse. Kinda ground us to a halt for a moment as we all did the "what the hell was that?" check...

M

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Genie
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 03:23 AM

Maybe it's early stage Alzheimers--dunno. I have a strong tendency towards auditory processing of information, so homophonic bloopers often crop up. Spoonerism also "R me."

Here are a few of my best bloopers.

Song: Hey, Good Lookin'

I sang: How's about keepin' somethin' up for me?
(instead of "How's about cookin' somethin' up with me?)
I repeated the line several times throughout the song!

Song: "Harrigan"
I sang "H-A-double R-I-G-A-N spells Harrigan, Tired of all the Irish blood that's in me..."
instead of "Proud of all the Irish blood..."

Song: Edelweiss
I sometimes spoonerise: "Blossom of snow, may you groom and blow,
Groom and blow forever"

Song: Easter Parade
Don't ask me why, but on occasion, I can't quit singing:
...On the Avenue, Swift Avenue..." instead, of course, of "Fifth Avenue."

And then, in the printed word realm, excellent speller though I be, I printed song books up with "Cockles and Muscles" in them, repeating "muscles" for "mussles" all the way though the song. Singing the song from the book, of course, did not help me catch the error for a long time!

Genie

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 04:38 AM

We sometimes sing 'New York Girls - All you New York girls can you poke the dancer and rather rudely in 'Step it up Mary' sing 'show your c**t to the electric man.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Watson
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 05:50 AM

In Polly on the Shore, it's all too easy to sing:
And here am I, lying on the bleeding deck
instead of:

And here am I, lying a-bleeding on the deck.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 06:12 AM

Even when I sing the right words they somehow turn against me. Hammerite & I sing an old Alison Moyet song called Bad Connection - which in the chorus has the line "I've been calling all day". Unfortunately as we sang it I started to hear it as "I've been Colin all day". As mentioned elsewhere, people are not always paying attention - so there were a lot of bewildered faces when I said afterward that I had not in fact been Colin at all that day - Colin himself looked particularly worried...
And then there was the horrible moment when I was singing a wondrously soulful rendition of The Water is Wide, and the entire pub and myself simultaneously noticed the double-entendre inherent in "I put my finger into some soft bush". It was hard to keep a straight face after that. I think I actually blushed..

Kris

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 08:49 AM

Hopefully, Art will tell of a version a friend of his sang to The Golden Vanity, very funny.

When we do Patsy Fagan it's impossible not to sing Fatsy Pagan.

And every once in a while I scare hell out of the boys by doing "I slit the sheet the sheet I slit, upon the slitted sheet I sit." to an elegant crowd in a theater.

Don

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: GUEST,Lynn
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 02:51 PM

In a recording session once I was doing a gospel tune called "The Old Account", singing in the first verse:

"...an old account was standing of singers unforgiven".

I should have been 'sinners', but then us singers need a good deal of forgiveness too!

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Spartacus
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 03:24 PM

It's funny this thread appeared today. I had a gig on saturday, and a steel guitar playing friend of mine was playing a variation of "walking blues". One of his lines ended with "feet" and he forgot the next line. He improvised with "push my meat". I don't know what that means, but it scares me a little....

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Musicman
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 08:39 PM

ummmmmmm...... started the song with the whole band, instrumental intro........

and drew a total blank on the melody i was supposed to be singing......

did a quick switch to another song..... never did go back and try it again.... :))

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Maryrrf
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 09:07 PM

Yes, those total blank outs happen and sometimes it's so unexpected - it could be a song you've been singing since you were three. Must have been terrible when things like that happened back in the days of live television!

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 18 Mar 02 - 11:13 PM

Well how about "spiralling memory loss" I was starting From "Earth to Heaven" and got the first verse out just fine. I started into the second verse: blank! so I decided to quickly hit the third verse instead: blank again! I stopped and went to another Dave Macon song, "All in Down and Out Blues". I got past "Hippity hop to the bucket shop" but total crash. By this time I was panicking! I joked a bit, trying desperately to save things when some lovely person called out "we love you anyway, Tom!" and all at once I got back on track and did a great set. Never did find out who had called out.

CB

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From:
Date: 19 Mar 02 - 04:25 AM

When sining "Grey Cockeral", I streuggle with the line.."So snowly were her milk white breasts" I always want to sing "So milky were her snow white breasts".

Ho hum

Paul

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Genie
Date: 19 Mar 02 - 05:21 AM

Every time I sing "Snowbird, " I have a hard-to-suppress urge to sing, "Spread your f**ing wings and fly away." (instead of "tiny wings")

Blackouts - - ah, yes-- it's easy to sort of go on automatic pilot when repeating the same set of songs over and over. This last week I did a bunch of St. Patrick's parties for retirement residences, with the oft-requested US favorites, e.g., Irish Eyes, Galway Bay, etc. being repeated several times a day. I was singing "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral" at a party on Sunday, and when it came to the second verse, I spontaneously slipped into the second verse of Mother, Machree and got got halfway through the second line before I realized I had merged two songs. (They have very similar chord structure, meter, etc.) The audience, who were singing along from songbooks, noticed right away, of course.

Genie

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Janie
Date: 19 Mar 02 - 09:01 AM

Just want to thank all of you for sharing your Freudian slips and such. I laughed until I had tears running reading some of these.

Janie

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Genie
Date: 19 Mar 02 - 02:31 PM

khandu,
Re: your "the ass bone of a Jew," the Rev. Spooner couldn't've said it better!

LMAO

Genie §;-D

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 19 Mar 02 - 07:17 PM

It wasn't a spoonerism, but this past weekend, we were singing one of 2 songs that have the *very same* intro, and are in the *very same* key. The person who starts off the song could not get the melody right. He wanted to sing the lyrics of the correct song, and the melody of the other, and all he could do was look at the rest of us with this "What the hell is happening here?" look on his face, until I sang the right melody for him...

with the wrong words. I don't think he'll forgive me anytime soon, but it got a good laugh.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: GUEST,Skivee
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 01:06 AM

From a noted local Scottish fiddler: She was singing in front of hundreds,on tour in her youth and got to part of a song about a lass disgusted with the men. Instead of singing," Before I'd have a man, I'd rather take a parrot", she sang,"Before I'd take a man, I'd rather take a carrot". it took a beat for all, including her to realize the implication.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 12:14 AM

hoo boy! I'd a luved to have been there!

CB

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 04:18 AM

I was rehearsing a song with another ranger. She was singing "When I Was A Fair Maid" and I was coming in on the choruses. When it got to "I'll put on my cap and feathers..." I misheard and sang it as "I'll put on my captain's feathers..."! We got a good laugh at my mondegreen.

chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Jim Krause
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 02:51 PM

Closest thing that immediately comes to mind is the time I was doing a late night gig in a bar. It was coming up on closing time and I had the time to do about two songs before the barkeep called for last round. It was his call "Last call for alcohol!" that woke me up. I had actually fallen asleep standing up, and SINGING all the while. I have no idea what I was singing.
Jim

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Madam Gashee
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 03:38 PM

One of my favourites was

"Shitter clip, the Marco Polo" (instead of clipper ship.

We tend to hold our breath everytime he sings that now!

Also from Ben Backstay
"At night his ghostless head appears..."
(not headless ghost!)

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: GUEST,maryrrf
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 03:45 PM

Today I ran into somebody who'd been to the concert where I committed the two what I considered blatant and very obvious bloopers that started this thread. He was sitting up front and looked very attentive through the whole thing. He told me how much he'd enjoyed it (I was relieved because I hadn't felt I was in very good form that night). I asked him casually if he'd noticed that I'd gotten some of the lyrics mixed up, probably due to the fact that I was tired after a hard week at work. He said he hadn't and I think he was telling the truth.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: GUEST,ciarili
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 07:19 PM

There was a local guy, Carlos ???, who used to do Cat Stevens' Wild World, and he used to sing:

But if you wanna leave, take good care I hope you have a lot of nice things to wear But remember there's a lot of bad underwear.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: JennieG
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 07:26 PM

At a festival last year a singer was presenting a workshop and had a couple of sweet young things singing chorus with him...when they got halfway through one song the girls collapsed in giggles and couldn't continue singing. They gathered themselves together and tried again...same result. So Duncan told us why - it seems that in rehearsal, instead of singing "furtive parsons" the girls sang "fartive persons" and every time they tried to sing that song they couldn't get near that line without breaking up. Of course after that the audience held their breath but the singers all got it right!
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 08:23 AM

We were singing "Bully in the Alley" to help introduce nautical writer James Nelson at a bookstore signing. The chorus is supposed to run:

So help me, Bob, I'm bully in the alley!

And I burst forth with:

So help me, GOD, I'm bully in the alley!

Reducing my shanty chorus mates to either hysterical giggles or slack-jawed shock.

Oh, well, that's what the original line probably meant in dockside rhyming slang.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Mr Happy
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 05:40 AM

i sang the rising of the moon at a fc in weston some years ago and the audience erupted into an enormous giffaw when i came out with 'and a thousand men were flashing by the rising of the moon'

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Callie
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 12:20 AM

In "Bread and Roses" I once sang

"No more the DRUNKEN IDLER"

instead of

"no more the drudge and idler".

And to my great embarassment, I once introduced a song about Bougainville freedom as "here's a song from Papua New Guinea". D'OH!!!! Perhaps you have to live in a Pacific Island nation to understand what a terrible blunder this is!!

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: TonyK
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 01:53 PM

I was tired and on auto-pilot late in the evening, trying to reach the crowd in a country club bar where everyone was my father's age. I decided to do Carolina In The Morning and didn't realize I had sung the blisteringly bawdy first line of the parody until a friend of my wife's called out from the back "Oh Tony!". Too late to pull that one back through the microphone. That was 20 years ago and I can still hear her say it as clear as a bell. But, as has been said earlier, no one else seemed to notice. But if I could have one 'do-over', I'd take it right there, for sure.
TonyK

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: GUEST,Sonja
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 10:19 PM

In the song "Soon It's Gonna Rain," from "The Fantasticks!" there is the line, "...Then we'll let it rain, rain pell mell." Every time I hear it or sing it, I want to sing, "Then we'll let it rain, rain like hell..."

Happiness, that's a GREAT image--all those "thousand men... flashing" in the moonlight!

Sonja

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Trevor
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 09:10 AM

Keith, who gets the music for our band Rapsquillion together, snuck in a page for a gig with, instead of '..the glory of his resurrection...', '...the glory of his red erection...'. On stage is not a good place to be confronted with something of that ilk!

The little chamber choir I sing with were doing something a few months back - can't remember what it was called, but there was a line in it 'Ah, said the cow....'. I'm sure that only our director and I realised how it sounded. The fact that most of the rest of the choir are pretty straight-laced made it even funnier until I could control it no longer and exploded into laughter along with the director, and couldn't get anywhere near the line for the rest of the evening.

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: wlisk
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 11:10 AM

During practice our group was doing Midnight on the Water, to which I sang the words "Midnight on the squater a long time ago." We all cracked up, but every now and then when we perform that song, a little urge comes over me....

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: PageOfCups
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 07:56 PM

Two stories about gig bloopers, both involving "Whiskey in the Jar." (Fortunately, I was in the audience, not on the stage!)

One: The singer was having a rough night, I guess. First he promoted Captain Farrell to Colonel. I looked up at him, surprised, and saw that he knew he'd changed the lyrics.   Then the robber took the loot "home to Nancy," instead of Jenny. My companions and I exchanged glances, and one of us said, quietly, "No wonder Jenny turns him in!" The singer must have been able to read lips, because he fumbled a bit, demoted Farrell back to Captain the next verse, and Nancy wasn't heard from again.

Two: I'd seen a Mondegreen for the line "stand and deliver for you are a bold deceiver" which went "stand on your liver for you are a gold retriever," and I had to share it with a friend who's a singer. He'd already sung the song earlier, but decided to do it again with the Mondegreen so see if anybody else in the audience noticed. When nobody did, *he* almost broke up. Oh well.

PoC

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: GUEST,Gorgeous Gary
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 09:53 PM

PoC: I actually have a parody somewhere in my tapes of "Whiskey In The Jar" about a faithful golden retriever...

The one blooper I can remember came early in the a.m. at a filk convention. I was trying to sing Christine Lavin's "Ballad of Doris and Edwin: The Movie". In the original song, their meeting at the elevator is described as "His hands were full/she held the door for him/and he said thanks."

Due probably to the lack of sleep, I suffered pronoun trouble and sang "His hands were full/**HE** held the door for him/and he WHOOPS!" (as both the circle and I broke into laughter...).

-- Gary

Subject: RE: Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
From: Carly
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 10:35 PM

When I first began singing in public, at the urging of my college roommate and lifelong friend Merle Schlesinger( now Roesler,) I felt safer singing with her than alone. Eventually, she talked me into a solo (I'll play banjo for you, said she,) for one of our first big gigs. Over and over I practiced, working hard to keep my enunciation
clear. Came the big night, I launched into Misty Moisty Morning and the words poured out.I was elated-I can sing!-until out came,very clearly, "I'll plough and sow and reap and mow, and you shall spit and sin." ! I looked at Merle-big mistake- and she began to giggle.
The audience laughed, I laughed, we all laughed-Merle and I tried to go on, but it was hopeless. We never did finish that song.

Carly Gewirz