From: flaps@dgp.toronto.edu   
      
   I heard the Talking Heads song "Psycho Killer" on the radio yesterday and it   
   reminded me of some stories I heard in classic UL transmission style.   
      
   Although first I have to comment, omfg, the singing on that recording is   
   terrible.   
      
   Anyway.  When I was of late teen age, someone told me with confidence that   
   the original lyrics to that song, instead of "Psycho Killer, qu'est-ce   
   que c'est" were "Psycho Chicken, what the fuck".   
      
   I guess in the early 1980s the concept that that would be song lyrics was   
   somehow scandalous on its own, apart from any question of broadcast.   
   (I don't think I found it scandalous because I was into hardcore punk   
   music at the time.)   
      
   Ordinarily the meaninglessness of the alleged "original" lyrics here would be   
   a clue, but they're no worse than the real lyrics, so we don't have that.   
      
   And I was thinking of the other such urban legend I heard, also at about   
   the same time I think, which was an anti-Beatles story.  It's about the   
   chorus to "Baby You're a Rich Man", which seems particularly non-sensical.   
   The urban legend said that the line "Baby you're a rich man too" was   
   about Brian Epstein and the original lyrics were really "Baby you're a   
   rich f-g Jew".   
      
   This latter legend, while presumably equally false, has a greater   
   plausibility to it because the alleged original lyrics are coherent   
   (albeit repulsive), and the real lyrics are not.   
      
   More generally I think that both of these legends are filling a vacuum   
   left by apparently incoherent lyrics.  To me the obvious hypothesis is   
   that these people wanted to write a song but didn't have enough to say.   
   But if you aren't cynical enough to adopt that hypothesis, maybe you   
   think that there was an original song with meaning and it was subsequently   
   changed because it was outrageous in some way or another.   
      
   But... these are the only two instances of this I've heard.  It seems to me   
   that this ought to be a standard urban legend motif, but two examples don't   
   justify that term.  Are there other examples you've heard?   
      
   (Let's, though, not turn this into a "misheard lyrics" thread, because   
   that is boring.  All sorts of morons think that songs contain all sorts   
   of stupid things, but then they learn the truth and that's that.  What I'm   
   talking about here is where everyone knows that the lyrics aren't _really_   
   "psycho chicken" but the UL is that that's what they were "originally"   
   in some sense.)   
      
   regards,   
   ajr   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)