Context: due to the LadBaby parody version coming out of nowhere to be Christmas number one, I’ve had Starship’s We Built This City in my head periodically for the last twenty-four hours (which is an absolute blessing, ’cause I was terrified it was going to be the LadBaby version that would be the earworm). However, because I am the queen of misheard lyrics, my brain keeps singing the wrong words.
Earworm brain:
Mark Coney plays ‘La Bamba’
Listen to the radio
Don’t you remember
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
Logical brain (after about fifty repetitions of this):
Hang on a minute. Who’s Mark Coney?
Music lover brain:
Was he a DJ? That would make sense. I’ll go look him up on Wikipedia.
Logical brain:
I don’t think so. I think we’re hearing the words wrong.
General knowledge brain:
I think it’s actually ‘Marconi’. You know, the radio guy, who invented the radio, or something. I vaguely remember something about him from when we got Dad that book on amateur radio as a Christmas present.
Logical brain:
That would make sense.
Evidence-obsessive brain:
Let’s look the lyrics up online to be absolutely sure.
Google:
Marconi plays the mamba
Listen to the radio
Don’t you remember
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
…the mamba? Really?
General knowledge brain:
I was right about Marconi though.
Logical brain:
And it probably makes more sense if you factor in the time period of the song’s narrative.
Music lover brain:
I’m…I’m kind of attached to Mark Coney now. Whoever he is. And besides, I like ‘La Bamba’.
Evidence-obsessive brain:
But…but…but it’s wrong! Those are the wrong words!
Creative brain:
Nothing’s ever stopped me from making up my own words to songs before. I can name at least three songs where it’s always my own version of the lyrics that gets in our head rather than the official version.
Evidence-obsessive brain:
But there’s a difference between deliberately inventing alternative lyrics and getting them wrong because you’ve misheard them. The latter is wrong. And we’re never wrong, are we? We strive to be…not wrong.
Music lover brain:
…I suppose so.
Creative brain:
I’ll sit down and write a full set of alternative lyrics, then. Except…no, I can’t, because LadBaby literally just did that, and so it would be unoriginal.
Evidence-obsessive brain:
Good! So we’re all agreed, then. It’s going to be the correct version of the lyrics that gets in our head from now on.
<five minutes later>
Earworm brain:
Mark Coney plays ‘La Bamba’
Listen to the radio
Don’t you remember
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
