Life in a Song

We were deeply grieved yesterday to hear of the sudden death of Michael Jackson from cardiac arrest. We mourn the loss of a brilliant performer who struggled personally and tried to help all of us find redemption through his music. He leaves behind an enormous artistic legacy and our sadness at what might have been had he continued. Thank you, Michael, for the music.

Alright, Okay, You Win

Congratulations Justin Ritchie, from Washington, DC you are the big winner of our mondegreen challenge!

Justin correctly identified "When the world gets naked, hun" as being a misheard lyric from Girls Just Want to Have Fun. He also knew that the correct lyric was “When the working day is done”, and that it was originally sung by Cyndi Lauper. In the process we learned that there are more than a few other recordings out there including one by Greg Laswell (who knew it was really a ballad?), Miley Cyrus and a band with an unprintable name but an oddly catchy version. Being ladies, we can only tell you that the band’s name starts with Star.

Justin, your copy of Hit Me With Your Pet Shark: Misheard Lyrics of the 1980’s is on its way. By the way, Cyndi will be in DC at the 9:30 club on August 12th, maybe you can get her to sign it! The photo comes from Cyndi's website, doesn't she look AMAZING?

Once Upon a Summertime

Being languid creatures by nature, we redheads often dream of spending summer poolside, sipping exotic drinks and reading high-minded tomes whilst being waited upon by handsome (yet learned) pool boys. Alas, we burn at the slightest touch of sunlight, and have some serious habits to support like eating and paying the rent. Exit one fantasy, enter more fulfilling pursuits. We’re quite looking forward to spending much of the next two months teaching and coaching performers. Together we’ll be doing master classes for singers of all stripes in Delaware on July 11th and in the Philadelphia area on July 18th. Even better still Rick Jensen, composer, pianist, arranger, and mensch (that’s Yiddish for one hip cat) will be joining us in these excursions. We promise luculent and coruscating pedagogy for all. (That’s intellectual speak for we’ll be easy to understand and really funny. We just discovered Eric’s Lexicon of Obscure and Cool Words, and are dying to try out a few).

In addition to our joint pursuits we’ve got a few other things going on. For Miss Laurel that means her annual teaching stints at Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp and The Cabaret Conference at Yale University. While at Yale she’ll be sharing the bill with Amanda McBroom for an evening of great tunes on Saturday, August 1st. Miss Wendy Lane will be heading off in the opposite direction to spend some time in L.A. working on a new project, the details of which will be spilled in abundance very soon.

Along the way, we’ll be filing reports, posting photos, and sharing it all with you. You can always keep track of our whereabouts by checking out the “Where in the World are the Redheads” section of the blog, in its usual spot to the right of this column. Have a salubrious summer! (there we go again…)

XO

Your Redheads

PS The fabu photo came from another one of our favorite sites My Vintage Vogue. A great inspiration for stylish daydreams.

Tuesday’s Mondegreen Moment

It’s dreary, it’s dark, it’s damp, and so to amuse ourselves on this sodden Tuesday morning we picked up our trusty mondegreen book, closed our eyes, opened to a page, pointed and this is the wisdom we received from the great mondegreen spirit…

When the world gets naked, hun...

Recognize it? Perhaps you’ve even sung it? If you can identify the source of this misheard lyric, including the original artist, the title of the song and the correct lyric email us by Tuesday June 22nd. We will put all the correct answers into the hat and choose, at random, a lucky winner who will receive a pristine copy of Charles Grosvenor Jr.’s Hit Me With Your Pet Shark Misheard Lyrics of the 1980’s. And, yes, the prize is a hint to the answer.