I’ve seen that movie too

original-Easy-Rider-movie-poster.jpgAt the beginning of the 1969 independent cult classic film “Easy Rider,” the lead characters meet with a high-rolling drug dealer to sell him a large quantity of cocaine, after which they take the money, hop on their California-style Harley choppers and head out on the open road.  Accompanying these scenes are two iconic hard rock songs that perfectly complement the story:  “The Pusher” and “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf.

Music and movies have gone together like oil and vinegar since, well, pretty much ever since there have been movies.  From Al Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer” (1927) through the many dozens of big-screen musicals of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, songs played a pivotal role in moving the plot along, usually sung on screen by actors as part of the story.  In the modern era, film makers increasingly used popular songs over the opening and closing credits as well.  And when rock and roll music arrived in the mid-’50s, rock tunes and cinema began a marriage that has only grown stronger and more pervasive with each passing year.

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The pompatus of love

It’s funny, isn’t it, how songs we’ve heard a thousand times, songs we’ve sung along to, songs we’ve heard performed in concert, have lyrics that include words we don’t fully understand, but we sing along with them anyway.

There are plenty of examples of songs with lyrics we “mis-hear” — we think they’re singing A when in fact they’re singing B — but I’m talking about lyrics that include words we simply don’t know.  They’re unusual, esoteric, rare, maybe even made-up.  But they’re right there in the chorus of a #1 song, so we just go along with them. Not until the late ’60s did artists start including lyrics on the album sleeve, and many bands simply couldn’t be bothered, or wouldn’t pay the fee required to reprint them.  So we simply weren’t sure what we were hearing.  And there was no Google or Internet to check to find out exactly what the words were.

Today, students, we’re going to delve into the etymology — the origin — of some of the more recognizable examples of words that appear in hugely popular songs, but we have no idea what they mean.  Until now.

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