Mondengreen. The word may look unfamiliar but the definition is all too common. A mondengreen is the line of a song that actually says one thing but the listener hears another. One of the most famous monengreen comes from Jimi Hendrix’s song Purple Haze and it says “Scuse me, while I kiss the sky” while listeners hear and sing “Scuse me, while I kiss this GUY“.
Apparently, some people think that rap music is full of mondengreens and that rap is difficult for the casual listener to understand. I would like to know what “they” consider to be the casual listener but that’s neither here nor there. There is now help for the lyrically challenged.
Bill Buckholtz, the rap analyst behind the popular website Understand Rap which explains the lyric and it’s literally meaning as well as the euphemistic reference has released a new book “Understand Rap: Explanations of Confusing Rap Lyrics You and Your Grandma Can Understand”. I think this is hysterical. Seeing traditional and modern rap lyrics translated into high school English form doubles me over in laughing fits.
Okay, for instance, the lyric “I’m on a paper chase until my toes bleed” from the song “Like Father, Like Son” by Birdman and Lil Wayne is explained on the website as “Paper chase meaning to pursue any activity that involves accumulating currency however he does this to such an extent that it can be related to an injury that many athletes or dancers acquire because of excess or strenuous use of their feet.” I’m not really sure how you’d lay all of that down with a good hook, but if one really wanted to get past rap’s “go hard” beats and catchy hooks and investigate the true meaning of each phrase, they may find that a lot of songs don’t make sense……..but they rhyme and sometimes, that’s all that matters.
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