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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 26, 1993                   TAG: 9302260297
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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SAY WHAT?

Listen up, you lyrically challenged music fans. Do you REALLY know what they're saying when you hear your favorite songs?

Quite possibly not. But don't be ashamed. Unintelligible song lyrics go back a long way and cross all musical categories. Witness "Jose, can you see?" in the Star Spangled Banner. Or what about "a bathroom on the right," which Creedence Clearwater Revival recorded as "a bad moon on the rise"?

Is anyone sure exactly where the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" has gotta go and why? The FBI actually investigated that question in 1963, when some people thought the song might be obscene. But no one, at any speed, ever proved it.

Wednesday's Grammy Awards aired a whole new crop of hard-to-understand hits, such as Nirvana's hard-rock smash, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." In the last line, the group chants: "Don't deny us"; "Rardinaya"; "A denial"; OR "Yadda yadda." Do you know which?

Got a lyric that you just can't decipher? Or have you been recently refuted on a musical misnomer? Write to us (at "Lyrics," c/o the Features Department, Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010) by March 12, and we'll try to enlighten you and other readers. Be sure to include your name and a daytime telephone number.

P.S.: Nirvana shouts "A denial." Or something like that.

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