4

"Cum on Feel the Noize" Is Not a Twisted Sister Classic (Or a Classic)

Some weird things were going on with metal in the '80s, and to some extent, Rob Halford of Judas Priest deserves the credit and/or blame. Y'see, although Rob was not yet out at the time, the only thing gayer than he were his stage costumes.

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Mmmmm, gay S&M fashion. Nom.

In any event, all of metal started dressing this way, including Twisted Sister (who also had glam/New York Dolls-type roots), Quiet Riot and even pre-easy listening Michael Bolton.

Just when you were running out of things to tool on him for.

In any event, in 1983, Quiet Riot took their leather and neon and weak-ass glitz metal to the charts with "Cum on Feel the Noize." (The song was a cover of the Slade original, and they never wanted to record it, but that's not the point of this entry.)

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No, I said Slade ...

But if you look for the song on YouTube, you might come across this:

Yep, proof that, at the very least, about 400 people are making this mistake. I'm sorry, I only got a B- in verifying mistakes people who don't know stuff make.

How Did This Happen Well, look it at this way. The song is sorta catchy, and kind of rocks, but is hardly badass metal. It's filled with gutsy vocals dripping with pointless, unearned antagonism. And in 20 more years, anyone who cares about the song will be dead. Yeah, that's a pretty good description of Twisted Sister.

3

"Son of a Preacher Man" Is the White Soul Song Not Sung by Janis Joplin

Even if you're not an aficionado of Brit soul from the '60s you know this song. Of course you do. It's a classic, and, at the very least, you know it from when Uma Thurman plays it for John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. You've never seen Pulp Fiction either? Jesus, I can't help you.

2

The Cure Never Sang "I Melt With You"

I have to admit, I've never heard anyone make this mistake until the comments to my last column, but, apparently, lots of people think the Cure sang "I Melt With You." The correct answer, however, is Modern English. Who are Modern English? Well, the best description would be the guys who sang "I Melt With You." That's about it. These guys:

But for some reason, people think this is the Cure. You can get the Cure lyrics to the song:

The Cure guitar tab:

1

"Cat's in the Cradle" Is a Harry Chapin Song

Y'know what was big in the '70s? Story songs. People telling whole big epic tales in the course of five minutes. Adam Tod Brown wrote a column kind of about that. But arguably the best example of the towering '70s story song would be Harry Chapin's epic about terrible fathering called "Cat's in the Cradle." Recently, I learned lots of people think this song is by Cat Stevens. It's true. Check out the music lover who uploaded it to YouTube:

And it's got close to 5,000 likes from people who have no problem with the song being wrongly attributed to Cat Stevens. There's this comment from the dude who uploaded it:

Yeah, that's strange. I can't find "Stairway to Heaven" by Flock of Seagulls on YouTube either!

But the comment that really makes me insane is this one:

Yeah, what does it matter? Music is music. Who cares? I'll tell you who cares. People who do not suck. People who know things. People who care about knowing things. I have to believe we are not so far gone as a people that it's become somehow uncool to care about knowing things. I always thought that was the very definition of intelligence -- not actually knowing, but caring to know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's a bad definition, but I'm pretty sure being hostile to knowledge is a perfect recipe for stupidity.

And with the Internet, it seems that this attitude is rampant, because it's taught us to have no shame. The Net gives us anonymity, and in that anonymity, suddenly there's nothing we have to feel guilty about. So we don't know something, who cares? It's not important. But isn't it amazing that there's always a 100 percent overlap between the things we don't know and the things that are allegedly not important to know? I mean what are the odds?

How Did This Happen Well, my rant above does a pretty good job of explaining how this happened, but if you're looking for more tangible answers, we have that, too. First off, people think Cat Stevens sang "Cat's in the Cradle" because he had to. I mean, the title's got his name "Cat" in it. That's just how it works. Just like Ric Ocasek of the Cars sings Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and Madonna sings the Beatles' "Lady Madonna"!

Or perhaps another explanation is that Cat Stevens also has a famous song about a dysfunctional father and son relationship called "Father and Son."

Then again, I don't know why people make this mistake, but, y'know, who cares, right?

But everyone should care about the season finale of HATE BY NUMBERS about Principal Lady Gaga. Also, be sure to follow Gladstone on Twitter and stay up-to-date on the latest regarding Notes from the Internet Apocalypse. And then there's his website and Tumblr, too.

For more from Gladstone, check out 3 Celebrities You Idolize (And The 3 You Resemble Instead) and The 5 Most Overused Jokes On the Internet.