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[Wilson Gray]

Somehow, I've always heard that as as "crazy colored goddess."

"Genius lyrics website"? That's a real thigh-slapper! You can't trust that
site or any other lyrics site as far as you can throw it. Any random
person, including me - or should that be, "including I"? - can post
whatever he thinks he hears to these lyrics sites. I wouldn't buy what a
lyrics site said, unless I had a copy of the original sheet-music to
compare it to and they matched. Sometimes, after you've done enough
research, you'll discover that a song actually has more than one set of
"correct" lyrics, one for the original version and another for the cover
version or for the live version or for versions "translated" into or out of
a foreign language..

On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 11:56 AM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not sure how relevant it is, but Donovan recorded "Sunny Goodge Street" in
> September 1965, just a couple of months after the release of the Beatles
> movie "Help!" -- wherein the lads are terrorized by an Indian cult
> worshiping the goddess "Kaili." That's a thinly veiled reference to Kali
> and Western stereotypes about the Thuggee cult.
>
> https://blog.oup.com/2010/07/beatles-orientalism/
>
> A few years later, when they all traveled to the Maharishi's ashram in
> Rishikesh, Donovan and the Beatles developed a more nuanced take on Indian
> spirituality.
>
> --bgz
>
> On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 11:39 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Yes, actually “coke” makes a lot of sense given the context, except for
> > how it relates to goddesses.  I guess the Genius lyrics web site wasn’t
> > around when we first listened to the song 50-odd years ago.
> >
> > > On Aug 31, 2021, at 11:24 AM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> > >
> > > " crazy Kali goddess"? I always heard it as "crazy coke goddess" or
> > "crazy
> > > cult goddess," either of which makes more sense.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 9:19 AM Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> But does it really matter, Larry?
> > >>
> > >> Be free to be you.
> > >>
> > >> (PS: "Crazy-colored' is better anyway.)
> > >>
> > >> JL
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 5:00 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>> On Aug 30, 2021, at 2:14 PM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Donovan's old song
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On the firefly platform on Sunny Goodge Street
> > >>>> Violent hash-smoker shook a chocolate machine
> > >>>> Involved in an eating scene
> > >>>>
> > >>>> seems relevant here. A few decades later it would be an eating
> event,
> > >>>> if he could get the rhyme down.
> > >>>>
> > >>> Hmmm.  I just checked the lyrics (to confirm my memory that Donovan
> > >>> employed the nominalization "stonedness", which I don't think I've
> > >>> encountered elsewhere) and discovered a mondegreen on my part. I
> always
> > >>> thought he was referring to a "crazy-colored goddess", but I see the
> > >>> line was actually something else. This is the first verse,
> immediately
> > after
> > >>> the part Marc quoted:
> > >>>
> > >>> Smashing into neon streets in their stonedness
> > >>> Smearing their eyes on the crazy Kali goddess
> > >>> Listenin' to sounds of Mingus mellow fantastic
> > >>> My, my, they sigh
> > >>> My, my, they sigh
> > >>>
> > >>> I picked up on the "Mingus mellow fantastic"(a distant relative
> > >>> of mellow yellow?), but not the call-out to Kali. Luckily, She didn't
> > >>> exact revenge on me.
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
- Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org