I have no idea how many times I've listened to R.E.M.'s song "Exhuming McCarthy", but I know it's a lotta buncha times (Thanks are due to George Carlin for inventing the term "lotta buncha."). Really really a lot.
Today I learned the name of the song for the first time. Apparently I never knew what it was called, despite having owned the album for...a decade? A long time. I know that I was ignorant of the name because I never could figure out the lyrics of the refrain. The lyrics are, in fact, "exhuming McCarthy," the same as the title. I vacillated between wondering who the hell "Jimmy McCarthy" was, and wondering if Michael Stipe was just Stipe-ifying the name Jenny McCarthy. Why he would be singing about Jenny McCarthy was a tributary problem from this river of confusion. Especially confusing because she was 15 when the album was released.
I wonder how many other songs I know could provide similar instances of my idiocy? And I call myself a musicologist...
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