One Night Stand
1970.
(available on the posthumous Janis Joplin album Farewell Song, 1982, Columbia, COL4844582)
I passed a teenaged couple, busking. They were unusually good, playing complete songs with real verve and enthusiasm. I stopped to listen. The repertoire was distinctly 'golden oldie', and he was doing the full rock guitar hero bit while she strummed bass as well as providing the vocals. Then they swung into One Night Stand; her voice was too pure, really, to do a Janis Joplin, but they made a good fist of it. They had obviously learned it from a recording, not from sheet - and here is the point of the story.
The refrain of the song runs:
«Don't you know that you're nuthin'Joplin's accent makes that last line sound, to British ears, like «ketch me if you can...». This young pair had made what they could of it, through their own cultural filters, and she sang:
more than a one night stand?
Tomorrow I'll be gone -
Catch me if you can...»
«Don't you know that you're nuthin'(In case it's not so elsewhere: 'to text' is the new verb used by young Europeans to mean exchanging SMS messages between cellphones.)
more than a one night stand?
Tomorrow I'll be gone -
TEXT me if you can...»
It was well worth the money dropped into their guitar case, just for that one malapropism, let alone the music.
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