OK, it wasn’t as bad as this infamous mishearing of the Hendrix lyric.
This is more of a “I can’t believe I FINALLY got that lyric.”
I have owned Men at Work’s Business as Usual album (and it WAS an album, and I later bought it again as a CD) since it came out in the US in late 1982 or early 1983.
In the song “Down Under”, until today I never understood WHAT kind of sandwich the man from Brussels gave him. I thought it was some cryptic reference or possibly another Aussie slang reference to weed.
I literally just got it today! The song came up on Pandora and I finally understood he says “vegemite sandwich”.
Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscle
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich
Mystery freaking solved. Wow, that only took about 35 years.
In case you’re wondering what the hell Vegemite is, it is the Australian version of the British product Marmite. Which sounds like something that could leak from a nuclear reactor, but is actually a yeast extract that’s eaten on bread or toast as we in the normal world would eat butter or jam. It will come as no surprise that my Mrs Grouse is a big fan of Marmite, but it took me this long to hear that lyric.
Anyone else had one of these, “Oh, THAT’S what they sang…” moments?
Grouse
