"Making love with his ego, Ziggy sucked up into his mind."

Add to this thread with your own photoshopped images of misheard lyrics.

Modern music is full of helpful travel tips: Places to visit (Africa, Kokomo, The centre of your mind); the best hotels and bars (Club Tropicana, Bar Italia) and advice on how to get there (Route 66, The Trans-Island Skyway, The Highway to Hell).

Yet, for whatever reason, this wealth of practical knowledge has gone largely unheeded and people continue to holiday in Ibiza and go out clubbing at Manumission. This thread aims to change all that, by broadening horizons and waking travellers up to less visited locations mentioned in popular song.

Xanadu

Visited in 1968 by explorers Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich and later described in their number one single/audio travel guide - The legend of Xanadu - as a windswept, volcanic desert; home only to vultures. References to buildings open to the sky, suggests houses lacking roofs, perhaps similar to the towering mud-brick skyscrapers of The Yemen Republic. The place holds unhappy memories for Wiltshire’s answer to Marco Polo - Dave Dee. His unsuccessful attempt at winning the affections of a stoic desert rose culminated in a duel that apparently cost the life of his rival for the girl’s affections.

Dee’s writings gave Xanadu a foreboding reputation. In 1980 Olivia Newton-John referred to it as “a place where nobody dared to go.” Yet much had changed during the intervening decade. When she and members of ELO set foot inside the country they found a flourishing republic, reaping the social and economic rewards of a recent political revolution - “[a] dream that came through a million years, that lived on through all the tears." To their surprise the black barren wastelands had been replaced by shining neon lights and shooting stars, all suggesting that Xanadu was experiencing the worst effects of westernisation and may have even been purchased outright by nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow.

As someone who is frequently immersed in the minutiae of record collecting, I often find myself scanning the small print on album sleeves. I do this primarily to make sure that God and Father Christmas have been properly thanked in the list of credits, but also to check whether the artist uses a vanity publishing company.

I confess that I am completely in the dark as to how this works. Superficially it appears that, instead of publishing their songs under the umbrella of record label, an artist elects to do it themselves. For example, all the songs on the Lou Reed album Street Hassle are published by Metal Machine Music Publ - a name that revisits his greatest critical and commercial success.

In fact the names of publishing companies often seem to be attempts by an artist to sum-up both themselves and their music in a few brief words; the end result combining the stark poetry of a haiku with the directness of a one-line advertising pitch:

Gregarious Jane’s Addiction frontman - Perry Farrell - publishes under I’ll Hit You Back Music. Others, such as Mark Eitzel of American Music Club (I Failed In Life Music) and Lisa Germano (Emotional Wench Music), are knowingly self-effacing. Some are just plain eccentric. Victoria Williams’ songs are published by Mumblety-Peg Music - a name that embodies her arts-and-crafts take on songwriting.

Does anyone know of any other poetically-named publishing companies? Or if that’s too tall an order, can anyone suggest some appropriate names for the publishing companies of certain artists?

I move that all self-penned Joss Stone songs, if such things exist, should be published under the banner of Plastic Soul Music. Furthermore that Noel Gallagher should publish using Imitation Lennon Music or, if one really wants to be unkind - Borrowed Tunes.

This evening it occurred to me that my record collection, and my interaction with it, is governed by a set of universal laws whose existence can be proven under rigorous laboratory conditions. My subsequent experimental work has already uncovered the following principles:

(During the course of this research, record collections belonging to my younger brother and my parents were used as control groups.)

The Afterglow Effect

For every 500 albums there will be one whose presence in the collection is unexplainable and whose origins are clouded in mystery. This law was named after my discovery of a Sarah McLachlan CD ( a special edition of Afterglow that included a bonus live mini album) of which I have no recollection of purchasing or being given. The only rational explanation I can come up with so far, is that the dream I had where the Snowman I built in the garden came to life and then flew me to the Lilith Fair actually happened to me in real life! I know it sounds crazy, but as Sherlock Holmes once said: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Robinson Displacement Theorem

New material by The Black Crowes, or solo efforts by either of the Robinson Brothers, will eventually be displaced on the hi-fi by the band’s debut Shake Your Money Maker or it’s follow-up The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.

Autechre’s Singularity

Music that replicates the sound of a saucepan lid rolling around on a tiled floor will receive limited play.

Goldfrapp’s Constant

Occasional pockets of depression or low energy, occurring within the vicinity of the collection’s prime mover, will sometimes lead to periods of inertia. In such cases the same compact disc will remain in the CD player for a much longer period of time than is normal and will receive repeated plays.

What are the scientifically provable laws of your record collection? Also detail any experimental or field work that you may have undertaken.

As Colonel Benjamin Fisher of the 14th Light Dragoons tenderly embraced the slender form of Countess Margaret Bayning, he was forced to admit, albeit privately, that Mike Score - lead singer of A Flock Of Seagulls - had been right all along.

“The more you live, the more you love.” Wasn’t that what Mike had always said? And yet for that wild-haired old rogue it had always been a hypothetical – one founded upon idle speculation and gentlemen’s club hearsay. Against all odds it was Fisher who was now experiencing, ‘the real thing,’ as referenced in the Lisa Stansfield song of the same title. Yes, here in his arms was the empirical proof that corroborated Score’s impossible theories. Here was evidence that not even the dub reggae artist -Scientist - (a man who had selflessly dedicated his life to ridding the world of the evil curse of the vampires) could call into dispute.

Fisher’s heart raced in his chest like Dave Lombardo’s frenetic drum part in Raining Blood by Slayer. In the depths of his britches he felt his stiffening manhood becoming iron, like a lion, in Zion.

His partner in the embrace – the 53rd Countess Of Gloucester - was similarly overwhelmed. “Whhhhhhhhhyyyy, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii?” she pondered, recalling the poignant enquiry of ex-Eurhythmics singer Annie Lennox. For as long as she could remember it had always been her sister - Michelle Heaton from the pop vocal group Liberty X - who had drawn the lingering glances of male sex. What was it that this man saw in her that the others had not? It was then that she remembered the words of her maternal grandmother, Vanessa Williams: “Sometimes the snow comes down in June. Sometimes the sun goes round the moon…”

Margaret turned her limpid blue eyes skyward, her gaze bisecting that of her suitor, who stared into the middle distance and silently mouthed the catalogue numbers to early Factory Records releases. The slim crescent moon above their heads was like a door opening in a darkened cellar, allowing a crack of light to shine through. A new moon on Monday! And she a lonely satellite!

Presently Colonel Fisher spoke:

“I wonder, this weekend, if it would please you to accompany me to my ancestral love shack in Herefordshire. The architect has set the property way back in the middle of a field, thereby creating a garden vista that is most pleasing to the eye. It is my firm belief that a discerning woman, such as yourself, will be equally enchanted by the glitter in the front porch and also in the hallway - a fortuitous irregularity arising from naturally occurring deposits of mica present in the marble tiles…”

* * * * *

People often glibly remark that a piece of music changed their lives or, in extreme cases, actually saved it. Can anyone here point to a song that had a genuine tangible effect on them. Maybe you and your spouse bonded over your mutual love of Bully Boy by Shed 7?

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a romantic change either. Perhaps the mix tape you handed to the panel at a job interview (a carefully complied attempt at documenting the story of the company with whom you were seeking employment, using songs selected from your CD collection) became the foundation upon which you built your career.

The irrational hatred that I felt for Mika as I watched his performance on tonight’s Brit Awards took me back to a time when I harboured similar hostile sentiments towards the Manic Street Preachers & Ooberman – two bands who I later became quite fanatical about.

Even though I find the idea that I might be a closeted Mika fan a rather appalling prospect, when you hate someone with that degree of passion, you must open yourself to the possibility that in actuality you really like them and just can’t bring yourself to admit it.

I’m sure I am not the only person to have experienced a music-related identity crisis like this. Who else here has examples of artists that they initially hated, but eventually went on to love?

I spent a significant portion of Friday evening listening to a Dar Williams live album. This is time that I will not get back. One song, titled February, struck me as being particularly awful, it being possessed of the following progressively overwrought middle eight:

“And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together.
You stopped and pointed and you said, "That’s a Crocus,"
And I said, "What’s a Crocus?" and you said, "It’s a flower,"
And I tried to remember, but I said, "What’s a flower?"
And you said, "I STILLLLL LOOOOVVVVE YOOOUUUUU!””

I have given this lyric careful deliberation and now believe it to be the most appalling thing I have ever heard, snatching what I thought was an unbeatable first place from I Just Shot John Lennon by The Cranberries. It is also a good example of an artist throwing caution to the wind in a bid to create drama and instead falling flat on their face and descending into self-parody. For these reasons I suspect that I will end up quite liking February. Just thinking about it brings a smile to my face.

Does anyone have any other examples of unintentionally hilarious high drama in music? - Songs, or moments in songs, that were meant to be serious and profound but somehow ended up being the complete opposite.

If our sole source of information were lyrics, what wonderful facts would make themselves known to us? I have only been looking for a few minutes and have already gleaned the following marvellous truths.

Route 66 winds from Chicago to L.A. (Bobby Troup – Route 66)

If you wish to own a cupboard, you must first either construct, or somehow acquire, a wall. (Neil Young – The Old Laughing Lady)

The Hotel California is noted both for its live cuisine and the bluntness of its cutlery; the latter renders any attempts at subduing your meal hopeless. (The Eagles – Hotel California)

Although sometimes mistaken for a sunbeam, Pete Doherty is, in fact, a crumb begging baghead. (Babyshambles – Crumb Begging Baghead)

The squadron of Avenger planes that went missing while on manoeuvres, in December 1945, are unlikely to return to base. There is no point in waiting up on the off chance that they return during the night. (The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians)

While, in some ways, love is very similar to honey, unlike honey it cannot be purchased with cash. (New Order – Crystal)

Having returned home with a CD copy of the new Magnetic Fields album, I found myself unable to remove the plastic jewel box from its cardboard slipcase, so tightly was it wedged inside.

Several hours have passed since then and the wretched thing has resisted all attempts to prise it out. The album is titled ‘Distortion'. Maybe I am required to distort the packaging if I want to hear the music.

This isn’t the first time I have fallen victim to the record collector equivalent of being unable to get the lid off the jam jar: A Spaceman 3 tribute album came packaged in a slim box that appeared to be hermetically sealed and lacking the cut-out semi circles in the sides of the lid, that would have enabled both sections to be easily prised apart.

Then there was the occasion I was unable to open a standard compact disc case containing a Townes Van Zandt live album. The man behind the counter at the record shop examined the jewel box and concluded that the lid had been maliciously glued shut. When I asked him whether he thought the culprit was someone who held a grudge against Townes Van Zandt, he replied that he didn’t know.

Who else here has found packaging forming an unexpected barrier between themselves and the music? Be sure to list any injuries or property damage sustained while attempting to remove the disc/cassette/8 track/wax cylinder etc.

Hearing the Joy Division song Atmosphere, at the end of the Ian Curtis biopic Control, reminded me of a similarly titled top 10 hit from the 1980s, performed by the comedian Russ Abbot.

Russ Abbot - Atmosphere

“(xylophone intro)

Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere,
So let me take you there,
And you and I'll be dancin' in the cool night air!

Well we're at the dancin' party,
And you're out there havin' fun,
And your girl is there beside you,
And you feel like number one!

So get your body movin'...
'Cos tonight has just begun...
OH WHOA! Let it go!
WHOOA! Let it show....
Aaah Aaah Aaah Aaah!

Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere,
So let me take you there,
And you and I'll be dancin' in the cool night air!
OH OH
Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere, yeah mmmm,
Music everywhere,
And soon we'll be dancin' in the cool night air!

Now we're out here all together,
Everybody's hand in hand,
We can make it last forever,
When we're dancin' with the gang!
Well you've got your favourite records,
And Frankie's got his band!

HUH!!!
OH WHOA! Let it go!
WHOOA! Let it show....
Aaah Aaah Aaah Aaah!

Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere,
So let me take you there,
And you and I'll be dancin' in the cool night air!
OH OH
Oh what an atmosphere!
I love a party with a happy atmosphere, mmmm yeah,
Music everywhere,
And soon we'll be dancin' in the cool night air!

(Riotous eighties party noises)*

(Repeat chorus and fade out)”

* (Presumably the sound of Filofaxes being opened and shoulder pad subsidence.)

Joy Division - Atmosphere

“Walk in silence,
Don’t walk away, in silence.
See the danger,
Always danger,
Endless talking,
Life rebuilding,
Don’t walk away.

Walk in silence,
Don’t turn away, in silence.
Your confusion,
My illusion,
Worn like a mask of self-hate,
Confronts and then dies.
Dont walk away.

People like you find it easy,
Naked to see,
Walking on air.
Hunting by the rivers,
Through the streets,
Every corner abandoned too soon,
Set down with due care.
Don’t walk away in silence,
Don’t walk away.”

With the exception of their shared title, these two songs are polar opposites, each negating the other. If you had a friend whose addiction to Joy Division had left him poised on the edge of a nervous breakdown, you could pull him back from the brink with repeated plays of the Russ Abbot song.

Conversely, insanely happy people could be brought plummeting back down to earth by the dour existentialism of Ian Curtis.

There must be other pairs of songs which act as antidotes to each other. They don’t necessarily have to share titles; they just have to be opposed in sentiment.

Oxford prog overlords, Xavier de Maistre, have always made a point of sailing close to the edge. In 1973 they were teetering on the blink. A five night residency at The Exim, in Kensington, had to be cancelled after Crispin Keating-Dower’s harpsichord was taken into quarantine. Worse was yet to come, when sales of their debut album stalled, having barely climbed into triple figures. Unbowed, the band retreated to Mouravi studios in Sussex, to record what would become their classic double album Healey, Kirklees.

On the eve of Healey’s 22nd anniversary, all five original members reconvene to discuss spider plants, post-apocalyptic Brazil and the portrait of a dog that started it all:

Crispin Keating-Dower (Vocals/Keyboards): Our debut album [Gironde] didn’t get a single positive review. The Melody Maker called us “minnows in the topographic oceans.”

Graham Page (Bass): In my sleevenotes for Gironde I describe Crispin as a salmon in the topographic Thames, struggling against the fast-flowing current of mediocrity. Apparently someone at The Melody Maker found this amusing. From then on they referred to us in print as Xavier De Haddock. It was very childish and scuppered any chance we had of gaining mainstream acceptance.

David Cribbage (Lute/Recorder): Gironde was such a massive commercial flop. We naturally assumed that we would be dropped by our label. Fortunately Tommy Bushel, who ran Transforming Growth Factor Records, was an obsessive compulsive who hated odd numbers. It was thanks to his debilitating mental illness that we were given to the go-ahead to record our second album.

Richard Slann (Guitar): The idea for Healey, Kirklees came from a piece of fantasy art by Robert Dune.

John Mottson (Drums): I knew Robert from my time at art school. One day Richard and I called in on him at his home in Sonning. The first thing we laid eyes on when we entered his studio was this incredible painting.

Richard Slann: Robert was putting the finishing touches to an oil painting of a crumbling English churchyard. The focal point was a futuristic gravestone for a chap called Healey Kirklees, who had been born in 1845 and died in 1984. Scattered around the base of the memorial was the ephemera of his long life – a school report card, a file from the probation service, several wedding photographs, a Victoria Cross medal, assorted newspaper clippings…

John Mottson: The dates on the tombstone blew our minds. 1984 was still eleven years away. It was as if the future had invaded the present.

Robert Dune: A world without Healey began life as a commission from an old lady who wanted me to paint a portrait of her dog. I got a bit carried away with it. You can still see the dog, in a photograph, in the bottom right hand corner. Of course the old dear refused to pay. When John asked me if he could use the painting for the cover of Xarvier’s next album I was ecstatic

Richard Slann: I moved the painting up to Mouravi studios. The first time all five of us gathered around it, you could feel the inspiration crackling in the air.

John Mottson: Robert went on to have a hand in all our covers. He was very much the band’s muse. I like to think of him as the sixth member of Xavier de Maistre, although Crispin disagrees with me on this point.

Crispin Keating-Dower: You could argue that the cover for Healey, Kirkless passed its sell-by date in 1984. In 2005, when we were doing the remaster, I asked Robert if we could digitally alter the date of death to 2050 and Photoshop-in a picture of Healey shaking hands with Margaret Thatcher. He refused.

Richard Slann: My favourite Dune cover was the photographic collage he did for Pigeonwholes. He dressed-up some homing pigeons to look like Rick Wakeman, John Lydon and Ian Curtis and then posed them in a dove cote. In the background you can see John, Graham and myself decked-out as medieval knights, in full platemail armour, playing cricket on a village green.