Detecting Japanese Where It’s Not
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This problem comes into play when you’ve studied a language for a bit. You begin to imagine hearing it in places where it isn’t. Or at least, where it probably isn’t. Today I was listening (too closely) to the song called Sing Along from the Blue Man Group’s album The Complex, featuring Dave Matthews on vocals. There’s a part towards the end of the song – approximately 2 minutes, 51 seconds in – where I distinctly heard 「そうだ、そうだ。」 (Sou da, sou da.) or “That’s right, that’s right.” It fit contextually, so I let it breeze by – only when the song was over did I think – wait – as far as I know, Dave Matthews doesn’t speak Japanese. Ha ha. What the? He must be scatting jazz-style, and it just phonetically matched. This is less common than me thinking I heard Japanese words in Korean, for instance. Ha ha.
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By the way – just for giggles – I also had another song that I listened way too closely to by accident recently. Live and Let Die, the Bond film theme song by Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles group, Wings, has a goof included. The lead guitar totally blows a riff at one point in the song, but depending on your listening, you can go right by it without hearing it – it is a very full, chaotic, vibrant song after all. It’s my favorite Bond theme, I think. Why do I pick this stuff up? It’s at the 1 minute 46 second mark. And lasts less than a second. Good luck!
