Amy Lu's View

We’ve all misheard song lyrics. When I was a bookseller in the mid-90’s I peddled countless copies of “’Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy: And Other Misheard Lyrics,” and I’ve had some doozies of misheard lyrics myself. I even had a little blog post about it in the early days of the Pandemic. 

But I think Chad wins for the cutest misheard song lyric ever. 

When Chad was just a little Chad (about seven or so) he thought the line in the song “Jet Airliner” by the Steve Miller Band was “Big Old Chad and the Rhino” instead of “Big Old Jet Airliner.” 

“Oh Big Old Old Chad and the Rhino, Don’t carry him too far away.

Oh, Big Old Chad and the Rhino, ‘Cause it’s here that he’s got to stay.”

–“Big Old Chad and the Rhino”

The Rhino is the least ridiculous part of that, as Chad was neither big or old in any sense. 

As a birthday present for Chad this year, I thought it would be a hoot to surprise him with a rendition of “Jet Airliner” as “Big Old Chad and the Rhino” for our church Zoom coffeehouse. 

I was inspired by our friend Polly recently doing a kickass version of the song “Amy” by Pure Prairie League. Of course I love that song because it’s called “Amy”*–even if the sentiment expressed towards the Amy in the song is ambivalent at best. My enthusiasm for “Amy” led to a discussion about how we didn’t know any Chad songs, and I thought, “Ah-ha! I know ‘Big Old Chad and the Rhino’ “. 

Fun idea, but as usual, execution of my plan was harder than I thought.

It was really hard to keep the song a surprise during quarantine when we’re both always home and to find a time and a place to practice when Chad wouldn’t hear. Eventually on Saturday (coffeehouse day) he asked what I was doing that night and I said I couldn’t talk about it. He then purposely wore headphones and hung out in the basement so I could practice. So I guess the surprise itself was ruined–he knew he had a surprise–but he was genuinely surprised by what it was. 

And, as frequently happens, the song itself was harder to perform than I expected it would be. Mostly I was stymied by trying to sing the melody, which was more complex than I thought a goofy 70’s tune had a right to be. In the end I decided to just barrel through with the assumption that my audience probably wasn’t all that familiar with the song beyond the chorus.

I also decided at rather the last minute–Saturday morning on the day of the show–that I couldn’t just change the lyrics to the chorus. No, for the song to have any chance at lyrical cohesion, I would have to also rewrite at least some of the rest of the lyrics for the song to create a narrative whole. 

Um, yeah. Copyright issues aside, as we’ve learned from some of our theatrical experiences (including a recent show at the Landmark Center) coming up with new lyrics and making them fit into the existing melody and rhythm of a song can be awkward at best. 

Still, I forged ahead, and transformed “(Big Old) Jet Airliner” from a song about a 70’s rock star deciding he needs to give up life on the road to a song about Chad always being very happy to be at home in Minneapolis with me.

I even worked in a reference from our beloved podcast “TBTL” about Chad spending time with his “Eleven” (spouse) in quarantine. Original lyrics: “But my heart keeps calling me backwards, As I get on the 707.” My lyrics: “But his heart keeps calling him backwards, in lockdown with this Eleven.” Yes, I was pretty proud of this bit of lyrical acrobatics. 

“Big Old Chad and the Rhino” is an ode to domestic bliss…as long as you don’t think too hard about it, or wonder what is up with the Rhino. I’m sure it’s a metaphor for something really profound and deep. 

*OMG I just learned from Googling that the song is actually called “AMIE”!! I tried to spell my name “Amie” when I was kid but my mom told me to knock it off because that was pretentious. Okay, I don’t know if she actually used the word “pretentious” but she definitely conveyed that sentiment. And I’m not saying it’s pretentious for people who actually were given that name to use that spelling but I agree with my mom that it was/is/would be pretentious for me.