This is the fourth in a series of examinations of music legends and whether they are true or false.

Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: A misheard lyric led to the title of the song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”

STATUS: Seemingly True

The heyday for the group, Iron Butterfly, was probably the lineup of Doug Ingle (keyboards and vocals), Lee Dorman (bass guitar), Ron Bushy (drums) and Erik Brann (lead guitar). This quartet toured in support of he bands first album (which featured a different lineup).

This group is the one who recorded the band’s second album, which is by far their most famous one, specifically for the hit title track, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” is what is called a mondegreen, a word or phrase that is created by mishearing the ACTUAL word or phrase.

In the case of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” the phrase would be “In The Garden of Eden.”

There are contrary stories that exist telling HOW the phrase got to be misheard, but they all basically end up in the same place - that the track was misheard and thus became “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

Here are the two competing stories:

On the liner notes to their “Best of” collection, it says that drummer Ron Bushy simply misheard (through the thick headphones he was wearing while listening to the playback of the song) what Doug Ingle said when Bushy asked for the name of the song.

However, on the liner notes to the re-issue of the album, it says the following:

Doug Ingle (keyboards) was in his apartment on top of Bido Lido’s nightclub in Hollywood, CA, writing music in 1968. While he wrote a song around “Garden of Eden” hook, he was working his way through a gallon bottle of Red Mountain wine. By the time he committed the idea to tape, he was quite a bit drunk. Later, when Ron Bushy (drums) got home from working at the Galaxy Club, Ingle had consumed 2/3 of the bottle. Bushy asked Ingle what the title of Iron Butterfly’s new song and Ingle slurs out “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. Bushy says, “I thought it was catchy so I wrote it down.” The next morning, Bushy reminds a hungover Ingle how much he liked the title of their new song. Ingle would hear nothing of it, but Bushy had written it down and it stuck.

I tend to believe the second story a bit more. I’ve seen Bushy tell basically that same story in a few different places (slight details were different, like where Bushy was coming home from, but the gist is the same), and of the two, I think it explains the fact Ingle really does seem to be singing “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and not “In The Garden of Eden.” Yeah, he could be slurring, but doesn’t it make more sense that he was slurring BEFORE they recorded the song and then Bushy convinced him that “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” sounded cooler than “In The Garden of Eden” and then had Ingle actually record it as “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”?

In any event, in both stories, the key is that the intended lyric was misheard, creating the title of a rock and roll classic. And that’s cool enough for me!

MUSIC LEGEND: George Michael’s “Father Figure” accidentally became a slow tempo song.

STATUS: True

After having great success with the pop duo Wham!, George Michael decided to go out on his own, and after spending most of 1987 writing and recording, he finally debuted his much-anticipated solo album, titled Faith.

After three #1 singles with Wham! and one #1 single in a duet with Aretha Franklin, George Michael finally reached #1 on the Billboard charts with one of his solo efforts with the third single off of Faith, the title track, “Faith” (the first single off of the album, “I Want Your Sex” DID make it to #2).

The fourth single, and the second straight one to go to #1 was “Father Figure.”

The song is a slow, almost haunting tune dealing with a perhaps inappropriate romantic relationship between two people, where the narrator wants to be a sort of teacher to the younger part of the relationship - he will be the “Father Figure.” It’s honestly a bit of an odd song.

In any event, as it turned out, the haunting quality of the song came about purely by accident!

George Michael related the story to Fred Bronson:

The initial concept was completely different from the way the song turned out. In fact, the intial concept for “Father Figure’ was to make it a kind of mid-tempo dance track. And what happened was I wanted to hear something in my mix so I happened to cut out the snare on the board and suddenly it changed the whole entire mood of the track. Suddenly it just seemed really dreamy. And this was halfway through writing it - because I was writing the song as I was going along in the studio. And I just thought, well, hey, this is actually much better! So I worked the rest of the feel of the track around this kind of spacey type sound. And it ended up, in my mind, being the most original sounding thing on the album.

Fascinating.

Thanks to Fred Bronson’s awesome book, The Billboard Book of Number One Hits for the quote!

MUSIC LEGEND: “Mr. Bojangles” is about the famous dancer Mr. Bojangles.

STATUS: False

“Mr. Bojangles” was written and first recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker in 1968.

The song became famous, though, when it was released by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their 1971 album, Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy.

The oddest thing about the song “Mr. Bojangles,” which is a nice, melancholy song about a tap dancing fellow named Mr. Bojangles is that while it IS written about a tap dancer named Mr. Bojangles, it is NOT about the famous tap dancer, Mr. Bojangles!

Bill Robinson, also known as Bojangles, was a famous tap dancer who did the vaudeville circuit for decades before graduating to taking his dancing into the movies, as well, most famously in a series of Shirley Temple films in the 1930s.

Robinson died in 1949 at the age of 71.

However, Walker did not write “Mr. Bojangles” about Robinson, which is what most people, including the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, felt that he had.

Instead, Walker’s song was basically exactly how the lyrics go:

I knew a man Bojangles and he’d dance for you
In worn out shoes
With silver hair, a ragged shirt, and baggy pants
The old soft shoe
He jumped so high, jumped so high
Then he lightly touched down

I met him in a cell in New Orleans I was
down and out
He looked to me to be the eyes of age
as he spoke right out
He talked of life, talked of life, he laughed
clicked his heels and stepped

Indeed, Walker was in jail in New Orleans (for drunkenness) one weekend in 1965 when the jails were crowded with homeless people (as Walker recalls it, it was a holiday weekend, so the police were keeping the homeless locked up until the holiday weekend ended) and, well, a homeless guy who was nicknamed Mr. Bojangles did a tap dance for everyone in the cells (presumably his dancing is how he got the name “Mr. Bojangles”).

The jails were segregated back then in New Orleans, so this Mr. Bojangles wasn’t even black!

By the way, the above lyrics are actually from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s version - you can tell because they changed some lyrics due to mishearing Walker in a few places, specifically where he says “he laughed-slapped his leg a step” they heard (and wrote as) “he laughed clicked his heels and stepped.”

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com