Grenade!

Grenade

“Have you heard this song before?” My wife asks as she turns up the radio a little for me to hear the lyrics. “It’s so weird.”

“No, I’ve… Wait… What’s he singing?”

“I’d catch a grenade for ya.”

“Really? Wow. Why?”

“I don’t know but it sounds like a nice song until you listen to the lyrics. Then it just gets creepy.”

“Why would he… Oh my god! What was that one? I’d jump in front of a train for ya? Take a bullet straight through my brain?” I say, repeating the words I have just heard. “Under what normal daily circumstances does he expect he would need to do all this?”

A few moments later we have pulled into a petrol station and are crowded around the car radio, analyzing the lyrics.

“For the sake of argument, if we said he was catching grenades and taking bullets to save the one he loves I still fail to see how jumping in front of a train would accomplish anything. At that point he really is just committing suicide.”

“And then complaining that she won’t do the same for him.” My wife adds.

“Yeah. Maybe he just really desires a girlfriend who lacks even the most basic of self preservation and survival skills. I think he should lower his expectations a little. He needs to come up with some more reasonable and realistic things to do for love, stuff like; I’d make a midnight snack for ya. Put the toilet seat down for ya.”

“You are such a romantic.”

“Wait… What was that one? I’d throw my head on a plane for ya?”

“No. I think it’s put my head on a plate for ya.”

“Well that’s just stupid. How is that going to help anything?”

(We later found out the line was in fact; I’d throw my hands on a blade for ya… which is still stupid.)

“He sounds a bit stalker-ish if you ask me,” I inform my wife “I bet he is the weird silent one at the office. I bet you it’s three in the morning and he’s just suddenly shown up on the doorstep of a girl from accounting who he’s never spoken to and started singing this stuff.”

“Are you trying to say you would not catch a grenade for me?”

“Er… well…”

“I’d catch a grenade for you.”

“Oh?”

“I’d throw it away again quickly of course. I’m not stupid.”

“I would hope not.”

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

22 Responses

  1. French Bean says:

    ROFL!!! You married one smart cookie, Stu.

    If anything, this guy sounds like the main character in a video game who needs to find a video game girlfriend that will accompany him in the difficult levels of grenade-catching and blade-grabbing. :-P

    Have you seen the Barely Political parody of this song?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdbHiDnbhb0&list=SL

  2. dragonlady says:

    Have just watched the Barely Political parady , now that is funny. And yes the tune is very catchy.

  3. Invader Stu says:

    Julia – I guess not.

    French Bean and Dragonlady – Hehe. That version is much better.

  4. linda@adventuresinexpatland.com says:

    I must confess that when it comes to keeping on top of the latest hit (or wannabe hit) songs, I seem to have lost the bubble. When I read the first line, I thought you were kidding! First I was incredulous, then I was trying to figure out whether it constituted metaphorical poetry (long story, from an earlier conversation I’d had), but eventually defaulted back to the basic ‘why?’ Why do people write lyrics like this? Why?

    (Then I thought of all the great songs I love that have absolutely stupid lyrics ‘I am the Walrus, koo koo kachoo’ etc. and decided not to enter the fray!) Sigh, boy I feel old.

  5. Invader Stu says:

    Linda – I missed it at first as well. Everything I have found about the song says 2010 but I’ve only just started hearing it on the radio.

  6. Heather says:

    Hehe, Danny and I had almost the same conversation about this song, especially the “And then complaining that she won’t do the same for him.” part. :)

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