Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos

Theme Week: Tattoo Misspellings

Day 7: It would have been so pretty…

Last night I dreamed a sweet sweet dream
I thought I saw my home sweet home
And oh how grand it all did seem
I made a vow no more to roam
By that dear old village church I strolled
While the bell in the steeple sadly called
I saw my daddy old and grey
I heard my dear old mother say
You’re as welcome as the flowers in May and we love you in the same old way
We’ve been waiting for you day by day, you’re as welcome as the flowers in May
We’ve been waiting for you day by day, you’re as welcome as the flowers in May

- You’re as Welcome as the Flowers in May by Hank Snow

Theme Week: Tattoo Misspellings

Day 6: To. Part 2.

Apparently the person who designed this tattoo has a habit of sabotaging his stencils, so if anyone steals his tattoo designs and doesn’t double check them, they end up tattooing things like this on people. Luckily it is easily fixable.

Too Tough to Die is the eighth album by the Ramones, released in 1984.

Theme Week: Tattoo Misspellings

Day 5: To.

“Too fast to live, too young to die, bye bye.”

- From the song James Dean by Eagles

Happy New Year! I am going to start something fun this year: a theme week at the beginning of every month.

To start, I thought I’d deal with something everyone with a textual tattoo fears: Tattoo Misspellings.

Most people who get words tattooed onto their bodies double-, triple-, or even quadruple-check spelling and punctuation. These people? Not so much.

Day 1: Who is Tom Arrow?

“Tomorrow Never Knows” is the final track of The Beatles’ album Revolver. I wonder when this person realized their tattoo was misspelled?

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This tattoo from “Run Into Flowers” by M83 was submitted by Luke:

For a good, solid year this song was my soundtrack to everything; a constant point of reference at a time when everything shifted. As such, it seemed only fitting to etch a memorial to it into my skin. As you do. However, after I had this tattoo done I quickly discovered two things:

1. I had misunderstood the heavily distorted vocals in the song. Where I had heard, harvested and believed ‘I want to run to you’, the song actually says ‘I want to run into’. Flowers we can only presume.

2. The words I did end up having tattooed across my shoulders are far more famous as a lyric from a Bryan Adams song. I heard the song for the first time a few weeks after the tattoo was done. Timing is everything.

Nonetheless, I feel it stands as a proper memorial to the time. Misheard as they may have been, these words were my version of events. So rather than being a flat tribute to a band, the tattoo became instead a personal and flawed declaration of love for a piece of music that seemed to permit a lot of what followed. And one that has absolutely nothing, at all to do with Bryan Adams. So stop asking.

Tattoo submitted by Amy from Dallas:

Oh please
Look please lover lay down
Oh please lover lay down
And you weep
Lover lay down
Cause it’s over
Lover lay down
Say love, say love, say love, say love, say love
Could I love you
Could you love me
Darling it’s
All the same
‘Til we dance away
Chasing me all around
Leading me all around
Leading me all around in circles
Leading me all around in circles
Say…

- Excerpt from Dave Matthews Band’s Lover Lay Down

Tattoo submitted by Jenna B. (of “those who matter don’t mind“):

Stumble don’t rumble
‘Cause you might get killed
Sip but don’t tip
‘Cause your beer you might spill
Think what you feel
‘Cause your feelings don’t think
Here at the office,
We know just one drink

- Chorus of “Office” by Pepper

“Cause our days were numbered by nights on too many rooftops.
They said we’re wasting our lives,
Oh at least we know, that if we die - we lived with passion.
They said we’d burn so bright.
We burn this city, and go.”

- Excerpt from the song Burn This City by Cartel

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Modblog posted this yesterday:

Her right leg is the lyrics from “The Goodbye Song” by New Found Glory.  Her left leg is the lyrics from “If You Do, If You Don’t” by Cartel.

Click for the lyrics: » Read more after the jump →

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom’s a junkie
Strung out in heaven’s high
Hitting an all-time low

- From Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie

Submitted by João Branco from Portugal:

these are two of the tattoos I have on my right and left forearms
they refer to my favorite David Bowie song, “Ashes to Ashes”

I don’t feel the suns comin’ out today
It’s staying in, it’s gonna find another way.
As I sit here in this misery,
I don’t think I’ll ever (no Lord) see the sun from here.
And oh as I fade away,
They’ll all look at me and say, and they’ll say,
“Hey look at him! I’ll never live that way.”
But that’s okay, they’re just afraid to change.
And when you feel life ain’t worth living
You’ve got to stand up and
Take a look around you look up way to the sky.
And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
Keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin’ it’s time to die.
And as we all play parts of tomorrow,
some ways we’ll work and other ways we’ll play.
But I know we can’t all stay here forever,
So I want to write my words on the face of today.
And then they’ll paint it
And oh as I fade away,
They’ll all look at me and say, they’ll say,
“Hey look at him and where he is these days.”
When life is hard, you have to change.

- Blind Melon, Change

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Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face
But I cant recall the name
Now I wonder how whatsername has been

Seems that she disappeared with out a trace
Did she ever marry old what’s his face?
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face
But I cant recall the name
Now I wonder how whatsername has been

Remember, whatever
It seems like forever ago
Remember, whatever
It seems like forever ago
The regrets are useless
In my mind
She’s in my head
I must confess
The regrets are useless
In my mind
She’s in my head
From so long ago

(Go, Go, Go, Go..)

And in the darkest night
If my memory serves me right
I’ll never turn back time

Forgetting you, but not the time

- Whatsername by Green Day (from American Idiot)

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This shit right here is 4 U
All your faces I can see
You all think it’s up, not me
I’m about to break, this is my fate
Am I still damned to a life,
of misery and hate?
You will never know
What it did 4 U
What you are
Got me through
I’ve done 4 U
I could have, never lived
If it wasn’t, 4 U

- Korn, 4 U

(source)

When you base
Your whole identity
On reaction against somebody
It’s the same as being in

I tend to forget when I drink.
I’m doing it again I think
A hand to hold, an ego to flatter,
‘Cause you were the wineskin, I was the bladder.

Time passes, events fall away
(I don’t think they’ll hurry).
Hurry up, I’m blacking out,
High on the vapor
‘Cause I was the typo,
You were the liquid paper.

Talk it over, talk it, overtalk it.
The answer’s still the same:

It’s discontent, humiliation
‘Cause you were the theme and I was the variation.
Try to take a less dramatic course of action;

This attraction, introspection-diction predilection is breaking my heart again,
breaking my heart again.

- The Same As Being In Love by Harvey Danger (from the album King James Version)

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I count to three and grin. You smile and let me in. We sit and watch the wall you painted purple. Speech will spill on space. Our little cups of grace. But pauses rattle on about the way that you cut the snow-fence, braved the blood, the metal of those hearts that you always end up pressing your tongue to. How your body still remembers things you told it to forget. How those furious affections followed you. I’ve got this store-bought way of saying I’m okay, and you learned how to cry in total silence. We’re talented and bright. We’re lonely and uptight. We’ve found some lovely ways to disappoint, but the airport’s almost empty this time of the year, so let’s go play on a baggage carousel. Set our watches forward like we’re just arriving here from a past we left in a place we knew too well. (Hold on to the corners of today, and we’ll fold it up to save until it’s needed. Stand still. Let me scrub that brackish line that you got when something rose and then receded.

- Watermark by The Weatherthans (from the album Left and Leaving)

(source)

Why do your eyes paralyze me?
What makes me feel this way?
Carry me away with silence and heartbeats as rapid
Thinking about your embrace
And how it makes me feel
I just want to feel this way forever
Sleep on portraits painted as perfect as you
Why have I been given the chance to fly
When I’m not with you I feel lesser alone
Why have I been given the chance to fly, away?
I remember your face imprinted on angels
Your voice as beautiful as the sounds of waves
Crashing against my heart
Time slows down when you look at me
I’m infatuated with this / infatuated with you
I remember your face imprinted on angels
It’s so hard for me to understand
Why I hadn’t found you before
Don’t dull away,
Hold my hand

- Poison the Well, Nerdy

(source)

Drink up baby, stay up all night
With the things you could do
You won’t but you might
The potential you’ll be that you’ll never see
The promises you’ll only make
Drink up with me now
And forget all about the pressure of days
Do what I say and I’ll make you okay
And drive them away
The images stuck in your head

The people you’ve been before
That you don’t want around anymore
That push and shove and won’t bend to your will
I’ll keep them still

Drink up baby, look at the stars
I’ll kiss you again between the bars
Where I’m seeing you there with your hands in the air
Waiting to finally be caught
Drink up one more time and I’ll make you mine
Keep you apart, deep in my heart
Separate from the rest, where I like you the best
And keep the things you forgot

The people you’ve been before
That you don’t want around anymore
That push and shove and won’t bend to your will
I’ll keep them still

- Elliott Smith, Between the Bars (from Either/Or)

(source)

Walking home from work
Stop at the supermarket
The condiment aisle
A jar of pickles catches the eye
Made eye contact with a solitary pickle
Bought the jar, took it home

Then made it up the stairs
And made it through the doorway
And waded through the floor
Tried to head in the general direction of the bathroom
The truest room in the whole damn house

Saying love is the answer to a question that I have forgotten
And I know I’ve been asked
So the answer’s got to be love

So feeding time with TV
Then sleeping time, not sleepy so
Reading time with pickle
But where the bedside lamp had been
Is now emanating soft soft green

Has it always been this way?
Is it possible that all this magic went unnoticed?
Maybe now things will start to change
And life will turn a better page
No more rage

Saying love is the answer to a question that I have forgotten
But I know I’ve been asked
And the answer’s got to be love

Tomorrow back to work again
But run to the supermarket
Running hopeful through the aisles
Haven’t been this happy in a long time
But not a single jar was smiling
After all,
Pickle jars are just
Pickle jars and pickles are just pickles
Ingredients: water, salt, cucumbers,
Garlic, and pickling spices

Love is the answer to a question that I have forgotten
And I know I’ve been asked
And the answer’s got to be love

- Regina Spektor, Reading Time With Pickle from the album Songs

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There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never ever lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

- In My Life, From The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album

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Love, Love, Love. Love, Love, Love. Love, Love, Love.
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how
to play the game. It’s easy.
Nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how
to be you in time. It’s easy.

All you need is love. All you need is love.
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
All you need is love. All you need is love.
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.

Nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy.

All you need is love. All you need is love.
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
All you need is love (All together, now!) All
you need is love. (Everybody!)
All you need is love, love. Love is all you
need (love is all you need).

Yee-hai!
Oh yeah!
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.

- The Beatles, All You Need Is Love

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