Song: "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers

Event: Misheard lyrics

One of the coolest things about art is its inherent subjectivity.  What something means to you may mean something completely different to me.  That possibility for myriad interpretations opens up any works - allowing it to be as emotionally resonating or coldly apathetic as the audience which witnesses it.  And what makes such interpretation even more malleable is when the audience member is either misinformed or simply perceives something incorrectly.  The piece of art - though that may be a lofty title to attach to it - that most reminds me of the transitory identity of art is The Wallflowers' song, "One Headlight."

To start - I'm not a Wallflowers fan; I don't own any of their music, I don't know any songs outside of this one and their cover of Bowie's "Heroes."  I know that the lead singer is Bob Dylan's son and that they haven't really been around for the past decade or so.  And "One Headlight" doesn't get as much radio play as it once did.  But whenever I do happen upon it on the radio, usually on some "Best of the 80s, 90s and Today" station, I stop scanning the stations, listen to the song with a smile, recalling my incorrect reading of the song.

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Much of junk culture has a core of crisis — shoot-outs, conflagrations, bodies weltering in blood, naked embracers or rapist-stranglers. The sounds of junk culture are heard over a ground bass of extremism. Our entertainments swarm with specters of world crisis. Nothing moderate can have any claim to our attention. 

- Saul Bellow