I've never been to GA

The popular Israeli radio station Galgalatz plays a both Israeli and foreign (mostly English language) tunes. Most of the songs are recent, but they do play older songs as well. A problem I have is that they never mention the name of the song, or the artist or the date or release, so it's often a big effort to track down the song.

A number of years ago they played this song that I really liked but could never make out the words in order to purchase it. At one point I heard it played in an in house system at the old KFC in Jerusalem, and begged them to let me see the CD, so I was able to find out it was Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn". When we went to the States a little while later, no one ever heard of the song. It turned out that it was released in Israel months before it made it to the US!

My ability to follow Hebrew songs is even worse. I'm notorious for not being able to follow lyrics, and it only gets worse in Hebrew. I'm constantly mishearing lyrics and not understanding the meaning of songs. And a big issue is the dates of songs - I'll hear a song and think it's new, but it turns out it came out 30 years ago. And don't get me started on how many times I've heard a song only to think that it was only a commercial jingle.

Anyway, Galgalatz also plays somewhat obscure English-language songs as well. They play this song called I've Never Been To Me by Charlene. I'd never heard the song in the States, and never heard of the artist until I looked it up on the internet today. It turns out the song is from 1977. It's kind of a sappy song, but the thing for me was I never understood the main line of the chorus. I heard the words "I've never been to me", but didn't actually understand them, so I kept trying to think of other places she could be talking about.

And now that I've finally seen the lyrics, I choose not to accept them. They don't actually make any sense. So I'm interpreting Charlene's lyrics as "I've never been to ME" - the postal abbreviation of the state of Maine. That is kind of sad, she's been to Georgia and California, and never been to Maine.

I feel for you Charlene. I really do.