The Top 5 Made Up Words You’ve Learned Listening to WPDH

If you've been listening to WPDH for any part of the past 40 years, you've most likely wondered about the meaning of these completely made-up rock and roll lyrics.

Rhyming isn't easy, so sometimes artists have to be a little creative with their vocabulary. If that doesn't work, well, I guess it's just as easy to start making stuff up. Here are five words that you can hear listening to WPDH that aren't actually words after all.

Colitas
In "Hotel California" by The Eagles, Don Henley sings about the "warm sell of colitas rising up through the air." There have been countless debates about what a colita actually is. Some say it's a tropical drink (Pina Colita anyone?), others say it's a rough translation from Mexican for marijuana buds. There's never been a definitive explanation so your guess is as good as ours.

Pompatus
Steve Miller sings of the "pompatus of love" in his 1973 hit "The Joker." Miller has repeatedly claimed to have made up the the word "pompatus," but many music scholars have pointed to a similar usage of the word that appeared years earlier in an old Doo Wop song by Vernon Green. In an interview quoted by The Strait Dope, Vernon says his lyric, "puppitus of love," is a term he "coined to mean a secret paper-doll fantasy figure, who would be my everything and bear my children." Ok then.

Gunter Glieben Glauchen Globen
The Def Leppard song "Rock of Ages" begins with what sounds like German gibberish. And guess what? That's exactly what it is. According to legend, producer Mutt Lange was getting tired of counting to four to start each take during recording, so he just started making weird noises. It sounded cool so the band decided to keep it in the song and the rest is history.

Groos
The chorus to ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" may be one of the most misunderstood lyrics of all time. In the song the band sings "Don't Bring Me Down... Groos."  Groos, a nonsensical word, was misheard by most fans as "Bruce." Jeff Lynne was said to be so amused by people singing the wrong lyrics that he started singing "Bruce" during concerts himself.

Befront
George Thorogood has a converastion with his landlady in "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" about the rent that's due. When questioned about why he doesn't have a job and just leans against a post on the corner all day, Thorogood explains that he's tired. He says the landlady responded with "That don't befront me." We're not sure what "befront" means, but a drink or three may clear it up.

Of course, there are plenty of other words that have left us scratching our heads over the past 40 years at WPDH. So if you're still wondering what a D'yer Mak'er is, where Gadda Da Vida is located or who the hell Sussudio is you're not alone. We're still trying to figure those out too.

Do you have another lyric that has been been boggling you for years? Let us know in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.