Another Thing Coming

Contrary to popular belief, having another thing coming as opposed to another think coming doesn’t mean the same thing. If you’ve got another thing coming, this means the outcome of a situation is expected to take a turn other than anticipated, and usually that turn is for the worse.

Judas Priest’s song “Another Thing Coming” was a misuse of the phrase as the lyrics imply another think coming, but the song title and the lyrics propelled the song from the 1982 album “Screaming For Vengeance” up the charts to reach #66 in the UK and #4 in the US that year.

Judas Priest wasn’t the first band to have a song with that phrase in the title. Birmingham (AL) band Hotel released a song by that name from their debut album on MCA Records in 1979. The song entered the Billboard charts at #90, and even though the band didn’t break through as hoped, they were compared to well-known bands such as Ambrosia and Player.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1: Two founding members of Hotel went on to found “Split The Dark.” When that group broke up, guitarist/vocalist Damon Johnson went on to work with Alice Cooper, and Thin Lizzy.

The phrase was misused in the New York Herald newspaper in an article about the ups and downs of life as a Hollywood actor back in 1919:

If you think the life of a movie star is all sunshine and flowers you’ve got another thing coming.

Although the phrase in its entirety was used in the New York Herald, in 1906, the spirit of the expression was found in The Wilshire Editorials written by land developer, serial entrepreneur, advertising billboard owner, publisher, and outspoken millionaire socialist Gaylord Wilshire (7 June 1851 – 7 September 11927) as he railed against the Wall Street Journal in his editorial titled, “Wall Street Journal Turns Moralist.”

But if we did, then we have another thing coming, for this is the cry-baby talk I find in this morning’s December 16 editorial: Business and the Law.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 2: The famous Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles (CA) is named after Henry Gaylord Wilshire by Henry Gaylord Wilshire. This happened in 1887 when he bought 35 acres of land to the west of Westlake (which came to be known as MacArthur Park in later years). Seven years later, he began to create an exclusive residential subdivision and decided the subdivision would have a wide street down the center named after himself. Originally it was four blocks long and ran between Westlake and Sunset (now known as Lafayette) Parks.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 3:  Gaylord Wilshire donated the street to Los Angeles with the stipulation that no rail lines or heavy trucking would ever be allowed along his boulevard.

Idiomation dates the full expression to 1918 with a serious nod to Gaylord Wilshire in 1906.