A fork of Rural Dictionary
While recording Beck's 1996 album of the same name, the then-unnamed track 'Lord Only Knows' was written down by the engineer as 'O-Del-Ay' based on his phoenetic understanding of the outro vocal. Beck is ACTUALLY singing "Órale", which is a common Hispanic term meaning: 1. affirmation that something is impressive, exclamatory 2. an agreement with a statement (similar to 'word') 3. alarm, surprise or danger 4. a simple greeting 5. "hurry up" Beck liked the misspelling, naming the album after it. As such, the word carries a similar exclamatory function to it's Spanish pronunciation.
"Odelay, Odelay! Just passing through." - Hey/Hi/What's Up/Word, just passing through!"