Mondegreens (misheard lyrics)

[adrock1976]

This idea is from some quotes that were in the Caledonian Sleeper thread, it got me thinking of mondegreens, which is a term for misheard song lyrics.

A common one often cited is Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze", which has the line "'Excuse me while I kiss the sky" can be misheard as "'Excuse me while I kiss this guy".

A couple of mine of misheard lyrics are:

Meat Loaf (RIP) - Bat Out of Hell.
Actual lyric: "I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram on a silver black phantom bike"
What I heard it as: "I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram like a Cilla Black fan on bike"

REM - Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite.
Actual lyric: "Call me when you try to wake her up, Call me when you try to wake her
What I heard it as: "Calling Jamaica love, Calling Jamaica"

Does anybody else have any misheard lyrics?

 

[Drogba11CFC]

Amy Mcdonald - This is the Life
Actual lyric: "And your head feels twice the size"
What I heard: "And your headmistress decides"

 

[Gloster]

A well known one is from the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. A girl with kaleidoscope eyes misheard as A girl with colitis in her eyes.

 

[trebor79]

Until I was about 16 I didn't even realise songs had lyrics. I thought that people were just singing noises or gobbledegook to fit with the music. To this day I find it very very difficult to discern what is actually being sung in most songs.

REM - Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite.
Actual lyric: "Call me when you try to wake her up, Call me when you try to wake her
What I heard it as: "Calling Jamaica love, Calling Jamaica"

Case in point, I've only ever head "Calling Jamaica" and had absolutely no idea the lyrics were completely different!

 

[GB]

Ice Ice Baby:
Heard: "The block was dead, yo So I continued to A1A Detroit Avenue
Actual: "The block was dead, yo So I continued to A1A Beachfront Avenue"

 

[pdeaves]

Lonnie Donegan:
'Pudding on the stile' (like, dessert somewhere where you climb over a fence), rather than 'puttin' on the style'.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Paul Young. Every time you go away you take a piece of meat with you! (me)
KT Tunstall. So Leigh on Sea (Suddenly I See)

 

[Bald Rick]

Two from me:

Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Armand van Helden remix obvs)

”Scabby Bitch” vs “Gotta be big”


Prefab Sprout - The King of Rock and Roll

”Hot Dog, Jumping Fire, Albuquerque“ vs “Hot Dog, Jumping Frog, Albuquerque”
(I only discovered this last month!)

 

[87 027]

From a 1989 advert for Maxell cassettes

Desmond Dekker, The Israelites - "Me Ears are Alight"

 

[adc82140]

Madonna, La Isla Bonita....

"Last night I dreamt of some bagels"
(Last night I dreamt of San Pedro)

"Louise the bone eater"
(La Isla bonita)

 

[martin2345uk]

REM - Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite.
Actual lyric: "Call me when you try to wake her up, Call me when you try to wake her
What I heard it as: "Calling Jamaica love, Calling Jamaica"

I've only ever heard Calling Cheryl Baker...!

 

[pdeaves]

Gerry & The Pacemakers' 'How Do You Do It' has the line 'Like an arrow passing through it'. For years I heard 'Like an arrow, have some fluid'. It never made sense; now I know what it should be I don't hear the wrong version any more.

 

[Welshman]

I'm showing my age now, but at Junior School we used a songbook called "Songs of The Isles"
One of the songs, the Mingulay Boat Song, had the lyrics "What care we though white the Minch is?"
I was not trying to be funny, but misheard the words and used to sing at the top of my voice:
"What care we how white the milk is?"

Thinking back, the quality of this school-provided beverage [pre Thatcher era] after the crate had been left adjacent the radiator for a few hours, made that adaptation more appropriate than I realised.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

"What's that coming over the hill?

Is it a monster? Is it a monster?"

("Monster" by The Automatic).

Misheard by me as...

"What's that coming over the hill?

Is it a bus stop? Is it a bus stop?"

 

[trebor79]

The Specials "Free Nelson Mandela" was playing on the radio eons ago. My then girlfriend (now wife), her friend and I had never heard it before and all thought the lyric was ""Freeeee as a banana" and were singing along to it until it dawned upon us all at the same moment. We still laugh about it today.

 

[Bevan Price]

Not quite the same, but I find most choral music & church choirs words to be almost undecipherable. Many of them seem more interested in perfect pitch than clear diction, and the singers sound as if they have filled their mouths with gobstoppers.

 

[DunsBus]

Deacon Blue, Wages Day:

"On your wages day, say say say say say* was misheard by Smash Hits magazine as "On your wages day, sex sex sex sex sex."

It actually printed these lyrics and the upshot was that they ran an apology to Deacon Blue in the next issue. The correct lyrics were printed as well!

 

[yorksrob]

Deacon Blue, Wages Day:

"On your wages day, say say say say say* was misheard by Smash Hits magazine as "On your wages day, sex sex sex sex sex."

It actually printed these lyrics and the upshot was that they ran an apology to Deacon Blue in the next issue. The correct lyrics were printed as well!

Don't forget on Fergus Sings The Blues:

"Sid James, my greatest influence"

 

[Busaholic]

Deacon Blue, Wages Day:

"On your wages day, say say say say say* was misheard by Smash Hits magazine as "On your wages day, sex sex sex sex sex."

It actually printed these lyrics and the upshot was that they ran an apology to Deacon Blue in the next issue. The correct lyrics were printed as well!

Shame, that's a much more interesting lyric.

 

[Bald Rick]

Shame, that's a much more interesting lyric.

if not somewhat more tiring.

 

[87 027]

Jasper Carrott did a sketch on Bohemian Rhapsody whereby "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me" became "Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard"

 

[OhNoAPacer]

In the sixth form I had a friend who had a much younger sister, maybe 5 or 6. She enjoyed singing along to that song about a famous feminist fur trapper.
She was not sure about the verses, mumbling along, but when the chorus came round then with great gusto she would sing the words

Daisy, Daisy Crocker, killing the wild fur deer.

 

[Calthrop]

I'm not clever with accents -- if the speaker / singer uses anything other than standard Queen's English pronunciation, I'm liable to have problems. When I first heard, long ago, the Irish rebel song Kelly the Boy from Killane, about the 1798 uprising against Britain -- sung by, I think, the Dubliners -- anyway, whoever it was, their strong Irish accent made some lines of the song a puzzle for me. Particularly the following: "But the gold sun of freedom grew darkened at Ross / And it set by the Slaney's red waves." Not helped by my not knowing back then, that the Slaney is a river in those parts (it doesn't actually flow by New Ross). All that I could make of the wording was, "And the bold sun of freedom grew dark and got lost / And upset by the slaveys that wait."

"Slavey" = in the old times, female domestic servant of the lowliest kind. My fantasy painted a scenario by which -- a la the Apprentice Boys of Londonderry -- for some reason, in that conflict the scullery-maids of south-east Ireland had adhered to the British / Protestant cause, and united to await their best opportunity; which they seized, to deal some kind of devastating blow against the rebels. That was plainly, most implausible; but I couldn't think of anything that made a better job of fitting, what I was hearing sung. In the end, I saw the words of the ballad in print; and all was made clear.

 

[Acey]

The Police ,actual words-So lonely
what I hear-Sue Lawley

 

[nw1]

Madonna, La Isla Bonita....

"Last night I dreamt of some bagels"
(Last night I dreamt of San Pedro)

"Louise the bone eater"
(La Isla bonita)

I remember my cousin (who was pretty small at the time, perhaps about 10) thought it was "Yakistan bonita" when it came out.

The Police ,actual words-So lonely
what I hear-Sue Lawley

From the same era and on a similar theme my mum used to think "Coming Up" (Paul McCartney) was "Bobby Ewing".

Others:

Snow: Informer - "Born and raised in Connecticut" - actually "born and raised in the ghetto"

An obscure one, played a lot on Radio 2 in 2001: Super Furry Animals, Juxtaposed with U:

"It's easy when you know how, to get along with a big fat cow" - actually
"It's easy when you know how, to get along without Boom! Bang! Pow"

I'm not so much up on current music, but a recent one: Calvin Harris, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams "Feels": "Don't be afraid to catch fish" is actually "Don't be afraid to catch feels"; a "feel" is I think American English for a "feeling" which would probably contribute to UK English speakers mishearing it as "fish".

I still don't know the actual lyrics, but Simply Red, Money's Too Tight To Mention sounds towards the end like:

"I'm talking about money, money,
I'm taking about money, money
I'm talking about runny, runny,
I'm talking about runny, runny,
In the year 240, Nancy,
In the year 240, Nancy...."

 

[PTR 444]

Taylor Swift - Blank Space

Actual: “Got a long list of ex lovers”
What I hear: “Hey lonely Starbucks lovers”

 

[nw1]

Don't forget on Fergus Sings The Blues:

"Sid James, my greatest influence"

Another one of theirs from the same era, Queen of the New Year, sounds like "From the Chairman Lord, queen of the new year". I doubt it's that though.

 

[DunsBus]

Another one of theirs from the same era, Queen of the New Year, sounds like "From the Chairman Lord, queen of the new year". I doubt it's that though.

All from the same album, too - "When The World Knows Your Name."

 

[nw1]

I've only ever heard Calling Cheryl Baker...!

For me it was "Calling Chattawaker". Makes no sense, but maybe I thought that "Chattawaker" was a character from the Cat in the Hat books.

Ice Ice Baby:
Heard: "The block was dead, yo So I continued to A1A Detroit Avenue
Actual: "The block was dead, yo So I continued to A1A Beachfront Avenue"

For me: "A1A, Destroy W" ("W" being one of his enemies, presumably).

 

[Dr Day]

Queen - One Vision - I still always hear 'look what they've done to Mike Reid'. [Radio 1 DJ at the time] . I think it should be 'my dream'.

KT Tunstall. So Leigh on Sea (Suddenly I See)

Until I just looked it up I genuinely thought that's what it was! Always a bit puzzled why a Scottish lass was singing about Essex...