It's not just "academics and pedants" who make conscious changes. Sometimes a singer (whether of academic or pedantic bent or not) feels impelled to change the words to a song for some very good, sound reasons. One example out of many that I can think of for making conscious changes in the words of a song:

I have a copy of "The Coffeehouse Songbook" on my bookshelves, and it contains a lot of good songs. Apparently, it was put together by "collecting" songs from various singers in various coffeehouses all over the country, and I get the distinct impression that many of the songs were written down by someone listening to the singer and scribbling very quickly. As I say, it has a lot of good songs in it, but one needs to read over the words carefully, because it contains a multitude of goofs, screw-ups, and, notably, "mondegreens."

A case in point (one among many) is found in the first verse of "The Bonnie Ship The Diamond." In "The Coffeehouse Songbook," the first verse reads

The Diamond is a ship, my lads;
For the Davis Strait we're bound.
The quay it is all garnishèd
With forty lashes round.

"With forty lashes round?" Now, what the hell does that mean, especially in context? I sounds very "nautical," perhaps, but it makes no sense anywhere in the song.

I have a copy of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger's "Our Singing Island," which contains the same song. I compared texts, and the the line in "Our Singing Island" reads

With bonnie lasses 'round.

Now, that makes sense. The ship is off to hunt whales, and the women are there to see their men off. Whoever wrote down "forty lashes"—what were they thinking? Especially when the next verse makes the whole thing abundantly clear.

All along the key at Peterhead,
The lassies stand around
With their shawls all pulled about them,
And their salt tears running down.

Now, I can see leaving some technical terms or bits of jargon alone if I'm not sure what they mean (although, if I'm going to sing the song, I feel it's my duty to try to find out), but if a word or line is obviously wrong and makes no sense, and the real meaning is fairly clear, I can't see that it's a crime to make reasonable and sensible changes.

Make sure brain is in gear before either 1) singing something as is if it makes no sense; or 2) before you start wielding the blue pencil.

Don Firth