What are the worst lyric screwups you've

Subject: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: jimmyt
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 12:22 PM

Just for kicks, thought this might be interesting. When I was a kid, I thought the line in Silent Night was Round John Virgin, Mother and Child. In the 60's the 5th Dimension song had a line that later I found out was "you and me,endlessly. to such a weird rhythm I thought it was "you and me and Leslie"! My daughter in her pre teens listening to Kyrie Eleison sang "Carring a laser! Maybe it's just my family! Any similar dumb lyrics?

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,allen woodpecker
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 12:58 PM

Hey Jimmyt. The correct name for this phenomenon, apparently, is a "mondegreen". From the "Bonnie Earl of Moray" the line is "Ye hae slain the Earl O' Moray, and laid him on the green", but some dude thought it said "Ye hae slain the Earl O' Moray and Lady Mondegreen". The dude in question may have been Allan Lomax, but this may be apochryphal. My mate Kit thought Sovay "dressed herself in manzarae", which he took to be some sort of purple material. Weird, innit? A.W.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: kendall
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 01:50 PM

As a small boy, I heard the song Streets of Laredo, and the line "Take me to the valley and lay the sod o're me" was, lay the sodoreme, and I wondered what the hell is a sodorme. Recently, I heard a recording of Lorens in which the singer sings "a down ERECTIONS cloudless sky. Well, AFFECTION and ERECTION are related.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: jimmyt
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 02:21 PM

Now that I think about it, it must be a family thing, as my wife, Jayne used to sing along with the great old soul song, "Jayne, Jayne,Jayne---Jayne's a fool. that is, by the way when she was a youngster! She'd kill me for this testamony! Mondegreen, Huh? Sounds good tumee!

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Pei T
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 02:30 PM

(Wow, I haven't visited the mudcat in a really really long time, but I stopped in to get the address for a friend, and saw this and had to post..)

I am a huge steeleye span fan, my Dad got me into them when I was little, but my husband (who has great taste in all other things) hates them. (He likes their music, the crazy man just can't stand Maddy's voice)

There is a Steeleye song called "Elf Song", the lyric to which is:

"I heard a bonny cow low over the lea"

My husband hears..

"Robin Hood's an outlaw underneath the sea"

Go figure.. :)

Pei

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: jimmyt
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 02:53 PM

That one's a stretch even for an aurally challenged person like me! thanks for the post, Pei.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Pei T
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 03:10 PM

Yeah.. But he hears a lot of strange ones, that is just the most extreme.. :)

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: open mike
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 04:44 PM

there must be a thread that has addressed mondegreens here before--and there are several web sites dedicated to them././the most often metioned one is "excuse me while i kiss this guy" from jimmy henbdrix's "kiss the sky"-- and there is a line which is often confused with "the bath room's on the right"--what is the original lyric?? maybe it is bad moon rising?? there is a john prine song which says that there is a "half an inch of water" (and you think you're gonna drown)....which sometimes comes out as "happy enchilada" ..there are many others.. try a web search for MONDEGEREEN and be prepared to split your sides laughing!!

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Deckman
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 06:37 PM

HEY! What's new? I've lived (livid?) with this delemma for years. I couldn't begin to tell you the number of screwups I've had with the problem of understanding diction from performers who ONLY recorded when they had a mouthful of marbles! George Austin (Seattle) tells a goofy story on me ... about the time I called him just before a gig I did, probably 15 years ago. I called him late at night, or perhaps it was early in the morning, and asked him to clerify a line. And I also received a call about midnight one night, from a friend who was performing live in Chicago. He was between sets, and begged me to give him the correct verbage to a song he wanted to do. Ah ... such is the life of a performer! (ain't it great) CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 09:19 PM

Ahhhhh, where to start. Lexdexia and performing can be all kinds of fun.

I have this one sone I wrote about some folks brewing moonshine than has a line I wrote that goes "smoke snakin' thru the oak' which about every 4th or 5 playing somes out, "snake smoking thru the oak". Makes no sense that way, but....

But there are some songs I wouldn't attempt out of absolute fear. "Blinded by the Light"? Heck no. I'm not sure what they're saying but Iz not ever gonna do that song.

Bobert

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Banjer
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 09:38 PM

In the Billy Grammer song 'Gotta Travel On' I kept hearing...Pauper rags to Johnny....what it asctually says is....Poppa writes to Johnny....I am glad to see that I am not alone and even more heartend to see that others also have the capacity to laugh at themselves once in a while. A trait that seems to be disappearing these days!! Another one I just remembered...as a lil one, when singing Christmas carols, the line in 'Deck The Halls' came out....deck the halls with bousuf, folly, folly la, la, la, la, la! I had no idea what 'bousuf' was but others were singing the same thing so to my young ears it made sense!

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 09:46 PM

In the store where I used to work, the radio was usually tuned to a rock station. A young coworker misheard Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" as "I Supply the Fish". Just a little more evidence that a drug-free workplace may not be such a bad idea after all.

BWL

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 09:54 PM

I knew someone once who thought the Blue Danube Waltz was the "Blue Daniel Waltz." Who the hell is "Blue Daniel?" Maybe Blue Daniel is related to Blue Peter, which is either a program on the BBC or a venereal disease. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Midchuck
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 10:19 PM

This wasn't a mistake, I did it on purpose.

Our group was working on Utah Phillips' Faded Roses of December, and instead of singing:

"I'd rather have a heartache to remember, than a fickle love that doesn't mean a thing,"

I sang:

"I'd rather have a hardon to remember, than a feeble f*** that doesn't mean a thing."

Now my wife is afraid to sing it in public, because my lyrics are easier to remember and she's afraid she'll sing them by mistake.

Peter.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 10:21 PM

Worst lyrics srewups? Hell man, anything written by Andrew Lloyd Webber would qualify wouldn't it?

Yeah, I know that ain't the topic.....Just had to be said.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: michaelr
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 10:44 PM

Speaking of Hendrix -- Jimi himself was guilty of screwing up the lyrics to Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower": instead of "none of them along the line know what any of it is worth" he recorded something like "now the landlord's on the line mumble mumble words". I just saw his performance from the Isle of Wight Festival on TV, and he obviously doesn't know what the lyric is. Now that's lazy for ya!

Then there's the old Free song "All right now" with the line "Let's move before they raise the parking rate" which a buddy of mine heard as "Before they raise the f**king rent".

Endless fun...
Michael

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 11:41 PM

In the folly of my youth I did an LP before I teamed up with Magaret. I sang a version of Looly, Looly and instead of singing corpus christi writ thereon, I sang cobbles twisting writ thereon. Didn't make any sense, but I sang it. And now it's scratched forever in these grooves. There will never be a CD version.

I once heard a singer singing "Lock Keeper" with the line "wounded eyes," rather than "moonlit eyes." They weren't all that grateful to hear the correct lyrics.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Les B
Date: 03 Sep 02 - 11:45 PM

Kendall - I just saw a bumper sticker today that proclaimed "My Dixie Wrecked" - I couldn't figure it out, but my daughter (adult) said, Oh, Dad, it's "My Dick's Erect"!

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 01:32 AM

A Glasgow classroom classic--"In past oor green He leadeth me, the quiet waters by....."

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,KingBrilliant
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 03:41 AM

I think I've posted this before , but...
I heard the 80's Banarama hit "Robert De Niro's waiting, talking italian" as "Robert De Niro's waiting, f*ck*ng italian!".
It always made me giggle, and I just couldn't hear it any other way.
Then there was their other hit "I'm your penis, I'm your fire, what's your desire?".

Kris

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Jim Krause
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 12:45 PM

Then there's Grace Slick singing
"Tell 'em a hookah
Smokin' color crayons
Has given you the call
Go ask Alice, when she was just small."

I still have no idea what the real words to White Rabbit are.

And who could forget Karen Carpenter singing
"So they sprinkled walnuts in your hair
And starlight in your eyes like glue."

when what she really sang was:
"So they sprinkled gold dust in your hair
And starlight in your eyes of blue."

Jim

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 01:59 PM

And at the height of the Celtic Tiger there were those who thought "Islands in the Stream" was "Ireland's Industry".

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 03:43 PM

When I first saw this thread title, I hoped it would NOT be about mondegreens, because we have already had plenty of those. (I may post some links later.) But to my knowledge, there hasn't been a thread about other kinds of embarrassing on-stage screwups. So while I'm thinking about it, I'll post a couple of my favorite screw-up stories.

*

A friend of mine, singing at a folk festival, sang THE SCOTSMAN'S KILT, which has been in his repertoire for years. But instead of singing the punch line, he inadvertently repeated a line from earlier in the song. He sang it with a big finale-type flourish, as if it were a punch line, but there was no punch line there! On stage, he gave no indication he realized he had done anything wrong. He did realize it, it turns out, too late to fix it, so he just decided to bluff his way through.

The good news is, this was billed as a "first annual" festival but there never was a second. It was in a remote location, was poorly publicized, and he was the first act of the day, so the audience was VERY small, for which we will always be grateful.

*

I rode along with my wife and a couple of her fellow band members on the way to one of their concert gigs. In the car, they decided to rehearse the words to their songs. One of them was "The Star of the County Down."

When they had finished, I asked if they had heard the Van Morrison/Chieftains version. They hadn't, so I sang part of it for them. The main difference is, Morrison sings it in 4/4 time (Click here), but they (and most other people, I think) do it in 3/4 ((Click here for an example)). Nobody said much about it, just "Oh, that's interesting" or something like that.

When it came time to perform it in concert, half of them--the ones who had been in the car with me--started off in 4/4 while the rest started off in 3/4! They were several measures into it before they realized what was wrong and started over.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 03:55 PM

It seems CDNOW doesn't allow direct links to their sound samples. (How do they know?) Anyway, if you right-click on the CDNOW links that I provided above, a little menu pops up. Then click on "Copy Shortcut." Then paste the URL into your browser's Address box and click "Go." That works in Microsoft Internet Explorer, anyway.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 05:24 PM

OK, here are the threads I've found on mondegreens. As usual, there is some thread drift in some of these.

Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
Spoonerism's in songs- Examples
mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
There's a Bathroom on the Right
Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
Misheard words
Mis-heard session tune titles.
Help: Monthelawn???
BS: mystery lyrics
any new mondegreens?
Lyr Req: Ants Are Blowing in the Wind
Lyric drift.
Lyr Req: Round John
Help: What is a Monigan?
Mangled Lines
BS: Great Misquotations
BS: Dept. of Misheard Lyrics
BS: Another mondegreen
BS: Asteroid Light -- erratum
Gig bloopers - did I sing that???
mondegreen ?

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: John Routledge
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 07:48 PM

What I remembered as a one verse song and have recently sung as such was actually the first two lines of the fifth verse and the last two lines of the sixth verse. It still made sense so my embarrassment was reduced when it was pointed out that I had missed out 4 verses and two half verses. Happy days.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,An Croenen
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 08:05 PM

My 4 year old came home singing a little prayer she had learnt at school. She was adamant that it ended with 'Our men' (Amen)...

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 08:59 PM

Hymn about a funny animal. "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Banjer
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 10:17 PM

Don reminded me of the old (with whiskers) joke about the youngster who told mom nad dad that they had learned God's name in Sunday school. When they asked what was the name and how did he learn it he said he learned it in the song, 'In The Garden'. The chorus starts out....Andy walked with me, Andy talked with me, He told me I was His own.....

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Wincing Devil
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 11:34 PM

She's got a tick in her eye (She's got a ticket to ride)

'scuse me while I kiss this guy ('scuse me while I kiss the sky)

The second one is so famous, somebosy put up a website: http://www.kissthisguy.com/

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Melani
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 12:23 AM

When my aunt was little, she was particularly fond of the Woody Guthrie Dustbowl song that went, "So long, it's ringgold sunolya." The fact that it made no sense didn't slow down a four-year-old.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,An Croenen
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 06:11 PM

Going on from Banjer, you reminded me of my neighbour boy claiming at school that God lived in his street, because my husbands name is Godfried... (We also got bankstatements mentioning 'payment from Mr God' for a while - fabulous, isn't it!). I know these aren't lyrics, but perhaps they should become lyrics..

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Just Amy
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 06:45 PM

I for years (like 20) thought the words to "Kodachrome" were, "Momma don't take my colored phone away: and I sang it like that. What a dope!

My friend who was from the middle east thought it was "Bad Moose Risin'" but the people he sang it to mostly didn't understand English anyway.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 06:46 PM

Yall are crazy, it's "there's a babboon on the right." Is a "bathroom" going "to take your life?" Or a "bad moon?" whatever ever that is? It doesn't make any sense. Don't go around tonight... there's a babboon on the right.

Does anyone know what Kyrie Elaison means? I used to, from a gregorian chant, but I forgot, and nobody knows. I could look it up, but it's not the same, somehow.

A friend of mine heard the Davey Crocket song line Killed him a b'ar when he was only three, as Killed in a bar when he was only three. Which raises questions as to what he was doing in a bar, and how he became so famous having died so young.

But my favorite performance glitch was a theatre audition by someone who'd never heard the tomAYto/tomAHto pronunciations--You say Tomayto, I say Tomayto, let's call the whole thing off.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Just Amy
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 08:47 PM

Fred: The theatre audition item was hilarious!

Kyrie Elaison means Exalt the Lord! (Kyrie is Greek for the Lord and Elaison is the verb to exalt) I found this in some Roman Catholic website that has a Latin dictionary.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: open mike
Date: 06 Sep 02 - 02:01 AM

the hookah smoking caterpillar is from Alice in wonderland-and he wriggled into jefferson starship's song-no doubt there were some colors happening back then-- and tails and hallucinations....did crayola add any psychedelic colors- oh yeah, i guess the fluorescent ones..

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Genie
Date: 06 Sep 02 - 05:04 PM

Spaw, Andrew Lloyd Weber doesn't usually write the lyrics. It's often Tim Rice, but it has been other lyricists, too.

Jim D., I like those stories about the non-mondegreen types of screw ups. One that I've done once or twice before, when my mouth was on auto-pilot, was to inadvertently change the last line of "Hey, Good Lookin'!" from "How's about cookin' somethin' up with me?" to "How's about keepin' somethin' up for me."

BTW, Jim, "When it came time to perform it in concert, half of them--the ones who had been in the car with me--started off in 4/4 while the rest started off in 3/4!" -- Isn't that called "jazz?"

There's another mondegreen website called "amiright.com".

Genie

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 06 Sep 02 - 07:48 PM

Thanks Just Amy!

Genie, I always get Tim Rice mixed up with Tim Curry. And I could never sing about Floyd Collins, the ill-fated spelunker, because I confuse him with Floyd Kramer ( but he's the piano player) but then I think he was the barber on Mayberry (but that was Just Floyd).

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,dr. soul
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 02:15 AM

. . . the lead singer would regularly turn "headlights" (as in, "I was caught in the headlights") into "head lice", but enunciation is difficult under the best of circumstances, and who (but the rest of the band) would notice?

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,dr. soul yet again
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 02:23 AM

My buddy Charles Bassi was singing on a jam session, classic Chicago blues "I'm a Man". Got to the chorus, Charles sings: "I'm a man, spelled A, uh . . . "!

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Jim McLean
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 03:16 PM

What about the song "wae's me for Prince Charlie" heard as where's me fourpence, Charlie? Jim McLean

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Sonnet
Date: 07 Sep 02 - 03:52 PM

When my daughter, Rachael, was at junior school, her class had been taught What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor. I enjoyed the Rachaelism:

"Put him in the CUPBOARD with a hose-pipe on him."

JMcS

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Orac
Date: 09 Sep 02 - 01:19 PM

I think my worst one was a line in Kieren Halpin's "Too long away" when I sang "Men with no suits and black faces". I met Kieren a couple of weeks later and mentioned it to him.... thinking it would make him smile.. He said its "men with black suit and no faces .. suit is singular .. its a state of mind not a state of dress". Anyway I felt suitably put in my place. He is not famous for his humour .. nice songs though.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: dorareever
Date: 09 Sep 02 - 01:42 PM

I was sure that the song whiskey in the jar mentioned "a band of FAT men" that "looked like captain Farrell" and that in the merry ploughboy the IRA was fighting for "the land can have sex and all." ... Changing genre of music,in the Dead Kennedys song "Holiday in Cambodia" where they repeat Pol Pot,Pol Pot like a mantra,I was sure they were saying: "fat an' old,fat an' old."

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Genie
Date: 10 Sep 02 - 02:27 AM

Yesterday at a song circle, I was doing Tom Paxton's song "The Bravest," and as a sheer slip of the tongue, changed "...The pipers play 'Amazing Grace' as the coffins come in view," to "...The pipers play amazing grapes as the coffins ... ." Had it been in a real performance, I'd probably have bit my tongue and hoped no one would notice that bit of aphasia, but in this informal setting, I ended up snickering through the last part of this very somber and moving song!

Genie

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,KingBrilliant
Date: 10 Sep 02 - 03:33 AM

There is an Indigo Girls song that a guitarist friend will insist on making us sing. The song is called ghost, and the first line is "There's a letter on my desktop that I got out of a drawer", but I cannot for the life of me sing it as anything other than "There's a letter on my doorstep that I got out of a drawer..". This makes no sense at all & so I start to smile. As the song goes on us two singers get more and more desperate to laugh, as the guitarist ploughs on manfully with a disapproving look on his face.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 10 Sep 02 - 03:57 AM

Way back in the early 70s my then singing-partner Barrie Roberts wrote a sort of Folk-documentary--a story illustrated with songs--about a guy named Hector MacDonald, based on the book "MacDonald of the 42nd" (I think!); about a guy who'd been everywhere and done everything from the Indian Mutiny via the American War of Independence to a sad old age working on the Liverpool Docks. He'd lumberjacked in Canada, and one of the songs was "Foreman Young Monroe", about a young chap who gets killed breaking a log-jam (on the Sabbath). No mistakes here, but on the very last rehearsal the night before the show, I got to the last verse about his mourning sweetheart, whose "greatest wish was to be laid by her lover Young Monroe" and suddenly realised these lines could have another interpretation! We all fell about laughing for ages, and in the end I changed it to "laid with"; but how we avoided disaster on the performance I shall never know.

Steve

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: SlickerBill
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 12:06 AM

I heard one about Cher's "Gypsies tramps and Thieves" which started "Gypsies, chimpanzees ..." and ended " And every night the men would come to town, and lay the monkey down." sb

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Genie
Date: 27 Oct 02 - 09:14 PM

This afternoon at a jam some friends and I were singing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out." One line goes, "When you get back on your feet again,..." and another goes "If I ever get my hands on a dollar again...". My friend Gil started out with the latter and then realized he should be singing the former (at that place in the song), so the line came out
"When I get my hands on my feet again, gonna hang on to it till the eagle grins...".

That was good for a good laugh.

Genie

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Genie
Date: 27 Oct 02 - 09:17 PM

A mistake that I commonly make when I let the 'autopilot' take over while singing conjures up an image just as silly as the one I mentioned above. It's in the song "Life's Railway To Heaven." All too often, I sing "Keep your eye upon the throttle and your hands upon the rail."

(And we all know how painful that can be!)

Genie