Xmas Mondegreens

Subject: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 06:24 AM

Stolen from a Church magazine (I read it for the centerfolds):

Deck the halls with Buddy Holly
We three kings of porridge and tar
On the first day of Xmas my tulip gave to me
Later on we'll perspire as we dream by the fire
He's making a list: chicken and rice
Noel, Noel, Barney's the King of Israel
With the jelly tost proclaim
Sleep in heavenly peas
You'll go down in Listerine (c)
Oh, what fun it is to ride with one horse, soap and hay
O come froggy faithful

RtS
(I'll get me stocking)

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 07:57 AM

A song from Sid Kipper ' Arrest These Merry Gentlemen '

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Bee
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 08:02 AM

When I was a little kid, I really thought it was 'God dressed you merry gentlemen'.

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 08:42 AM

I always wanted to meet "Round John Virgin".

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 08:59 AM

Honest this: one kid in my class was convinced the Magi came bearing gifts of Coal, Frankenstein and a Mirror - all top gifts in the South-East Northumbrian coalfield, circa 1966. Not that I was any better, being a bit miffed at the exploits of one Judas the Scallywag...

Otherwise:

With me it was 'Sleet and Heavenly Peas' - which seemed entirely reasonable given my fondness for hot carlins on cold & blustery Saturdays in Blyth Market. I'm delighted to say since moving to the Fylde I've rediscovered this divinely inspired delicacy in the form of Partched Peas from the barrow outside The Harris Museum in Preston.

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 09:03 AM

Down we now our gray apparel
(My brother thought this was about changing into clean clothes.)

I'm dreaming of the right Christmas

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 10:17 AM

What about "Ol' Ten an' Bomb?"

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 11:17 AM

Hark the Harold Angel sings . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Mr Happy
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 11:25 AM

'Wild shepherds washed their frocks by night...'

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST,Tinker in Chicago
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 11:57 AM

Then there's one that's hard to avoid. In "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," in the second verse ("In Bethlehem in Jewry...") the old style English is trying to say "that which his mother Mary did nothing take in scorn" but it sure sounds like the singers are saying "that witch, his mother Mary." Never knew she was a Wiccan.

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 11:59 AM

It became 'Hark, the Gerald Angel's sing' for me, after a misreading from a 5yr old...

Then there's the pizza carol.... deep pan, crisp and even.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 12:41 PM

'Most highly flavoured gravy, Gloria' ....I can't remember the name of the hymn/carol....Liz can you remember?!

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 12:53 PM

A cousin of mine conplained bitterly to his mother that everyone liked me best. She was confused and asked him why. He tearfully responded "There's a mARY cHRISTMAS. wHY ISN'T THERE A BOBBY cHRISTMAS." dAMN cAPSLOck!


We later became good friends. He died at 13 - accidental poisoning from a shrub in front of his home in Florida.

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 02:40 PM

AAAAAAARGH - I can hear the line - Most highly favoured lady, Glor-or-or-or-or-or-ia - BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT IT'S FROM. It's tormenting me, just that one line, over and over again. Someone put me out of my misery please!

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Celtaddict
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 02:44 PM

Not a mondegreen (and I suspect a number of the above were made up too) but my family used to sing 'Aardvark Carols'
Aardvark herald angels sing. . .

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: TheSnail
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 02:52 PM

There you go. Gabriel's Message

Google knows everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 03:02 PM

How jesus the savior did come for to die / For poor ornery people like you and like I...

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 03:02 PM

This is not BS, this is classis Mudcat above-the-line stuff!

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 03:48 PM

Aah used te wonder why, if there wez THREE Kings only two of them got a mention..

Baer Ingifs and Traverse Affah

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 06:13 PM

Ah yes, the little cowboy king, wee Travis Affar...

I was a little confused when I was 5, as to why they should want to weigh a manger...


Later I wondered why everyone kept saying O come, o come, a manual.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 06:51 PM

Aye, Liz!

She wez only a Sunday School teacher but she knew a way in a manger!!!

Eeh! Aah'm gannin' straight te hell withoot stoppin'

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 06:57 PM

"why everyone kept saying O come, o come, a manual."

manus - the hand - obviously pubescent males, Liz...

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Monodreems
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 08:10 PM

oh come all ye faithful
the lord has come

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: RangerSteve
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 08:28 PM

We three kings of Orient are...

As a kid, I thought Orient Are was the name of a country.

And while it's not a mondegreen, I was intrigued by the line
"eight maids a-milking seven swans a-swimming". and "Six geese a-laying five gold rings".

Gilda Radner, on Saturday Night Live came up with "Mark, the Hairlipped Angel".

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 05:31 AM

I was sorting out carols for our choir to sing in sets of 6 yesterday. We had a 'trad' set (the usual ones), a 'message' set where the titles made a Q & A conversation, and an animal set - shepherds, Herod and the Cock, Away in a manger - but got stuck for the 6th... so we had 'O camel ye faithful'.

Thanks to Les Barker for that one.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: jonm
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 09:23 AM

Like RangerSteve, I always wondered why there were three kings for two places, Aury and Tar.....

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 05:18 PM

Thank you TheSnail. I can even remember the tune now (trad Basque, I believe). I'm sure we used to sing 'Most Highly Flavoured Lady' which is even more - erm - than highly flavoured gravy.

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 05:58 PM

My old man used to actually sing, under his breath, in church, at the end of each verse of "Oh Holy Night":

Oh Mike
Devine
Oh Mike, when Christ was born,
Oh Mike
Devi-i-i-i-i-i-i-ne
Oh Mike
Oh Mike Devine.

(Mike Devine was one of his buddies down at the Hibernian Club.)

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Joybell
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 06:33 PM

Not a mondegreen but I still see a bunch of Viking types riding along on a sled singing "a slaying song" in "Jingle Bells".
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 06:40 PM

Jingle Bells!


Batman Smells!


Robin flew away!


Bye now! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Jim Krause
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 06:55 PM

We rejoice in the light
    And we echo the song
    That comes down through the night
    From the heavenly throng
    Aye! we shout to the
    Lovely banjo they bring
    And we greet in His cradle
    our Savior and King



How nice! Banjos at the first Christmas. Pete Seeger would be pleased, I'm sure.

Jim Krause

Subject: RE: BS: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:46 PM

Nocturnal laundering among the rural community?

"While Shepherds washed their socks by night"

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Genie
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:13 AM

Checking out lyrics and chords websites online, I'm finding a bunch of mondegreens for Winter Wonderland.

First, "He sings a love song as we go along" has morphed into "he's singing our song as we go along." Not as funny as the others, but still a mis-heard lyric.

Next, "When it snows, ain't it thrillin', tho' your nose gets a chillin'"
seems to have been widely mondegreened to
"When it snows, ain't it thrillin', tho' you know kids are chillin' "

But the best one was posted on the BabyFace Lyrics site:

"In the meadow we can build a snowman and pretend that he is Possum Brown..."

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:07 AM

dare we mention the songwriters? Like Wayne Manger

I'll get me swadlin' coat

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 06:55 AM

The there's the innumerable perverters of Maddy's "Clausa per transistor"...or as Anuna would have it, Gaudaytay.

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST,Martin
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 04:53 AM

I have recently written about a funny mondegreen involving "Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer", which a German student believed to be called "Rudolph, the red-nosed wendy". He even went on to use wendy as the English word for reindeer, see my blog for the full story if interested: http://bit.ly/1ipbyZc

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 05:11 AM

Never met a NY teacher who doesn't claim to have heard a child requesting not to be led into Penn Station*; nor a London one where it was Thames Station they wished to eschew.

~M~

*As if; when everyone knows how frequently prayers occur in US schools!

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Genie
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 06:12 PM

And who can forget "Olive, the other reindeer?" Especially now that she's been made the subject of her own Christmas cartoon that's aired every year alongside her red-nosed buddy, Rudolph.

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 07:11 PM

Speaking of German students, we once had a German Assistant (language student doing a year's placement in a Scottish school)who, when asked in the staffroom what he had had for his dinner the previous evening told us 'witch-like and chips'.
Further questioning revealed that he had gone to the local chippy, pointed to an item and asked what it was - Haggis, which he misheard as 'haggish' and on looking it up in the dictionary - -he decided he'd been eating 'witchlike'!

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 12:24 AM

I wonder as a wander all under the sky
how jesus the savior did come for to die

for poor ORNERY peoply like you and like I

I wander as I wander all under the sky...

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST,Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 04:39 AM

I particularly like the one that is about pandas

the wonderous virgin bears.

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 05:53 AM

"Good King Wenzlus last looked out ...."

and then there's the naughty schoolboy last two lines
"Turned himself round about because his c*** was freezin' "

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: Snuffy
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 08:47 AM

In 'O Come, All Ye Faithful' schoolkids around Coventry and Bedworth were apparently prone to sing:

Sing, choirs of Angels
Sing in Exhall station

Subject: RE: Xmas Mondegreens
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 08:57 AM

Not to mention the Czech pederast, the fairy sod.