Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 01:07 AM

I just read in rec.music.folk the Scottish sea song about a doctor "Bonnie healing laddie". When I was a little younger the nuns taught me a prayer that started off (in my little mind) "Hail Mary full of grapes the Lord is a tree", always figured them for real earthy people. A friend that I used to sing with had a verse to the "Highlander's Lament" as "our lands are on the Brocoli Moor", should've been "our hands are on the broad Claymore". Barry

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 01:30 AM

And I always thought it went "Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a douchin' (or Russian!) in the middle of the night'!

I know there's more, but I'd have to wake up my kids on the East coast to ask them, as they never forget when Mom gets lyrics mixed up!

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 01:31 AM

And I always thought it went "Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a douchin' (or Russian!) in the middle of the night'!

I know there's more, but I'd have to wake up my kids on the East coast to ask them, as they never forget when Mom gets lyrics mixed up!

By the way...it's Cyndi Lauper and we "girls just wanna have fu..un." Take it any way ya' wanna! ;-) katlaughing

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 01:33 AM

Guess it should be "Mistakes I have made when sending messages. Sorry for the ditto, but needed to add that last bit and didn't think it'd already gone. kat

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 03:46 AM

Not quite the strict subject, but in the same vein ...

I remember a couple of years ago a guy talking on the radio about his tour of Italy with a vegan friend. They got very strange looks when they asked in their atrocious Italian at restaurants for food without "carnee" or "pes-chee" (my phonetics) - i.e. meat or fish: someone eventually put them out of their misery by explaining they'd actually been saying "without dogs or peaches"!

Steve

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Kris
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 05:13 AM

Another from my mother..

She can even mishear birdsong. She swears blind that half the pigeons in her garden sing "Where's Heathcliffe?", while the other half respond with "GONE AWAY, poor Cathy".

It just shows how the mind fills in the blanks and tries to interpret things. I hate to think what she does to real lyrics...(I daren't ask).

The tragic thing is that she is really serious about it!

Kris

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Buskboy
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 04:43 PM

A co-worker once told me of her delight that the Eagles' song Hotel California was sung in honour of her home state, Pennsylvania.

Welcome...to thee Hotel Pennsylvania.....
Apparently she had always sung along too loudly and never noticed the actual lyrics after the first time.

I'm new here - okay if I stick around?

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 06:24 PM

Buskboy, you're welcome here & usually no one gets out of here alive. Have a great stay. Barry

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From:
Date: 08 Jan 99 - 07:51 AM

Hello Buskboy,
Don't be afraid, Barry did NOT threaten you!
He wanted to say (at least I think so):
once you are in here, you don't (want to) get out until you die of natural causes (like old age...).

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: RonU
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 01:12 AM

My brother's version of a line from the "Doxology", praise him all creatures here below, became praise him all preachers, here we go. But, he did sing it con brio.

RonU

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Margarita
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 02:49 AM

Being a youngster in the sixties may perhaps make it understandable that I heard Cat Stevens singing "Right on! The peace train", instead of Ride on the peace train.

And I was so sure that the Beatles sang, "Jojo was a man who thought he was a woman, but he was another man." I still don't know what the words are.

And how does Jesus eat his eggs? His Yolk is over easy (and his coffee is light)

bon apetit!

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From:
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 12:07 PM

I think those **are** the lyrics to that Beatles song. Some sixties mumbo jumbo.

On the religious thread, you have no doubt heard of the Printer's Bible. An edition was once printed where the words "Princes persecute me" was rendered as "Printers persecute me".

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Allan C.
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 03:18 PM

In the pre-Madonna years, I thought Elton John was singing, "...mohair suit, electric boobs. You know I read it in a magazine."

Of course, nowadays what I heard seems quite plausible; but I presume the correct word was "boots".

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Weskora
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 05:22 PM

Margarita, I think the Beatles'song goes :"Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner". But I'm not sure. Anyway I made the same mistake years ago I understood "woman".

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From:
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 08:34 PM

Actually, I think it was Sweet Loretta Modern [could be hearing that wrong too:)] who had the gender identity crisis in the Beatles' song.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: bbc
Date: 11 Jan 99 - 05:09 PM

My most dramatic mis-hearing was in the chorus of the UB40 song, "Bring Me Your Cup." I was convinced, for the longest time, that they were saying, "F--kin' dinosaur!" (although I really didn't understand *why*!) :)

bbc

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: LEJ
Date: 14 May 99 - 03:33 PM

Refresh- just remembered a couple of others. There was a song called My Belle Ami that went "My Belle Ami- you were the son of the moon and the sky and the deep blue sea." Somehow I heard it as "Ralph Bellamy- you were the son of the moon... etc" And what are they chanting in the background of I am the Walrus ? Sounded to me like "f*cked up, f*cked up, everybody's f*cked up."

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: emily rain
Date: 14 May 99 - 06:37 PM

a friend's little brother thought the chorus to "under the boardwalk" was really "out with my boombox".

:)

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Penny S.
Date: 14 May 99 - 07:08 PM

My then very young nieces had a good one a few years ago. The British humourous writer Richard Stilgoe had a song about a social studies teacher who insisted on everyone joining a steel band to help with "racial harmony" The little ears thought this to be a person called Rachel Carmody. She reminded me of one I had as a child in the song "Merrily danced the Quaker's wife," where I thought Merrily Dance was a person. I think that the two of them are probably well-meaning social workers, who wear droopy ethnic skirts, long hair, do not look really cheerful and need to be drawn by the British cartoonist Posy Simmonds. They also probably go to a folk club together, and specialise in singing, if no-one can stop them, rather sad, politically correct lyrics about mis-treated women, accompanying themselves with an autoharp which they can only strum. They do not drink, and never talk to the other members if they can help it.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 May 99 - 07:55 PM

A HUGE mistake I made while listening to songs with about 100 good friends (at a benefit) once was to say, "Jeez, that song really sucks!" They all really loved the song. (Dancing With Bears")

Art

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire
Date: 14 May 99 - 09:42 PM

Hey, Art, I can sympathize. Waltzing with Bears has become THE camp song at the camp I visit in Northern Wisconsin. It wouldn't be SO bad, but its usually my father singing the loudest.

campfire

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire
Date: 14 May 99 - 10:18 PM

The largest collection I've seen
Of the so-called Mondegreen
Is a web-site called Brain Candy,
I hope I've made it handy:

BRAIN CANDY

If it didn't work this time, I'm giving up! Sorry for the horrid poetry -

campfire

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire
Date: 14 May 99 - 10:21 PM

Hey! My first successful blue clicky thingy! Now I can go to bed, right?

Lots of good Mondegreens there, tho - Several mentioned above, and more.

campfire

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: WyoWoman
Date: 15 May 99 - 01:32 AM

This has been great fun! ONe of mine for years when I was a kid was in the lyric to "America the Beautiful." I thought the line was, "By the light, shining bright from a bulb..."

When I discovered that the light was shining bright from Above, I don't know that my life actually improved.

I, too, loved the "little song about the bear" in church, which was Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear. In my family now that's used as a code word for one of those life situations that we just have to deal with -- we all have our Cross-eyed Bears... kc

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 15 May 99 - 02:17 AM

Maybe it's because I live in Hawaii, but the oldies station here keeps playing Johnny Rivers singing, "Secret Asian Man."
I never knew about Olive in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but I suppose she's a friend of mean old Story. As a kid I always assumed he was a villain all the reindeer were afraid of, until brave Rudolph came along, and then... "you'll go down and hit Story."
A different twist on this came from my mother, who used to read the sheet music while her sister played the piano. One of her favorite songs had the line, "We will go down to the woods to get her," and my mom couldn't figure out just who they were going to get.
Thanks for bringing this thread back. Sounds like it should be a book -- any cartoonists out there?

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 15 May 99 - 02:46 AM

Oops, I forgot -- I recently saw a series of books on just this topic, with cartoons. I don't remember the author, but I do recall the title of the first was in an early post to this thread (in 1997!): "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy."

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Matthew B.
Date: 15 May 99 - 10:27 AM

John, I've heard Shoals of Herring? many ways, and the words I was cook and I'd a quarter share in't were supposedly the "official" ones, but whoever heard of a neophyte sailor on a fishing trawler getting one forth of the entire ship's proceeds when he wasn't even able to fish yet? In a later verse, he continues,
Now you're up on deck and you're the fisherman,
you can swear and show a manly bearing
...bears this out. The lyrics I swear by were I was cook and I the quarter sharing -- meaning that he was allowed to bunk with the big boys now.

Alice, I don't know about you, but I always try to put feather in my blood pump. Some of the foreign kids in the school where my wife teaches have an interesting form of patriotism to their new country: they solemnly pledge allegiance to the frog. A Japanese ESL student of my mothers always craps to show his appreciation.

Uncle Fred, my version of Pete Seeger's One-ton tomoato was aways One ton of mayo
I needed one ton of mayo...

Margarita, Weskora & Tim Jaques, those "Beatles" lyrics are from Get Back, a song they sang that was actually written by Chuck Berry. But it's not the only trans-gender theme they touch upon. Try the lyrics to Obla D Obla Da where
Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face.

But maybe you can all help me with this one:
I"m not talkin' 'bout ________
And I don't want to change your life
But there's a warm breeze blowin' the stars around
And I'd really like to see you tonight.

Except for that one word (indicated by a blank), every word in this song is very clear, but I spent years struggling with it:
I"m not talkin' 'bout Meridians
I"m not talkin' 'bout Bolivia
I"m not talkin' 'bout the little ones ...and so on

Yeesh. Then my sister told me it was
I"m not talkin' 'bout the living in
...which might or might not be correct, but makes even less sense than the Mondegreens I'd been using!

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire
Date: 15 May 99 - 03:38 PM

Matthew - I have no idea if this is correct or just the way I'VE always heard it, but I think the line is
...I'm not talking 'bout moving in....

campfire

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Alice
Date: 15 May 99 - 10:07 PM

Could it be?

I'm not talkin' bout the linen (doing the laundry)

(He shows up at his girlfriend's just to get her to wash his clothes.... one interpretation, anyway.;->)

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: alison
Date: 16 May 99 - 12:31 AM

Hi,

Heard one yesterday I'd forgotten about.

"I can't stand Lorraine against my window."

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Matthew B.
Date: 16 May 99 - 01:01 AM

LOL

Some more possibilities:

I'm not talkin' bout deliveries
(interpretation: we're eating out)

I'm not talkin' bout berilium
(interpretation: I'm not a geologist)

I'm not talkin' bout millenium
(interpretation: I'm not scared of the Y2K bug ... which means the soang was way ahead of its time)

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Margo
Date: 16 May 99 - 05:46 PM

I had a good laugh when I realized I had mis-heard the lyrics to the sea shanty "Heave Away Johnnie". The real lyrics are:
"Oh the pilot he is waiting for the turning of the tide."
I heard "Oh a pile of tea is waiting for the turning of the tide."
Actually, my mis-heard lyrics can make sense. But what I consider really funny is that the singer is Louis Killen, who I consider to be the king of diction! I guess sometimes it just can't be avoided.

Margarita

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 May 99 - 03:54 AM

Matthew B - (any relation to John B?) - the quarter share, as I've always understood it, meant a quarter of a full crew member's share/i>: in other words, if they each get (say) 4% of the profit from a trip, the bow would get 1%.

Steve

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Matthew B.
Date: 17 May 99 - 06:56 AM

Well, steve, that does make sense.

Hmmmm....

I may have to re-think this. Fooey.

:p

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 May 99 - 10:52 AM

Er ... it does make sense, even with the cocked-up HTML!

Steve

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Jon W.
Date: 17 May 99 - 11:08 AM

I believe the correct words to the other song Matthew B. mentions are "I'm not talking about millenia" meaning I'm not talking about being together for thousands of years. This is a Todd Runtgren song isn't it? Of course I could be just as off as all you others :)

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Matthew B.
Date: 17 May 99 - 11:51 AM

Steve, that wasn't a cocked-uo HTML, it was a pictogram of a person sticking out his tongue and saying phooey.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From:
Date: 06 Jun 99 - 12:31 PM

what an amazing thread. of course, I've never misinterpreted any lyrics myself - :) there is a whole song tho that I believe grew out of such phrases. For some reason I've seen it entitled "Jeep". It starts out, "One night, one more when I was born and the whistle went toot, toot[b] You could buy a snake or fry a lake when the mudpies were in bloom." It goes on in this vein thru three verses, never making any sense, but fitting the tune quite nicely.

What we will do to raise our voices in joyful harmony.

Nancy

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Rosebrook
Date: 06 Jun 99 - 02:09 PM

Seems the Beatles' material have made many appearances in this thread.

I can't listen to their song "Michelle, ma belle. Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble, tres bien ensemble" without hearing:

Michelle, ma belle. Sunday monkey won't play piano song, play piano song.

Rose

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Genie
Date: 13 Sep 01 - 09:38 PM

Here are a few of mine:
In the 19th C., there was a popular song, "Let us smile be' your umbrella on a rainy afternoon." "Be'" is a contraction of "beneath." You folks probably already know how that "folk process" played out. The phrase now is, "Let a smile be your umbrella ... ."

I heard PP&M singing, "Weave Me The Sunshine," and played the videotape over and over, never being able to hear anything but
"We, we, be the sunshine after the pouring rain. We be the hope of a new tomorrow ... ." Didn't ever get it right until I saw the lyrics printed.

I heard "Michelle" the same way as was mentioned above, not realizing it was French (which I had studied). I thought they were singing, "Sunday mokey [something] play piano song, play piano song."

In Janis Ian's "At Seventeen, I sang the line, "...and death ensures equality ..." for years, till I saw it in the sheet music as "and debentures of quality ... ."

David/Bacharach "They say the sky, the sky's in love with you ... ."

I have definitely heard "Mt. Thyme" sung as, "build my love a tower," and thought it actually was "tower."

Joan Baez, Birmingham Sunday, sings "Young Carole Robertson entered the door... ." (But she put the accent on the second syllable of "Robertson." Without listening carefully to the song, I heard her sing, "Young Carol of Urtson ... ," and thought it was an old British folk song (though I did not know where Urtson was).

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Sep 01 - 01:16 AM

"I'll bwing ma w(h)ip, I'll bwing ma w(h)ip, o-o-o-o-o" I never sang it that way, just kind of slurred it, but I didn't know the correct phrase until the other day when I read it.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: lady penelope
Date: 14 Sep 01 - 06:11 PM

" I have definitely heard "Mt. Thyme" sung as, "build my love a tower," and thought it actually was "tower." "

This made me look up the lyrics in the DT and I saw the word was BOWER. Which quite amused me as I got the lyrics I sing out of a book from the library ( a collection of scottish songs, can't remember who by ) and the word there was TOWER! Bower makes way more sense!

I leave enlightened.

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Morticia
Date: 14 Sep 01 - 08:17 PM

In that horrid Carole King song " Will you still love me tomorrow"....I was sure it was " Can I believe the magic of your size" rather than sighs....thought my version made more interesting singing

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Sep 01 - 05:26 AM

Oh, Morticia, I love it!
It reminds me of the time I accidentally kept singing "How's about keepin' somethin' up for me," instead of "How's about cookin' somethin' up with me," in Hank Williams's "Hey, Good Lookin!" Freudian slip, perhaps, but I didn't even notice I was singing it wrong until about the third time through the refrain.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Letty
Date: 18 Sep 01 - 05:57 AM

Before I learnt a little Irish, my brother and me used to sing "Oh no, the broccoli, the broccoli bananas" to Oro na buachailli.

Letty

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Terry K
Date: 18 Sep 01 - 05:58 AM

- and there was me thinking it was "can I believe the magic of your thighs....."

Cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: LR Mole
Date: 18 Sep 01 - 12:11 PM

The "I am the Walrus" background stuff heard as "....everybody's f****ked up" was interpreted by my crowd as " smoke pot, smoke pot, everybody smoke pot" Much later a book informed me that THEY were chanting "Oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper." Whatever that means. Those scamps.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: dougboywonder
Date: 18 Sep 01 - 02:31 PM

Theres a wonderful piece of mouth-music on a Silly Wizard album where it sounds like they're singing "Come, like a wine-gum, O we're all wine-gum" Don't ask me what that means.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: guinnesschik
Date: 18 Sep 01 - 03:42 PM

I also heard "Hair in my faither's nose" for "herding her faither's yowes."

Our mockingbirds say, "Senoir nino",and "chit!" Loudly and at 5:00 AM.

Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: mkebenn
Date: 19 Sep 01 - 08:20 AM

"Im not talkin' 'bout movin' in"..John Ford Coley
The Beatles are singing "F**ked up" and over lay it with "Smokes pot" toward the end, no matter what their printed material says.
I've always been better at learnig lyrics than singin' 'em, 'cept for " around him marked in grim aray, a skull marked Ernest Bann"..Mike