any new mondegreens?

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 10:19 AM

Thanks to Simon & Garfunkel's enunciation, as a kid I always thought the second line of Scarborough Fair was "Parsley, saydrels, merry and thyme".

For years I assumed saydrels and merry were obscure varieties of herb.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 07:46 PM

Apologies if this has already been posted, but Snopes has a collection of Christmas carol mondegreens HERE I thought would be a good addition to this thread.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 10 Aug 09 - 08:02 PM

For many years I had "The Barnyards of Delgatie" as "The barnyards at break of day".
And "East Enders" is still known in our house as "Steam Denders", which is what my son used to call it when he was learning to talk!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Micca
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 09:01 AM

Recently during a chorus of "Bully in the alley" the am certain the person nest to me was singing " Johnny has a ring pull now"!!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: scowie
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 06:35 AM

memory failure again! still a lots happened since then!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: BobKnight
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 06:27 AM

Pedantic time: "Oh Boy" is a Buddy Holly song. Cliff may have covered it, but definitly a Buddy song.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: scowie
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 05:30 AM

Not quite a mondegreen, but hilarious anyway! Cliff Richard's song was always sung thus among my associates of the time "All my life i've bin kissin; your left tit, 'cause yer right ones missin' OH BOY!
!
BUT the classic is by the ever great Bridie Gallaher who could make the telephone directory sound delightful if she sang it, on one of her early recordings, either "Moolight in Mayo" or "Girl from Donegal" sings "The Emigrants Letter" beautifully as always, but misconstrues a word. It is of course an emigration ballad, the lad has left his girl and family behind but is writing to console them and to reassure them that he is being treated well, and so he writes in high-falutin' english that he has "Lots of COMBUSTABLES piled on his plate" I rather think it Should be COMMESTIBLES, that is eatables, and not fire lighting material!!!
Now the strange thing is that every other recording of that song makes or remakes the same error, and I know a few!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 03:16 AM

LOL, Jerry!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 09:25 PM

When I was in high school a kid I knew came down the hall one day singing a Woody Guthrie song popularized at the time by the Weavers:
So long, It's fingers Gunolia. I pictured poor old "Fingers" with his feet in cement brogans being tossed over the side of a boat into the water, while the gangsters broke in a chorus. Or maybe they were singing So long, it's been good to know ya.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 08:05 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 17 Jul 09 - 01:19 PM

Is this a Mondegreen or did someone record it this way?
Dougie Maclean's "Caledonia" IN THE DT contains an error in the 2nd verse which always makes me laugh when I see it, or even hear it, as it seems several people must have got their lyrics from here!
The line should be:
"with conscience flying in the wind"
The DT has it as "with coat-tails flying in the wind"!
If you don't believe me, listen to the man himself, at 2mins 15secs into the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMpSg78s684

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: DMcG
Date: 17 Jul 09 - 08:32 AM

My daughter was in hysterics for several minutes after my wife sang "Emily sings with the radio on". This is rather better known as the line "Video killed the radio star".

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 11:30 PM

When I was little, I heard

"See what the boys in the background will have,
And tell them I've having the same."

That shady gang was, of course, actually the boys in the back room, but I think it sounds a lot more sinister my way.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 09:57 AM

back in the 70's a gentleman called Norman Iles 'recontructed pagan carols' and other old songs.

His recontruction of the Hal-an-tow was based on 'hearing the folk club audience singing "God bless the Merry Moses and all her power and might-o"' I wish I could remember what amazing theory of Old Testament cross-dressing he came up with to explain this.

Unfortunately the line is actually 'Good bless Aunt Mary Moyses', Moyses or Moysey being a common Cornish surname.

Goodness only knows what he made of 'We are to the merry green woods to hunt the buck and hare-o'.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 12 Jul 08 - 10:01 PM

There's a pop ballad from the '80s that has a hook line in it that I've never been able to decipher no matter how often I hear the song. The refrain that contains this line is:

Tonight I need your sweet caress - Hold me in the darkness -
Tonight you ____ __ ___ ____ ___ ... .   
The words in the blanks always sound kind of like:
"Tonight you come on Breath's Love's nest." (or "bread's love's nest).   

And nothing it sounded like made any sense to me.

I finally checked "the google" for "lyrics: 'Tonight I need your sweet caress - Hold me in the darkness'" (since I didn't know the title and couldn't search for the line I wanted without a clue as to what those words were).

The song is titled "Hands to Heaven," and the lyrics are intelligible in some people's recordings, but not -- to me, anyway -- in the popular recording by Breathe.

The mondegreened line is actually,
"Tonight you calm my restlessness."

(I think Breathe kind of pronounces the line as "Tonaht you cahm mah restlussness."
Mystery solved.)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: DMcG
Date: 12 Jul 08 - 04:39 AM

Actually a pretty old mondegreen, but new to me. There's a song call "Christ Made a Trance" on a recent Waterson:Carthy CD where Martin writes:

The Passiontide carol Christ Made a Trance is a song which I have known for years. "Trance" is a piece of old usage of the word, used here to mean a narrow defile between two places - in this case life and death. It's a great example of apparently obsolete bits of language surviving in old songs.

What he didn't say is that when C Sharp collected it from Mrs Reservoir Butler, what he actually collected said:

"O God's in France all Sunday"

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 02:34 AM

I kind of like that one, Rustin.

;-D

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,Ruston Hornsby
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 07:40 AM

In Liverpool soul group The Real Thing's 70's hit "You to me are Everything" the line "Now you've got the best of me, come on and take the rest of me" always sounds like "Now you've got the vest off me, come on and take the rest off me..."

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 11:14 AM

I can't help thinking that Rattlin' Roarin' Willie (Sweeney's Men) sounds a bit like:

Rattlin' roarin' Willie oh he's gone to the fair
For to sell his fiddle and buy some underwear.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 23 Jul 07 - 02:28 PM

Yesterday in a jam session one of the guys did a Gospel song that at first sounded for all the world like it began:

"When my toilet is over ... "

I wouldn't help thinking, "Shouldn't it be 'When my toilet RUNS over ... '?"

But since that concept didn't fit the rest of the lyrics, I figured he must have really been singing, "When my toil, it is over ... "

Turns out, the actual lyric is "When my toiling is over ..."

But with an opening line like that, I still think the song cries out for a parody along the lines of "When my toilet runs over."

§;-D

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Fliss
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 06:57 PM

My Mum thought 'Fog on the Tyne' by Lindesfarne was 'Bug*er the Tyne its all mine!   And Hawkwind were 'Porkwind':)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Scoville
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 11:15 AM

The Southern accent strikes again: I've been listening to the Red Clay Ramblers' version of "Kissing is a Crime" my entire life and have always thought the words were:

"Born to be a bitter girl and never kiss again . . . "

Until about a week ago when I saw the words in print for the first time and realized it was:

"Born to be a better girl . . . "

Which makes more sense (although "bitter" is not too far beyond reason), but I still feel oddly traumatized. I wonder what else on that album I've misheard.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,vectis at work
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 10:42 AM

I have been singing the chorus of Manchester Rambler as
"hard northern way" for two decades or more.
I found out it was
"hard moorland way" yesterday

ooops

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 01:01 AM

Oh, BTW, that last post was mine.   I forgot to log in.

Genie

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 12:48 AM

OK, I'll admit this isn't a lyric mondegreen, but it still fits the category. And it cracked me up.

I was watching TV this afternoon when a commercial came on for a local video rental business. They showed VCR/DVD covers of various popular films as the announcer rattled off such genres as "Classic movies," "action flics," "porn films," "animated features," ... .

Whoa!!   Did the announcer really say "porn films"!!?

I was sitting there in astonishment, scratching my head trying to make sense of something I found rather incomprehensible for a local, mid-afternoon, broadcast TV ad. Could I have possibly mis-heard that category? The images of the DVD/VCR cases were small and quickly passed from the screen, so I couldn't see what movies they were showing as examples of "porn films."

If you're not quicker on the take than I am and haven't figured out my "mondegreen" by now, my strong hunch is that the3 announcer actually said "foreign films."

That makes more sense, don't ya think? §;-D

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 09:31 PM

yup!

Bill D,
Pedants Unanimous

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 09:27 PM

No.

Not only is it not needed, it's incorrect.

Genie

Pedants Anonymous ;-D

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:25 PM

"Proofreaders' Anonymous"?


And does it really require the apostrophe?

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:22 PM

"Proofreaders' AnonYmous"? ;~<>

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,DrWord
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 12:57 PM

It do, don't it Charley?
Likewise, when Carol inquired into the "etiology" of mondegreen, there was a certain irony given the thread. I did NOT read through this great long thread, so I'm no sure if anyone mentioned it.
ETIOLOGY?    Etymology is the word there Carol. :)

Proofreaders' Anonmous
Dennis

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:33 AM

Well, at the Deb Cowan houe concert in South Portland last evening she mentioned that a friend of hers had just discovered this gendre, but she referred to them as "mouldygreens" rather than "mondegreens"!

It figures.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Scoville
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:28 AM

Not really a mondegreen, but whenever I play Randy Travis' "Heroes and Friends", instead of him singing "Your friends won't FORSAKE you for somebody else", I think he's going to sing, "Your friends won't MISTAKE you for somebody else", and then I start laughing.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Gulliver
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 01:05 PM

When I was very young the song "Yellow Rose of Texas" was often
played on the radio and it became my favourite. For months I went
around our apartment singing "The Vienna Rolls of Texas".


(a Vienna roll was our mother's favourite loaf of bread)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens? ?
From: Genie
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 11:41 AM

Cluin, I think the idea of an "Irish Machete" sounds intriguing.

And Phil, I'm sure Gladly The Cross-Eyed Bear would make a great companion for Round John Virgin and for our Lord whose hallowed name is Harold. *g*

but, foolestroupe, I thought the food that helped you catch the wind was beans.

Genie

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 11:12 AM

"I remember Dublin City in the railroad times" for "I remember Dublin City in the rare ould times". And it kinda made sense.

re: "Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear" -- Dsughter's Vacation Bible School group adopted Gladly as their mascot and marched around with a picture of Gladly on their flag.
- Phil

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Cluin
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 08:58 AM

I played a gig in Toronto a couple of years ago where this fellow came up to chat with me between sets and requested a song
called "Irish Machete".
"I haven't heard that one, but I'm intrigued," I answered. "How does
it go?"
He obligingly sang, "♫...Did ye ever go into an Irish Machete, where
whisky was plenty and money was scarce...♫"
"My dad used to sing one like that," I told him. "But his was called
Irishman's Shanty."
"Oh. But it had the same tune?" he asked.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 07:16 PM

redhorse,

Eating onions will help you 'catch the wind'...

I often have difficulty keeping a straight face in public, but years of practice have helped...

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 07:20 PM

Good old Albert A Myers ...

I also remember being perplexed by a request to sing the song about the girl who was killed in a pub. We didn't sing any songs remotely like that. Eventually the requester said "you know, I shot my own true love in the room of the Swan".   Molly Bawn/Polly Vaughan ...I could never think of the song the same way after that.

Anne

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,redhorse at work
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 08:45 AM

Tabster
Is that as in " Albert A Myers will try and catch the wind"?

nick

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,Elettra
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 10:03 PM

From my cousin when he was 4 or 5, upon hearing the song "Baby Come Back" way back in the eighties, I think the group was Player???
"Piggy come back, and you kind of moo at me."
(Baby come back, any kind of fool could see.)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 08:53 AM

What false Argyll could not subdue
Through many wall-eye cages ...

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 04:14 AM

This one isn't much of a stretch, but when I first heard the song "This Endris Night," this is the way I 'heard' one verse:

The child then spake in his talking,
And to his mother did say,
"Yea, I am known as Heaven's king
Though I in cribbie lay."

I thought that seemed quaintly cutesyish -- to call a manger a "cribbie."

Then checking the DT here, I realize that what was acutally being sung was:

The child then spake in his talking,
And to his mother did say,
"Yea, I am known as Heaven's kind
Though I in crib be laid."

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 06:55 PM

Two I remember from my teenage years ....Donovan's "Catch the Wind" was immortally rendered by a friend who heard "Our ears put together counted thirty", and the same friend taught me her version of "Pretty Peggy-O" which had the memorable image of the "troop of Irish lagoons".
My sister used to sing the famous Adam Faith song "Send a messy tomato" (message to Martha).

Anne

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Greg B
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 01:26 PM

See the 'Old Oakum Boat' thread on this board...

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 08:50 AM

I used to know someone who would always sing "The Black Velevet Band", apparently in all seriousness, with the words:

"I'll give you seven years penile servitude..."

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 08:22 AM

thrwasan incident many years ago at Blaxhall ship .
Cyril poacher was requested to sing the nutting girl,afterwards an american tourist asked him why did he sing hold the wheel.
Theline cyril sang was[ had her will]not [hold the wheel]

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:28 PM

Prairie Oyster has a new CD with the song Sweet, Sweet Girl To Me on it. This is their best album in a long time - Get it!

The last two lines of the chorus are:

Should have done right when I had my day;
Now I'm all alone and I have to pay.

The way Russell pronounces it, it sounds like:

Now I'm all alone and I have a toupe.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:28 AM

add

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:49 AM

I was thinking I might say that's a bit of a pissy sort of song, but I decided that I wouldn't ...

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: eddie1
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 06:21 AM

Many years ago, a small child of my aquaintance told me he had learnt a Christmas song called, "Three Wee Kings"!
Well, it fits doesn't it?

Eddie