any new mondegreens?

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 11:50 AM

This is such a long thread, I confess to not reading it all, but I did talk about the Barnyards of Delgaty back in 2009!
Has anyone mnetioned the story that Colum Sands tells about a Dutch fan who wanted him to sing "That one about the Hairy Tongue - everyone in Ireland knows that song".
Turns out it was the Black Velvet Band -
"And her hairy tongue over her shoulder....."!!!!!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 12:35 PM

And of course, that also happened to John Prine, requesting 'The Happy Enchilada'. ("half inch of water", and you think you're going to drown)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Michael
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 04:32 PM

Stringsinger: -
"The genus Amanita contains about 600 species of agarics including some of the most toxic known mushrooms found worldwide,." (Wikipedia)

I first encountered it as a lad reading Dorothy Sayers 'The Documents in the Case'.

Mike

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens? - Dylan
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 13 - 12:56 PM

When John McKutcheon played here in Portland a week ago, he said that as a child he heard Peter, Paul and Mary singing Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind" and when he was asked what he thought the song was about, he said, it's about "The ants are my friends."

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 13 - 03:42 PM

Bonnie Tyler's ad for the BBC Children in Need Appeal rephrases her Holding Out For A Hero - but to what?

(Video: An 8 year-old's been baking fairy-cakes for the class):
"And they're going to be tough, and they're going to be sweet
And they're going to break lots of yer teeth, lots of yer teeth"

Or what?

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 13 - 12:49 AM

Carpenters sang "The Best love songs are written with a broken arm"? wll, its's not true!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,George Henderson
Date: 29 Oct 13 - 08:23 AM

My wife recently asked a singer after a performance of 3 score and ten what was meant by a Prussian gale (Approaching gale, resulting in roars of laughter all round.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Oct 13 - 09:12 AM

One of the oncology nurses was singing along with a pop hit with the line: "I will be your ruler, you can call me Queen Bee." She quite loudly sings, "You can call me GREEN BEAN."

Doesn't even come close to being sensible which is why I love mondegreens. After a few times (the line is repeated several times in the song) another nurse pointed out her mistake.


Spaw

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Nov 13 - 05:23 AM

I love the bluegrass song "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive," especially Patty Loveless's version of it. But, DK why, her recording seems to lend itself to several mondegreens.

1. "Grandma sold our jeep and they moved out west .... ."
(Actual line: "Grandma sold out cheap and they out west ... ."

2, "To a farm where the big rich men knew their wives ... "
(Actual line: "To a farm where the big Richland River winds ... ."

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Genie
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 02:59 AM

Blowin' In The Wind, as heard by a youngster recently:

"The ants are my friend .... ."

Subject: Mondegreens posted in Internet lyrics sites
From: Genie
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 03:06 AM

The internet song lyrics sites are replete with typos, spelling and punctuation errors, and just plain misheard lyrics—some of them pretty silly or funny.

Today I found these two gems, for Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing On My Mind":

"As I lie in my bed in the mornin' without you, without you,
Every song in my breast dies of boredom ... ."

and

"You've got reasons a-plenty for going,
This I know, this I know,
For the weeds have been steadily glowing ... ."

(I might get out of there quickly too if the weeds were steadily glowing.)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 02:16 PM

I can recall seeing a line in the "Wild Rover" written as

"I went into a nailhouse I used to frequent"

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Apr 16 - 01:32 PM

Well, I grew up with the Kingston Trio's "Sold Out" album and its medley of two songs from Tahiti. In Tahitian, which is to say one of the Polynesian language groups. Well outside my area of expertise.

Is it a mondegreen when a kid desperately fabricates English from listening to a non-English lyric?

The chorus of the second song in the medley begins with a chant:

Toe- rau E! Toe- rau E! Toe- rau E! Toe- rau E!

And for no particular reason, I heard:

He took it a-way!
He took it a-way!
He took it a-way!
He took it a-way!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 12 Apr 16 - 04:14 AM

From a ballad sung at Sunday's session (can't remember which one) - "he slipped his arm around her waist" was heard as "he SLIT his arm......"! It was a ballad with a gory ending.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,dáithí
Date: 12 Apr 16 - 05:11 AM

Not strictly a mondegreen I guess, but I always find the line "and the hair upon her shoulders in jet black ringlets fell" (Lakes of Pontchartrain)amusing.

Do many women have hair growing upon their shoulder to that extent? :-)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Apr 16 - 06:10 AM

Not a Mondegreen as such (more a deliberate change made in lyrics to sound funny or suggestive) from "The Lakes of Pontchartrain"):

If it wasn't for alligators, I'd sleep out in the nude

or from "The Wild Rover"

I went to an alehouse, I used to frequent
And I told the Landlady the Barman was Bent

or from "Lucille"

You picked a fine team to leave me, Lucille
With two hungry children, to take a Crap in the Field

I am sure "As Shepherds washed their socks by night" was just a joke, though I doubt if Norma Waterson was the originator; I remember hearing a version which went:

As Shepherds washed their socks by night
They had on I.T.V.
The Angel of the Lord came down
And switched to B.B.C.

(This dates from the time there were only 2 channels in Britain, BBC and ITV). Now there are hundreds of channels (but very few programmes worth watching).

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Apr 16 - 06:18 AM

Well, I suppose it's better than having a hairy tongue over your shoulder

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: AlbertsLion
Date: 12 Apr 16 - 06:15 PM

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=7240981&q

in my song 'Shipping Out' there's a line referring to tankers "and they burn your last cargo before you get back".

Wendy, who plays violin on the whole band version, heard it as "they burn your escargot before etc" !!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: AlbertsLion
Date: 12 Apr 16 - 06:20 PM

a href="http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=7240981&q"

I think it'll turn blue this time, fingers crossed!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Mar 17 - 03:13 PM

The other night, at a pub sing, I sang the old Sunday-school song "Brighten the Corner Where You Are", which contains the line "Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar". Someone who wanted to sing along looked it up on his smartphone, and afterward showed me "Someone far from Harvard...".

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: mayomick
Date: 12 Mar 17 - 02:54 PM

The valedictory composed by Mary Ross's heart-broken suitor after an angry door was slammed in his face by the Ross family of Dungloe

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 12 Mar 17 - 03:55 PM

Talk to the angels in disguise.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Merritt
Date: 15 Mar 17 - 09:34 PM

My son, at aged 7 or so, thought the Beatles were singing "Happy as a raptor in the marketplace" on Obladi-Oblada.

Took me a few hearings to realize that Pat Benatar was not singing, "Love is a bag of cheese" but rather "Love is a Battlefield" in the early-80s.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 16 Mar 17 - 04:30 AM

"The valedictory composed by Mary Ross's heart-broken suitor after an angry door was slammed in his face by the Ross family of Dungloe"

You'll have to explain that (I'm sure it's obvious to people who know the song you are thinking of)

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 16 Mar 17 - 06:59 AM

Discovered yesterday that my work colleague, of a similar age to me, has always thought that that the lyric to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's "Canyons of Your Mind" that goes:

'Cross the mountains of your chest
I will stick a Union Jack

was actually:

'Cross the mountains of your chest
I will lick up onion jam


Que??? Had to make him listen to 2 YouTube versions before he reluctantly conceded than onion jam does not feature in this song!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Snuffy
Date: 16 Mar 17 - 07:12 AM

I always took it to be :

'Cross the mountains of your chest
I will sticker you with jam!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: JMB
Date: 16 Mar 17 - 10:08 AM

I have to listen very carefully to the lyrics of many songs. I often mishear them. In the late 90s, there was a song called "Jump, Jive and Wail." I was thinking are they singing "Drunk driving" instead of "Jump Jivin'", and I thought that that's not very appropriate to be singing and upbeat song about drunk driving. O, my.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 02:25 PM

Have to respond to JMB:
the song in question is vintage 1950's
with Louis Prima and Keely Smith, God be good to them both.


Many thanks to Thomas Stern for his
thread about Jean Ritchie recordings,
because he liberated me from a childhood Mondegreen.

On one dialogue between a little girl and her father,
Jean Ritchie sings (now that I know better)
"Poppy, buy me a Big Glass Doll, Do, Poppy, Do!"
for some reason, all those years I heard

"Poppy, buy me a Big Black Star..."

so that clears that up!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: peteglasgow
Date: 24 Feb 18 - 02:58 PM

.....i come looking for a job but i get no offers
just a come-on from the horse on 7th avenue
there were times.....

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 27 Feb 18 - 04:46 AM

Graceland-Paul Simon."....as if I didn't know my own bed, as if I didn't noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead". I still think he sings "...the way she brushed her hair and farted."

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 27 Feb 18 - 12:44 PM

When I first heard one of Ed Sheeran`s recent songs I thought the first line of the refrain was "I`m in love with your sheepdog"!! My wife put me right!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 01 Mar 18 - 07:52 PM

Give Pete a chance

I thought it was the Beatles' way of apologizing to Pete Best.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Mar 18 - 01:49 PM

@John from Kemsing: we play a jig called "My Darling's Asleep" - usually known as "My Darling's a sheep"!

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 05 Mar 18 - 06:52 AM

It was only about three years ago that I realised that I had misheard a line from The Beach Boys hit Barbara Ann.
For many years I heard "went to a dance,looking for romance" as
"went to a dance looking for a man" and thinking it was rather odd,
the penny took a long time to drop.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens? Copper
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 19 - 09:16 AM

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Neil D
Date: 18 Feb 19 - 11:10 PM

Red Hot Chili Peppers sang:
With the birds I'll share this lonely view

My friend John heard:
A birdless shed is a lonely view

Equally expressive, IMO.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,Miranda
Date: 19 Feb 19 - 12:53 AM

This probably isn't too big of a mondegreen, but I recently found a few that I heard personally in the Braes o' Killiecrankie. The biggest one I misheard was the line: "Or I had fed an Atholl gled", which heard as "But I had fought at Atholl Glen". The "Bauld Pitcur" I also heard as "Ball pit curve".

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,johnmc
Date: 20 Feb 19 - 09:55 AM

Neither Oxbridge team on Uni Challenge last time knew what they are called.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Karen Impola
Date: 19 Jan 20 - 02:42 AM

I knew there would be a mondegreen thread here! Actually read through the whole thing to make sure these aren't in it already. I laughed a lot.

As a child, I sang the first line of "The Friendly Beasts" as "Jesus our brother, kind of good . . ."

For years, I was vaguely wondering who Arthur Penn was, in the song "Creeping Jane" - "She never saw a mare nor a a gelding in her life that she valued at the worth of Arthur Penn." Then one day it dawned on me: half a pin!

I recently looked at the lyric sheet that came with Richard Thompson's "Henry the Human Fly", and discovered that it says "It's bitter the NEED of the poor ditching boy." I've been singing MEAD for over three-quarters of my life. I like my version better.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 16 Oct 20 - 08:53 AM

Our rather deaf dance club chairman was puzzled when a Playford dance was announced that he heard as 'Open Knees'
Can you decode?

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Reinhard
Date: 16 Oct 20 - 09:19 AM

Oh Pennies?

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: RTim
Date: 16 Oct 20 - 10:17 AM

Not a Mondegreen- but when I recorded my version of John Barleycorn - I did it in one really good take - except I sang the line - "Drowned him between two stones" instead of the correct - "Ground him between two stones..."
I had to go back in and sing "Ground" and they slotted it into the recording......

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 16 Oct 20 - 02:22 PM

On youtube... take a lok at the Karaoke versions of The Bee Gees 'Saved by the Bell. The bit where Robin Gibb sings 'Now I walk down Heartbreak Lane' has been interpreted as ' Now I walk down our great lane'.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Mitch the Bass
Date: 16 Oct 20 - 05:19 PM

“Our rather deaf dance club chairman was puzzled when a Playford dance was announced that he heard as 'Open Knees'
Can you decode?”

Oaken Leaves?
Also known as The Milkmaid’s Bob. Goodness knows who Bob was or maybe the milkmaid was called Bob.

Mitch

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Michael
Date: 16 Oct 20 - 06:14 PM

'The Milkmaid's Bob' is a peal played on milk bottles.

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: GUEST,Chris Amos
Date: 18 Oct 20 - 03:24 AM

Until recently I thought that the old man in the Christmas Carol Good King Wenceslas lived in the village of Goodly Hence.

“Sire he lives at Goodly Hence.”....

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 18 Oct 20 - 04:55 AM

Yes Mitch. Oaken Leaves, aka Open Knees

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Oct 20 - 11:22 PM

Slim Dusty was one Australia's greatest country singers.

One of his biggest hits was G'day, G'day lyrics with cords written by Ron Fairburn,but often said to be written by Slim. video of Ron Fairburn's original words to G'day G'day

The line "in the land of the cockatoo, cork hats and the didgeridoo" has become "in the land of the cockatoo, polecats and the didgeridoo" on many sites - pole cats in genius.com & on least 25 other lyrics sites. ps, We don't have polecats in Australia!

Cork hats are hats with corks hanging off the brim to discourage flies. Alleged to have been worn in fly-infested areas back in the olden days, & now only seen in souvenir shops & on tourist heads.

sandra

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Oct 20 - 05:21 AM

dress me up in my oil skins and jdhpurs instead of oilskins and jumpers, fiddlers green j connolly

Subject: RE: any new mondegreens?
From: Jos
Date: 27 Oct 20 - 05:38 AM

When my son was little I used to recite and sing rhymes to him.
One day he said, "Do the one about the man who found a sixpence under a crocodile."

[There was a crooked man, who walked a crooked mile, and found a crooked sixpence under a crooked stile.]