What are the worst lyric screwups you've

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,catherine yronwode
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 02:03 AM

Like jimmyt of 03 Sep 02 i always hear the 5th Dimension line "you and me, endlessly" as "you and me and Leslie" and could not understand why they were singing about a menage a trois!

Mondagreens take their life from being shared among the cognescenti -
- and a pre-war acoustic rural blues mondagreen is pretty difficult to
share, as some of you can no doubt appreciate.

Well, anyway, i have been amused by my own little acoustic rural pre-
war blues mondagreen for many years now.

The song is by Mattie Delaney and it is about the 1920s flood on the Tallahatchie River:

. Tallatchie River rising, Lord it's mighty bad
. Tallatchie River rising, Lord it's mighty bad
. Some people on Tallahatchie done lost everything they had

I really do know the proper lyrics, but whenever i am not paying
attention, i always hear it startlingly wrong and have a good laugh.

. Tallatchie River rising, Lord it's mighty bad
. Tallatchie River rising, Lord it's mighty bad
. Some peoples on bad acid done lost everything they had

The weird thing is that now my husband has started hearing it as "bad acid" too. It's a *contagious* mondegeen.

cat yronwode

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 05:18 AM

"Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Foolestroupe - PM
Date: 22 Aug 06 - 08:28 PM

That's damn near a song challenge, Don..."



Already done, I'm afraid. It's one of Les Barker's song parodies.

I wish I had thought of it first.

Don T.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Aug 06 - 08:44 AM

So do I Don, so do I...

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Cat Feral
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 10:26 PM

When I was a child, my parents had several Tom Lehrer(sp?) albums, one of which included the great World War Three battle song, "So Long, Mom!"

This song contains the line, "Remember Mommie, I'm off to get a Commie!"

It took me YEARS to realize that "Getacomi" was not a little county somewhere in South East Asia!

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Snuffy
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 05:09 AM

Was the main port of Getacomi called Sinomor? Lots of sailors sang about going there!

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 08:55 AM

Not really a Mondegreen, but for a really poor attempt to extricate the singer from a forgotten-lyrics crisis, I nominate Pete, then lead singer of Rigid Fish, a fairly incompetent rock band I formed with some university friends. Amidst our standard fare of Groundhogs and Status Quo covers we performed (for reasons that remain puzzling) 'King Henry' as recorded by Steeleye Span. Somewhere in my archive there is exists a recording proving that Pete, in place of the line: 'In there came a grizzly ghost, stamping on the floor', actually sang: 'In there came a thingy thing, wanking on the stairs'.

Ah, the power of those old Child Ballads....

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: JennyO
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 09:10 AM

Was the main port of Getacomi called Sinomor? Lots of sailors sang about going there!

Sinomor? Wasn't that somewhere near Dothoulikewise?

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 09:13 AM

ROFL...

wasn't a cousin of Sodoff Baldric, was her?

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 08:07 PM

I once started singing the Rose with "some say love is like a flower". Nowhere to go except rewind back to the beginning....

Kitty

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: eddie1
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 06:29 AM

A five-year-old, approaching his first Christmas at school, told me proudly he had learnt a song called "Three Wee Kings"!
The title seemed appropriate somehow.

Eddie

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Darowyn
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 12:08 PM

It's wierd sometimes how a lyric screw-up stands out in your imagination as you start the song, and seems to lure you into it.
I wrote a song about the strange people that there are in the folkie scene- you know, authentic traddies, singer songwriters, dialect poets, morris dancers etc. and a group that at the time were called "New age travelers"
The line in question goes:-
"If I were a little bit younger, I'd be a New age travelling man,
With a dog on a string and a didgeridoo, and a tired old Transit van"
Somwhere the image crept into my mind of a dog on a stick- a canine lollipop.
I started the song thinking "Don't sing stick, don't sing stick,"
But I did!
It got a laugh though!
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 12:18 PM

It might have been OK if I'd sung the cryptic crossword version (some say love is like a flo-er)?

Kitty

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: GUEST,Trev
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 03:21 PM

As a kid (and for years after) i always thought Virgil Kane took his train to Richmond La Fell (according to Joan Baez). Years later I realised it was actually "Richmond, which fell" (itsef a mangling of RR's lyric, "By may the tenth Richmond had fell"

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Darowyn
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 06:36 PM

I think that there's a Joan Baez screw-up on "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" as well.
She sings :-
"'Till so much cavalry came and tore up the tracks again"
Historically it should be:-
"Till Stoneman's cavalry came" - i.e. Stonewall Jackson.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 07:13 PM

Darowyn

It's the old "don't mention the war" syndrome...

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: mustradclub
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 05:12 AM

Theres an Irish song Peta and I used to sing which contains the line.

"She smiles on my countenance as she sits on my knee"

Now you have to be very careful to get the smiles and the sits the right way round or the song becomes positively pornographic.


Ken Hall

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: slowerairs
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 06:21 PM

A friend of mine who sang regularily at folk clubs in the North East

of England, refused to sing the Stan Rogers song, The Lock keeper,

having on one occasion, sung the words * Her thighs catch on your

shoulder* instead of   *Her sighs catch on your shoulder*

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Linda Goodman Zebooker
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 06:44 PM

There's the story about the singer trying to sing

"Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly,
I've gotta love one man till I die".

and instead she started with
"Fish gotta fly and birds gotta swim........."

not sure where it went after that.

Subject: RE: What are the worst lyric screwups you've
From: Genie
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 06:56 PM

I have a similar problem with Puff, The Magic Dragon.   

The line "Painted wings and giants' rings" usually comes out
"Painted rings ..." before I realize I've messed up the (plausible) first part and sort of painted myself into the corner of having to finish with "... and giants' wings."