mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)

Subject: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Kris
Date: 06 Jan 99 - 05:57 AM

I was enjoying the 'banned' thread, and it reminded me of how shocked I was when I heard the following Bananarama lyrics : "Robert DeNiro's waiting, f****king Italian" which was actually, of course : "Robert DeNiro's waiting, talking italian"

AND - when the same group sang 'I'm your Venus', I'm afraid I misheard that as well!!!!

Must be their diction.

Anyone else got any good slip-of-the-ear?

Kris

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: alison
Date: 06 Jan 99 - 07:43 AM

Hi,

Off you go and have fun.....

Misheard lyrics

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Kris
Date: 06 Jan 99 - 08:23 AM

Thanks Alison - but how will I get any work done now???

Cheers'm'dear

Kris

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Alice
Date: 06 Jan 99 - 09:34 AM

Kris, we have had several discussions about mondegreens, and I have refreshed one of them from 1997 called "mistakes I have made when listening to songs". You probably know that 'mondegreen' is the term for this (laid him on the green, heard as Lady Mondegreen).

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Kris
Date: 06 Jan 99 - 10:14 AM

Cheers Alice - I'll divert to there...

Kris

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Roger "the zimmer"
Date: 06 Jan 99 - 11:20 AM

Not a lyric (though a possible subject for a song!?)but as a librarian I once had a student ask for "Tess of the Dormobiles" who I visualised as an Australian touring the world in her camper van!

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Helen
Date: 07 Jan 99 - 06:23 AM

Roger, When I was a librarian (no, I'm not just being a "me-too", I really was one once) someone asked for the book called Tequila Mockingbird (To Kill A Mockingbird). She couldn't figure out why the staff were rolling around on the floor laughing.

Helen

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Mo
Date: 08 Jan 99 - 11:34 AM

When singing hymns as a child I always used to wonder about the line "there is a green hill far away, without a city wall". Why would a green hill WANT a city wall anyway??! Mo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Jenny
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 12:18 AM

My favorite misheard lyrics are in the tune Groovin' by the Young Rascals. For many eons, I thought the line was about a threesom ... "Life would be ecstacy, you, and me, and Leslie ... groovin." jenny

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 04:14 AM

Speaking of threesomes: as a child, I always thought that "round yon virgin, mother, and child" (my punctuation) gave us three people in the scene.

Sandy

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Cuilionn
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 03:09 PM

Dinnae ken how mony Mudcatters listen tae bands like th' Proclaimers, (Scottish braithers frae 'roond Aberdeen) but for years I wis blythly singin' alang tae ane sang, ca'd "This is the Story..."

I wis singin' ane o' th' lines as "This is th' story o' Lizzie McGillicuddy..." when my friend whae wis drivin' started laughin' sae hard she near tae left th' road. Several minutes later, still snickerin', she pulled o'er ontae th' shoulder o' th' highway an' draggit oot th' liner notes frae th' cassette case...

Turns oot th' wairds actually read "This is a story aboot losin' my virginity."

(Daes my mis-hearin' hae onythin' tae dae wi' me bein' a student at a seminary?!? Sic a wee innocent I wis, aye!)

Gabh spors, --Cuilionn

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Benjamin Bodhra/nai/
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 05:27 PM

Here in Oz we had a rock/surf band called Australian Crawl, who's vocalist is reknowned for his unintelligible lyrics. The best one was from "Restless" which had a line "she don't like that kinda behaviour" which was once misheard as "she don't like dead Canada beavers"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Duane D.
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 09:58 PM

Next time you end up listening to a rock music radio station and they play CCR "Bad Moon Rising", tell me if you hear them singing, "there's a bathroom on the right..."

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Margo
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 05:40 PM

Not the lyrics mis-heard, but a comma in the wrong place which completely changes the meaning!!! The sailors would say "me" instead of "my". And I'm not the only one who has taken this wrongly:

CORRECT: Oh do, me Johnny Boker, roll me in the clover.

WHAT I THOUGHT: Oh do me, Johnny Boker, roll me in the clover.

I sure did laugh when I saw this in print and realized my mistake!

Margo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Rich(stupidbodhranplayer......)
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 05:55 PM

My mother misheard Elton John singing [br] "She's got electric boobs, a mohair suit, you know I read it in a magazine" [br] [br] Rich

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Midchuck
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 06:17 PM

It's not a lyric, but for years I had the vague impression that Olivia Newton-John was a trio.

Peter.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Pixie
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 08:12 PM

I heard someone singing "I'll never be your pizza burning" instead of Mick Jagger's original line "I'll never be your beast of burden"....

Line from "Bobby McGee"....."I took my harpoon out of my dirty red pajamas"....I now sing the song that way if I can get through with a straight face...if not, who the hell cares?

Someone near and dear to me always thought is was "round young virgins" in "Silent Night"....

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Caitrin
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 08:29 PM

Tequila Mockingbird reminded me of some other non-lyrical Mondegreens. My mother, when teaching Composition at ECU, had a student turn in a paper referring to an author winning the Pullet Surprise. She also got a paper that she was expecting to be about euthanasia which was instead about youth in asia. My personal favorite, though, is the student who, intending to write "Voila!" instead wrote "Viola!" (That's a standard phrase in my house now.)
On the lyrical side, I (as a small child) sang the words to the Grateful Dead song "Casey Jones" as "Ridin' that train, Hi, I'm ok!"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 08:52 PM

Don't even ASK about the Rodney Crowell song "After All This Time", where I thought he was saying "The dream that keeps your hopes alive, the smooshy-wooshy in your eye..." Caitrin, you gotta watch the Furniture Guys, Ed & Joe--they say "Et viola!" all the time! So did Bullwinkle if I remember correctly....I hear one person who though the chorus of Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" was "I get no down, but I'm an opera man, you're never gonna keep me down..."

--Mbo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 09:02 PM

Try this: Kiss this Guy. Keep you busy for hours.

Jo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 09:07 PM

O bugger. Try again: Kiss this Guy

Jo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 09:09 PM

That's better. 1,783 bungled lyrics...

Jo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: zenduck
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 10:20 PM

Our Father, who art in Heaven, Harold be thy name...

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: zenduck
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 10:31 PM

Or "Howard" - God is known by many names...

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 10:35 PM

I know I told this somewhere, but as a young boy, going to church and singing was a big part of my life and my grandfather read me stories almost nightly of various bible stories. One night I asked him who "Andy" was. He looked at me and asked what Andy I meant. I said, "You know Pop, the one we sing about in church." He had a thoughtful look, but finally admitted he could not think of a song with Andy in it. I couldn't believe he didn't know, because it was one of his favorites. I said, "Aw Pop, its the one that says, 'Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me.'"

It was one of his favorite stories til the day he died.

Spaw

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: MarkS
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 10:40 PM

Or any lyric at all from Louie Louie by the Kingsmen. It is not possible that the song could be as obscene as my adolescent brain made it out to be

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 10:44 PM

Ha ha, on Star Trek:Deep Space Nine, Odo the Changeling was kayaking with Irishman Miles O'Brien in the holodeck. When asked about the experience, he said "Chief O'Brien kept singing this sea chantey over and over again...called 'Louie Louie'..." What a riot! A sea chantey! HAHA!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Apr 00 - 11:56 PM

Speaking of nonlyrical mishearings, I don't know if any of you watch South Park, but I was wearing a Kenny T-shirt (apologies), and one of my 4-year olds pointed and exclaimed: Kiko Kenny! At which point the other one responded: We're Blasters!

Nice to know that they don't know the word Bastard yet - I know they know others because the other day I dropped a yoghurt and made a huge mess, and was standing there figuratively biting my tongue, when one of the twins pipes up Good for you, Mommie! You didn't say s**t!

Also nice to know they appreciate my efforts!

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Margo
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 12:00 AM

Mrrzy, that's a riot! I have the same problem with my kid. I did say s**t, and when he repeated it perfectly, I changed it to shoot. I hope he remembers the latter. Does anybody know the lyrics to Louie Louie? Are there actually lyrics?

Margo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Mbo
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 12:08 AM

Lyrics right here! Ha! Didn't think there were any, didja?

--Mbo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Mbo
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 12:10 AM

Well dangit! I CAN see Louie Louie as a sea chantey! Maybe we can get Kendall to sing it on Mudcat Radio? **BG**

--Mbo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 07:57 AM

On a Lighthouse Family track:

Actual: "I'm a lost soul..."

Distictly heard by Lady McMoo and myself: "I'm an asshole..."

mcmoo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Snuffy
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 08:36 AM

A little boy at my mother's one-roomed village school in the 50s started the Lord's Prayer:

Our Farmer, wi' calves in heaven, Harold be thy name.

Wassail! V

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: TerriM
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 02:38 PM

I always thought the ABBA song entitled Chitiquita ( or some such outlandish thing) was called Take your teeth out, only song I ever liked of theirs.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 03:35 PM

When I was in maybe 3rd grade I remember one of my classmates writing on the blackboard a story containing the phrase "neck store". He meant "next door". He could hardly believe it when somebody told him he was wrong, and stood staring at the blackboard a long time. I though it was so hilarious then that I've remembered it after all these years. That was maybe 45 years ago.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,DanD
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 03:45 PM

Listening to my daughter singing the old Crystal Gayle (sp) song her younger brother broke up. "Now it makes sense" says he " "I alway thought it was Donuts make my brown eyes blue"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Ely
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 05:19 PM

"Last Train from Poor Valley" [Norman Blake] came out as "Last Train from Corvallis"--my dad didn't think that was a very likely setting for a sad song about a miner's wife running away.

One version I heard of "Wabash Cannonball" had a line about "ride the rods and brake-beams" and I thought it was "ride the rods and break beans", like a hobo version of breaking bread.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 05:21 PM

The classics, of course, are in hymns:

Gladly, the cross-eyed bear, and

Lead On, Thou Kinky Turtle.

My pet misplaced comma occures in the version of Red River Valley that asks: "Can I leave her, behind, unprotected?"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: fox4zero
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 05:30 PM

Whether God's name is Howard or Harold...Lead us not into Penn Station!

Larry Parish

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: SDShad
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 05:40 PM

Or, before they added "under God" to "one nation, indivisible" in the Pledge of Allegiance, my father as a little boy thought it was "one naked individual."

He found that puzzling.

Looking for the Church of the Kinky Turtle,

Shad

Subject: Lyr Add: THE LOWEST PAIR (John Hartford)
From: Jacob B
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 05:47 PM

The Lowest Pair
by John Hartford

Much further off than inevitable
Halloween's they game
Sky King is come, and Wilma's done
Uncertain, as it is uneven
Give us this day hors d'oeuvres in bed
As we forgive those who have dressed up against us
And need us not enter inflation
But a liver, onions, and tomatoes
For wine on a shingle, and a mower
And a story for your father
All right

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 06:00 PM

Not a misheard lyric but something I found rather amusing at the time. (Circa 1985 you know in the heyday of the Reaganistas) And i quote: with apologies to our Russian friends, "Now I lay me down to sea, To teach the Russians democracy. If I should die before we berth, nuke the bastards off the earth." I heard that while in the Navy. I also heard a mis pronunciation of Boney Maroney (Bone Me Moroney). Misheard lyrics would make a great and amusing book. Neil

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: zenduck
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 06:45 PM

Ah, hymns. This is an actual Spoonerism uttered by the esteemed Rev. Spooner himself:

"Today's hymn is 'Kinquering Kongs Their Tikles Tate.'"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 08:10 PM

That's too much. I am tempted to write a folkier version of Louie Louie. Maybe I'll check with my neck store neighbor! LOL!

Margo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From:
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 08:15 PM

we had sailed seven years when the weasels broke out from 'The Irish rover' 'and the marbles that you ate' Crystal Chandeliers.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Caitrin
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 11:23 PM

Well, my brother and I were cruising through kissthisguy.com, and I discovered that my younger brother had always thought Ian Anderson was singing about Aqualung "Eyeing little girls with padded pants."

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Apr 00 - 08:12 AM

In Sullivan's John (see recent thread), I misheard the spelling(?!) as
You've gone with a tinker's daughter fair
Along the road to Rome

Couldn't decide whether he was going to Italy or converting to Catholicism (but then he would probably have been a Catholic anyway

Wassail! V

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,janet
Date: 08 Apr 00 - 10:31 AM

speaking of "round yon virgin".....my husband (when a kid, of course) thought it was Round John Virgin!!! sounds like a robin hood character.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,janet
Date: 08 Apr 00 - 10:49 AM

my kids were very good at mishearing.

my little daughter used used to love the the (BEE_GEES?) song LOVE IS THICKER THAN WATER. however, she would sing LOVE IS SUCKERS IN WATER.

and my son didn't sing much but when just about a year old would try to imitate my husband and pray before he would eat. but instead of directing his prayer to Jehovah, his prayer went like this... HERBERT, AMEN. short and sweet, huh?

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: TerriM
Date: 08 Apr 00 - 04:28 PM

A friend of mine once asked me in all seriousness how they could play such a crude song on the radio which I heard as " He's a walking miracle" but she heard as " He's a ****ing miracle"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: alison
Date: 09 Apr 00 - 02:31 AM

Andy is in "waltzing Matilda" too

"Andy sang, Andy sat, Andy waited 'til his billy boiled"

Personally my favourite at the moment is from "Black Velvet band"....

"next morning before Judge Judy, for trial I had to appear..."

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 09 Apr 00 - 09:38 PM

How many of us still sing "God rest ye'merry gentlemen", omitting the comma that makes it "God rest ye' merry, gentlemen."? And the Beatles famous Lucy, "....the girl with kaliedescope eyes." sounded to me when I first heard it as "...the girl with colitis walks by."

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,the chalupskys
Date: 09 Apr 00 - 11:55 PM

My son used to sing "I saw the light" as "I wandered so aimless, eyes filled with sand..."

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Mrrzy-at-work
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 01:05 PM

Reading the thread on Scots words reminded me of a favorite misheard line in a Star Trek: In some episode or other Scotty is wailing about his engines, crying Och, me puir, wee bairns! Which a friend of mine heard for years as "me poor, wee bearings" - which made so much sense he never had any reason to hear it otherwise until a conversation in which he claimed not to know the word Bairn, when I knew he was a Star Trek fan, so I asked about that line...and we both cracked up.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: DADGBE
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 01:08 PM

MarkS, how did you know that "Louie, Louie" was obscene? I tried for three years to get those lyrics off the Kingsman's record. Finally added those three years to my resume' as "highly experienced in translation".

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: BlueJay
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 01:57 PM

How about "CD of New Orleans"? (I know, booooo)

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Hollowfox
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 02:40 PM

Actually, there is a book called "Louie, Louie: the history and mythology of the world's most famous rock 'n' roll song" by Dave Marsh (Hyperion Press, 1983, ISBN 1-56282-865-7). It's a fine book on the subject, 245 pages worth. The only thing it doesn't have is(are?) the actual lyrics to the song itself. BTW, when I was a young pup of three or so, my parents fell in love with a recording of Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Many were the phonetically mis-learned lyrics I acquired. The best, I think, was in Lotte Lenya's version of "Song of Solomon": "I was thinking about reforming....guess not" became "I was thinking about before me...guess not." The mental gymnastics needed for my toddler brain to figure out any possible meaning for the songs on that album alone either warped me for life, or were a great preparation for same; possibly both.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 03:11 PM

Here's a real one. The Cleftones' 50s doowop hit, "Why You Do Me Like You Do," has the line, "Sugar, you're the apple of my eye" -- but the Cleftones actually sneaked in the line, "you're the a**hole of my eye."

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Stout Drinker
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 03:15 AM

Well, the Celtic "Louie Louie" would have to be "Fionnghuala." "it's the enema (moan, moan)" <- is i eilean nam bothan, nam bothan "what she got in the shop" <- cha duir sinn dad ann a seo "barely dressed in an alley" <- bheireamaid greis ar an tarraing

In my misspent childhood, I thought the chorus of the Clancys' "Barnyards of Delgaty" began with "Cincinnati toor-an-elly"... ('stead of Lin-tin-addy)

thanx for yer patience...

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: RWilhelm
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 12:04 PM

My favorite is the one Dick Greenhaus mentioned, "Gladly the cross-eyed bear." I was delighted when that cross-eyed bear turned up again in the chorus of one of Alanis Morresett's self-absorbed songs.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Margo
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 01:26 PM

Another I misunderstood, but because it made sense, I didn't think it odd... From the sea shantey "Heave Away me Johnnies"

Real Words: Oh, our pilot he is waiting for the turning of the tide...

What I heard: Oh, a pile of tea is waiting for the turning of the tide.

I thought a cargo of tea was entirely plausible!

Margo

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Ranks
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 12:19 PM

When I first heard Tom Jones singing "Sex Bomb" I thought he sang "Sad Bum"

Ranks

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Frankie
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 11:39 PM

I know I've heard Bob Seger sing "...they do respect her butt."

F

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Song Dog
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 12:51 AM

Does anyone remember the old comicstrip 'POGO'(the possum)? At chrtstmus time he would always sing,"Deck the halls with Boston Charley,Fa la la la la, and swaller doller too.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Caitrin
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 10:06 AM

Frankie...The line's actually "They do respect her, but...They love to watch her strut." Right word, wrong sense of it. (at least I think so. I mean, it's entirely possible that they respect her bottom.)

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 10:31 AM

The thread about Mrs. O'Leary's cow reminded me of a mishearing - Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers have a song about Baltimore burning, in which the chorus ran Far, far, are heard the cries... which years later was explained to me that the chorus really is Fire! Fire! (his SAYS far, but it's SPELLED f-i-r-e).

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Frankie
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 04:41 PM

Thanks Caitrin, that is a relief. You see I fainted when I heard what I thought was a public reference to a lady's derriere and consequently never heard the next line(Smile).

Frankie

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 07:04 PM

See this song:
THE BALLAD OF LADY MONDEGREEN
…and these related threads:
Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
There's a Bathroom on the Right
Misspoken, misheard, but accepted
Misheard words
Mis-heard session tune titles
…and these related web sites:
The Ants Are My Friends
Funny Misheard Lyrics
The Humorous Compendium of Misheard Lyrics
Brain Candy Poetry & Song Collection/Mondegreens
KissThisGuy

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Hollowfox
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 06:36 PM

If you go to "http://www.igopogo.com/poporesources.htm" (someday I'll master the blue clicky thing), you can find not one, but three versions of "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie", and the origin of "We has met the enemy and he is us".

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Jim Krause
Date: 26 Apr 00 - 05:33 PM

When the Carpenters came out with their first hit Close To You, my cousin and I thought Karen was singing So they sprinkled walnuts in your hair
and old rust in your eyes of blue What she actually sang wasSo they sprinkled gold dust in your hair
and starlight in your eyes of blue We knew we misunderstood, but it was funny to poke such sophomoric fun at that song.

And did Grace Slick in White Rabbit really sing

Tell 'em a hookah
Smoking color crayons has given you the call
Call Alice, when she was just small

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 27 Apr 00 - 01:56 PM

This one is kind of bilingual but I liked it, because of the change in the visual I got when I realized the right words. The Compagnons de la Chanson have a song called Sarah, in which the chorus goes something like Sarah, Sarah, reviens vers nous (sarah, sarah, come back to us). Which I heard for years as Ca va, ca va, reviens vers nous (it's OK, it's OK, come back to us). But that isn't the story I'm telling.
There is one verse where the rest of the family is at the dinner table missing her (Sarah), whose real lyrics are:
Tous attables les soirs d'hiver
Lorsqu'un par un Mamie nous sert..
(roughly As we sit around the table on winter's nights, and mom serves us one by one). I always heard it as "Tous ACCABLES" (all borne down, weighted down by sorrow) instead of "attables" (at table) - but they were obviously still there at the dinner table, given the next line. So my visual was always of a family sitting around, all of them with really bad posture, as they are weighted down with sorrow.
Then I heard the song on CD, much clearer - and in my visual, all the people around the table straightened up!

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Kim
Date: 27 Apr 00 - 02:53 PM

Can't recall who sang(sings) this old one from the 50's, but the real name of the song was "Who Wrote the book of love". A former botfriend of mine thought for years that they were singing"Who's got the moo-cow now"! Also the ever popular Beatle's song, "Hands across the water":}

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Apr 00 - 06:38 PM

What about "We Three Kings Of Orient Are - Smoking On A Rubber Cigar"??? Mis-heard or what??????????

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Caitrin
Date: 27 Apr 00 - 09:55 PM

Grace actually says "A hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Mr Happy
Date: 03 May 04 - 06:50 AM

The Israelites:


Get up in the morning, baked beans for breakfast
Sold out to every monk and beefhead
Oooooooh, me ears are alight!
Why find me kids, they buck up and a-leave me
Darling cheese head I was yards too greasy
Oooooooh! Me ears are alight!

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Flash Company
Date: 03 May 04 - 07:28 AM

Pal at work came in one morning and said 'I've been listening to that k d lang on the radio in the car, whats that song called? Can't stand gravy?

FC

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Lindswidder
Date: 03 May 04 - 07:48 AM

In school we had words to "Gabriel's Message"

"Most highly flavoured gravy, gloria" instead of "...favoured Lady"

as a small boy my father recalls a song (it's probably Peter Dawson's rendition of a song I think is called "The Stein Song") the last two lines of which he always reckoned were:

"I want to be a Life-Guard
With my finger in a hard-boiled egg"

I never have discovered the proper lyrics.

I remember a St. Albans shopkeeperin the 1950s called Mr Mercer who was always singing a song I heard as "Hard Eggs By The Number", which I later learned was "Heartaches By The Number"

There was a 60s song by Herman's Hermits called "Silhouettes On The Shade", I always reckoned they were singing:

"Let me in or else I'll pee, down your door"..

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Rozza
Date: 03 May 04 - 02:37 PM

I once picked up a carol singer's crib (!)sheet in my front garden in Gainsborough which included the little-known line in "Away in a Manger", "Little Lord Jesus no crime he makes"

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Megan L
Date: 03 May 04 - 02:52 PM

always thought "let angels prostrate fall" sounded quite painfull does it require surgery

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Dunkle at work
Date: 03 May 04 - 03:38 PM

Later on, we'll perspire...as we sit by the fire...

Lucy in the sky with Linus...

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Sam L
Date: 03 May 04 - 07:04 PM

Later on by the fire we'll be filled with desire.

Not sure if Elton John sings They sneak into your room, and feel their genitals.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Mr Happy
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 06:43 AM

last night heard a chap do'Everybody's Talking at me'

with line 'Bankin off? in the north east wind'

each time he came to this bit of chorus, a section of audience sining entirely different+howls of laughter!

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Coward
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:34 AM

My big brother (He's still bigger than me , hence the Guest name!)was reported as (at the end of WWII) including the phrase 'Mother Home Guard' in the prayer Hail Mary Mother of God !!!

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: michaelr
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 06:02 PM

Speaking of Elton John...

Hold me closer, Tony Danza
Count my head lice on the highway

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Van
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 08:10 PM

Can head lice live in an odd looking rug?

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Smokey.
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 12:10 AM

You aint seen nothing like the mighty quim.

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: Smokey.
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 12:51 AM

My favourite: Desmond Dekker with "Me Ears are Alight".

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 06:28 AM

Umm is it bad diction by the singers ot do we hear what we want to hear!?
Good while ago a lady asked me "do you know that Irish song with Cary Grant in?"
Course I said I didn't know of any song with Cary Grant in, so I said can you sing me a line
She obliged with "I wish I was in Carrickfergus, only for nights with Cary Grant" !! Actually when I first heard it I thought it was 'only for n ights with Barry Grant';)

Subject: RE: mis-heard lyrics (surely they didn't say...)
From: GUEST,Hilary
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 11:16 AM

A version of "Death of Queen Jane" went from "Queen Jane was in labor" to "Queen Jane was a neighbor." This can be seen in Bronson's book.