Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs

10 Jul 97 - 01:50 AM (#8362)
Subject: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: John

I know we have all done it, and it's only when I see the printed word in DT or this MARVELLOUS forum, that I realise how my ear has deceived me as to the real lyrics.

For years I listened to a Scottish friend sing "The Shoals of Herring". There's a part which goes ...I was cook and was quarters sharing... I had always honestly thought that the words were ...I got crook on a quart of sherry...

Anybody else wish to share their translation gaffs?

Regards John

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10 Jul 97 - 03:14 AM (#8365)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Rick

Funny that, I always thought that line was

I was cook, and I'd a quarter share'nt

- quarter share of the profits...

I've only been singing it like that for 20 odd years...

Rick.

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10 Jul 97 - 07:17 AM (#8373)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Ted in Australia

when I was much much younger I had this line wrong from the hym "My cup's full and running over". I was convinced that it went " my cuboards full of roll me overs" I thought that "roll me overs" must have been something real cool to eat. Shoals of Herring is a favourite of mine too. Regards

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10 Jul 97 - 08:08 AM (#8376)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Sharon

Kids do a lot of this mistranslating. One of my Kindergarten kids wanted to sing a song about the running tooth. All the other kids knew which song it was. Only I, the adult, didn't recognize the words to "his tooth is marching on" from the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The same with the song about the "mittens." You know... John Jacob Jingleheimer's mittens.

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10 Jul 97 - 10:01 AM (#8392)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Alan of Oz

"Angel of the Morning" has a line "Just brush my teeth before you leave me" which could be mistaken for ".....Touch my cheek.........".

Or is that the other way round?

Madonna has a line in "Material Girl" - "If they can't raise my interest then I'll have to let them be" or is that "If they can't raise nine inches then I'll have to let them be"?

Cheers,
Alan

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10 Jul 97 - 10:03 AM (#8393)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mountain Dog

Even though it's not exactly in the folk category, I'll offer a favorite misinterpretation:

I remember wincing the first several times I heard Juice Newton's "Angel of the Morning", wondering if she was really singing:

"Just call me Angel of the Morning, baby, Just brush my teeth before you leave..."!

(Others insist she'd said "Just touch my cheek..." You listen and decide.)

This served to reinforce the wisdom of an old friend who said: "Don't believe a word you hear and only half of what you see."

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10 Jul 97 - 10:06 AM (#8394)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mountain Dog

Alan!

Whether it's great minds thinking alike or fools seldom differing, I think we've just had an instance of trans-hemisperhical coincidence. No sooner had I posted my Juice gaffe, than I saw yours appear. DT meets the Twilight Zone, eh?

(Glad to know someone else heard it that way, too.)

Yours, amused and amazed.

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10 Jul 97 - 11:52 AM (#8414)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: sharon

Love that song "Mist covered Mountains of Home" but was really frustrated trying to learn the words listening to it sung on cassette. "High Roads??", soon I will see you. "Heroes??" see them o see them......

Then I discovered the lyrics recently, onlline, and found that it was " Hi, ro" and "He, ro"....

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10 Jul 97 - 12:22 PM (#8417)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Ferrara

For the record, I have also learned Shoals of Herring as "I was cook and I'd a quarter share in", i.e. a share of the profits. I believe it was printed that way in one of my books, as well, and I believe this version is correct. Don't believe everything you read. There is at least one very popular wordbook that is riddled with mistakes. In another book, the words "She's the combination ..." have become "How we love the choo-choo on the Wabash Cannonball"!

There are even tapes and CDs where you can tell that the singer couldn't quite understand the original words. Ray Fisher's liner notes to the Night Visiting Song begin the last verse with "And when that long night was passed and over/ And when the smoke clouds began to grow ...". Now, we have Norman Kennedy singing it as well, and I am 99.9% certain that what he's singing is "And when that long night was past and over/ And when the small cocks began to crow ..."

By the way, I just looked it up. Norman's version is in the database.

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10 Jul 97 - 12:50 PM (#8420)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Susan of California

Ok Sharon, since you brought up kids mistakes..... When my son was 5 or 6 he loved to sing the U.S. National anthem. But the words at the end were "wrong" I have to admit I let him sing it his way for a while, I prefered it. Here are his words: "Oh say those stars and stripes spangling in that pale, Amer-i-can wa-aa-ay.. For the land to be free, and the home of the brave!"

And for those that aren't familiar with the 'standard' version, it goes like this: "Oh! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"

He sang it with such passion and feeling that it was almost sad when he learned the "standard" version. He sure doesn't sing it that way any more...

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10 Jul 97 - 12:55 PM (#8422)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: RS

My brain is not connecting the hypertext link to the rest of the song this comes from, but I remember many years ago trying to transcribe the Beatles song with the words (approximately): "but if you go quoting the words of Chem and Mow, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow" ... and wondering whether Chem and Mow were some famous singing group that I hadn't heard of yet ... it wasn't until much later that I realised this was "Chairman Mao" they were referring to!

(No, it's not folk, hope that's ok ... )

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10 Jul 97 - 08:14 PM (#8460)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Alan of Oz

Mountain Dog,

Just shows ya gotta be quick.

Cheers,
Alan

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10 Jul 97 - 09:32 PM (#8466)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Helen, also of Oz

Hi all,

I am enjoying this thread, and I'll admit to being the world's worst at hearing lyrics correctly, mainly because I focus more on the melody/musical arrangements. They could be singing pure drivel and I wouldn't care as long aas I like the music. On the other hand I never could understand other people's fascination with Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen because musically I (IMHO) think they belong in kindergarten.

Enough of this - 2 things:

The 3 mistaken lyrics I can think of straight away, and I know I'm part of a huge crowd in the first 2 instances.

Jimmy Hendrix - "scuse me while I kiss this guy" and I was so impressed with him coming out of the closet in such a spectacular and international way, until I realised that it is "kiss the sky"

Manfred Mann's Earth Band: "wrapped up like a douche" - don't ask me what that line really is, I have no idea.

A TV ad for Seiko watches: I could have sworn the jingle said "Seiko, losing time with Cheryl Ladd" until I finally worked out that it was "moves in time"

Secondly, have you seen this website? It's totally devoted to misheard lyrics. http://www.wco.com/~arsenio/tool/

The site is called "Tool Mondegreens" because of a misheard folk lyric - you'll have to look it up, I can't remember which tune it was.

Helen

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10 Jul 97 - 09:50 PM (#8468)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From:

Hi again

Just a quick update: The Jimmy Hendrix song I mentioned was Purple Haze, The other one was Blinded by the Light (I think, but that was the beginning of the chorus).

I apologise now if anyone is offended by the lyrics in some of the songs in the Mondegreen site - I checked the site after I posted the thread.

And the quote from the site about the misheard folk song:

'The term "mondegreen" can be attributed to a 1954 Atlantic article by Sylvia Wright. In the article, she wrote of a folk song she thought contained the lyrics "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen." It took her years to discover that she had been wrong; the lyrics had actually been "They had slain the Earl of Moray/ And laid him on the green." '

Helen

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10 Jul 97 - 11:42 PM (#8475)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Charlie Baum

I remember hearing of an article in a scholarly journal about the difficulties computers would have recognizing speech. The article was entitled: "How to Recognize Speech, Not Wreck a Nice Beach."

And I remember reading in John Jacob Niles' Ballad Book of his informant who told him the King of Fence sent tenny balls (from a tenny tree, whatever that might be) instead of the King of France sending tennis balls. (See also Shakespeare's Henry V, Act I).

The mind's attempts to fill in lacunae create interesting turns of phrase.

--Charlie Baum

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11 Jul 97 - 12:17 AM (#8479)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Helen

Charlie I heard a joke about that more than 20 years ago. A computer can translate between English & Russian, and vice versa.

The test phrase used was: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. All went well in the translation from English to Russian, but on translating it back again into English the phrase was: The vodka was good, but the meat was terrible.

Sorry - but not very ;-> Helen

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11 Jul 97 - 12:38 AM (#8481)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Alan of OZ

The Wreck a nice beach quote came from Bill Gates referring to his speech recognition team's imperfect efforts.

Cheers,
Alan

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11 Jul 97 - 05:00 AM (#8488)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Wolfgang

I started learning English listening to folk songs (learning expressions like, e.g., "raging main" so useful in daily conversation) and trying hard to find out the lyrics. Now I sit there sometimes and compare my notes with the DT database. I was so proud for example when I found in the three volume Websters a nonstandard meaning of the word "bandoleer" which made remotely sense of my line "she was courted by a young bandoleer". The DT has "she was courted by young Vandermeer" (Darcy Farrow is the song). What a letdown. Read also the recent thread "The fields of Athenry" started by Teru for a nice example.

Cheers Wolfgang

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11 Jul 97 - 07:39 AM (#8493)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: dick greenhaus

A couple of points: a) The Digital Tradition is certainly NOT an iron-clad reference for "correct" words. We're as good as our contributors and editor(s). And no better. If you find (or think) we're in error somewhere, please let me know.

b) The study of Mondegreens is a fascinating one. COnsider the Christmas trinity of "Round John Virgin, mother and child", or the two animal-based hymns, "Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear" and "Lead On, Thou Kinky Turtle".

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11 Jul 97 - 11:06 PM (#8543)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: rich r

I too have auralallia (the listening equivalent of speaking in tongues). For many years I sang the last verse of Gordon Lightfoot's "Long River" as:

When this land was made , it was made for the wanters.

It always bothered me as to what exactly is a "wanter" in this context, but a couple other singing companions concurred in this interpretation. Only more recently did I see a printed version of the lyrics to find out that this land was "made full of wonders"

I also learned Fred Hellerman's "Borning Day" from a scratchy library record by the Brothers Four and had no clue what kind of tree they were getting "down" (I.e. fluffy stuff, not vertical displacement) from. I resorted to mumbling the word knowingly as if I was perfectly sure what i was singing about. Fortunately nobody asked. A couple years ago I finally sent a request in to the Sing Out! Songfinder. Nobody replied, but after some months Holly Tannen found a printed version of the lyurics and sent them to me. With that in hand I went to the botany section of the university library and found out that the "moffle tree" is a real plant from the Carribean area and they actually get some kind of bedding product by scraping off the inner bark.

Good grief this is a long post for a couple of botched words.

rich r

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12 Jul 97 - 03:32 AM (#8551)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Yellow Door folky girl

A mistake made by a member of McGill's Folk Music club a couple years ago. Tommy Sands' "There Were Roses" = "neurosis"

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14 Jul 97 - 04:59 AM (#8620)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From:

In that well-known folk song "Heart of Glass" by, er, Blondie, does Deborah Harry really sing "Cheesy like a zither"? Or what? Ian

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14 Jul 97 - 02:10 PM (#8633)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Jon Whitney

A common one from the blues world - a description of a steam locomotive which goes "smokestack's black 'n' the bell it shines like gold" often gets converted to the nonsensical "Smokestack Lightning shine like pearly gold" or "Smokestack Lightning building shine like gold".

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14 Jul 97 - 07:10 PM (#8654)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Susan of California

Helen,

Manfred Mann was covering Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light" which appears on Bruce's _Greetings from Asbury Park_ album(1973). The line is "...And she was blinded by the light/Cut loose like a deuce another runner in the night/ Blinded by the light..."

I will admit that I love Bruce (I spent my formative years in New Jersey-what can I say?) and knowing the words sure doesn't help me understand the meaning! I always sort of thought it ha d something to do with numbers running or drug use or ????

Hope this helps a wee bit :-)

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14 Jul 97 - 07:33 PM (#8664)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Jon W

That's funny, I always thought it was "wrapped up like a deuce, you know the runner in the night" Still doesn't clarify the meaning though. As for Beatle's songs, who can forget the immortal line "The girl with collitis goes by" from "Lucy and the Sky with Diamonds."

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15 Jul 97 - 08:11 AM (#8702)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: alison

Hi

Moving this thread into the '80's I quite like Paul Young's 'Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat (me) with you."

And

"Beat me up with your lettuce." (or is that "letters"????? I prefer to think of it as lettuce myself) From "Is that love" by Squeeze.

Slainte

Alison.

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15 Jul 97 - 08:59 AM (#8704)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Sheye

Speaking of the Beatles (mucho earlier in the post), does anyone recall Lennon's tune "Might As Well Be On Pause". You can say Mars if you want to; I quite liked the idea of occasionally living on pause.

Enjoy your day!! Sheye

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30 Jul 97 - 04:56 AM (#9838)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: [e-mail]

my own humble mistake. From the rascals' song, "Groovin"... i always thought the line was....

"life could be exctasy, you and me and Leslie"

i guess my young mind was already tuned to the erotic potential of a menange-a-trois. Quite disapointed to discover actually words are...

"life could be exctasy, you and me endlessly."

alas.

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30 Jul 97 - 02:13 PM (#9871)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Rocket Ron R

For some time I was convince the word to the Ozark Mountain Daredevils song were

There's a rooster on the horizon And it damn near fills the sky Thank you lord For Canadian rye

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31 Jul 97 - 09:09 PM (#9955)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Bill D

In the English Music Hall song "A Little Bit of Cucumber", I could never figure out where in England the locale of 'Matcheses' was....like in "I can go to Matcheses, but what I do prefer..." It wasn't until I got up the courage to ask a English friend that I understood that it meant " I can occasionally enjoy some tomatoes"...
Now I understand the comment that "The US and England are two countries divided by a common language."

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02 Aug 97 - 11:39 AM (#9989)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Alice

This is such a fun thread! Re: translations, I remember the story told to me by a marketing director of Northwest Orient Airlines. They used to have a song lyrics, "put wings to your heart" in ads. When they translated it into ads for Japan, the song became, "put feathers on your blood pump". I also recall John Prine relating the experience of having a fan request that he sing the "Happy Enchilada" song. She had heard the lyric "half an inch of water" as "happy enchilada". Alice

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02 Aug 97 - 02:51 PM (#9991)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Rocket Ron R.

And of course a misheard lyric can with time become seen as the normal version. In Wild Mountain Thyme a large number of people sing at the start of the second verse

I will build my love a *tower* By yon clear crystal fountain And on it I will pile All the flowers of the mountain.

I've even seen it printed in songbooks. The correct word, which then makes the verse actually make sense, is bower, which is the sort of thing you would pile flowers on.

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03 Aug 97 - 09:15 AM (#10009)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Peter Timmerman

An old girlfriend of mine thought that the line of Bob Dylan's "To Be Stuck inside of Mobile with Memphis Blues again" referred to the plight of being locked in a mobile home (trailer) with an entire Southern U.S. football team.

Yours, Peter

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03 Aug 97 - 11:39 PM (#10022)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Dick Wisan

Christmas Carols, for some reason, seem particularly liable to mondegreens, maybe because we learn them so young. I remember thinking about "the little Aw Jesus asleep in the hay" --I'd heard the expression, but now I knew what it was. And, I remember working out that Born couldn't have been King of Israel until some time after Solomon.

But my nicest one wasn't a Christmas carol. I distinctly heard, on the radio, many times,

"Yellover, so high in banana tree."

Someone's third grader daughter asked me what it meant, and I had to explain how, in Switzerland, in the winter, when people in a little villages in the mountains get lonely, it's hard for them to climb all the way down their mountain and up the next mountain to talk to someone in another village. So, they get out their alpenhorns (digression on the nature of alpenhorns) and blow. And the folks in the next village on the other side of the valley hear and understand, and they come out and blow their alpenhorns to show they're ready, and THEN

They have a Yellover.

Bless us all.

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04 Aug 97 - 01:29 PM (#10039)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: LaMarca

When I first started singing folk songs, I was learning bunches of stuff from the Celtoid supergroups of the 70's; Planxty, Bothy Band, Silly Wizard, etc. Since I'm an American from Wisconsin, I had a wee bit of a problem with the Irish and Scottish accents, needless to say. My favorite msitake was my original rendition of "Broom of the Cowdenknowes", where I thought the chorus line went:

"Fain would I be in my own country
Held in my fair one's arms"

I was embarassed to find it was supposed to be

"Herdin' her faither's yowes" (Herding her father's ewes for us American English speakers)

Guess I didn't understand the average Scotsman's love for his sheep...

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05 Aug 97 - 11:32 AM (#10104)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Adrian

Not from a song, but the Lord's Prayer. My mother, a teacher, told us one day about one of her students who was heard to say "Our father, with chart in heaven. Harold be thy name."

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08 Aug 97 - 10:27 AM (#10220)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Tim Jaques [e-mail]

I can't recall any trouble with folk songs, which are usually sung fairly clearly, but I have had trouble with pop songs.

For years I thought that the line "And the moon is the only light you'll see" in Ben King's "Stand By Me" was "And the moon is the only flying pussy", and couldn't figure out what that was supposed to mean. Some obscure Southern slang, I thought.

When I was younger we tried to play the Stones' "Beast of Burden". The singer was French and had got the lyrics from listening to the LP. He came out with "I don't want your pizza burnin'".

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25 Sep 97 - 07:17 PM (#13209)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Nonie Rider

My musical hearing is bad enough that if I can actually manage a Mondegreen, I'm grateful; usually things make even LESS sense than that.

I heard the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" as "Take the Back Right Turn" for over a decade...

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25 Sep 97 - 10:57 PM (#13216)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Jerry Friedman

In some contexts, these Mondegreens (great name!) are also known as the "folk process".

How many millions of American children have thought "America" goes "My country 'tis of the sweet land of liberty"? (For the damn furriners, this song to the tune of "God Save the Queen" begins "My country, 'tis of thee,/ Sweet land of liberty,/ Of thee I sing.")

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26 Sep 97 - 10:13 PM (#13299)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Dan Bynum

My wife swears that for years, she though Creedence Clearwater Revival were singing "There's a bathroom on the right." Obviously written by someone who grew up in the porcelain industry.

And have you ever noticed on The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the background singers are singing "My wings are wet, my wings are wet...."

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06 Jan 99 - 11:21 AM (#52281)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Art Thieme

In "Hard Times Come Again No More" I heard a line as "the whale that is hurt upon the shore"!

In "January Man" the line "Poor November Man" Ialways heard as "Porno vender man"

In the Child ballad "Lord Lovell", the phrase "This Turk, he..." I once actually saw printed in a book "This turkey...". Ever since it's made me laugh whenever I hear the song.

Art

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06 Jan 99 - 12:14 PM (#52289)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Kris

Not from a song - but my mother is a bottom-less well of malapropisms & similar.

My favourite one is her claim to have parked in a multi-coloured-starpark.

Kris

(multi-storey-carpark was the less attractive truth)

As to her financial arrangements : she barks at Bankleys.

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06 Jan 99 - 12:18 PM (#52290)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Bob Landry

According to the story, Santa Claus' sleigh is pulled by 8 tiny reindeer. According to Gene Autry, there really are 10: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolf (with the shiny nose) and Olive, (the nasty other reindeer who used to laugh and call Rudolf names).

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06 Jan 99 - 01:28 PM (#52299)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: SteveF

Back when I was counting the days to get my first driving permit, I empathized with Lloyd Price in "Personality," whose girlfriend would "walk with personality, talk with personality, plus you've got a great big car-ar-ar!"

--SteveF

P.S. - Just yesterday I heard the song "Angel of the Morning" played on the local radio station. When it finished, the DJ commented, "Y'know, for years I thought she sang 'just brush my teeth before I leave...'"

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06 Jan 99 - 01:59 PM (#52306)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: catspaw49

Thanks for bringing this back, I've really enjoyed reading it!

When I was about 6, I asked my Grandfather who read me Bible stories nightly, "Who's ANDY?" He asked if I meant Andrew, the disciple. "No, I mean ANDY." He loked at me sorta' blankly and I said we sang about him in church. Obviously still confused, I said, "You know, Pop...ANDY walks with me. ANDY talks with me. That ANDY!" Poor ol' Pop got to laughing so hard he left the room...and I never did get an answer from him! catspaw49

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06 Jan 99 - 04:59 PM (#52320)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Brack&

In the last verse of The Fields Of Athenry, I always sang "she watched the last hour falling". I was told recently that it should be "the last star falling". Now I don't know which one is right!

Another is a line No Man's Land.

The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand or
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand.

Mick Bracken

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06 Jan 99 - 07:10 PM (#52352)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Tim Jaques [e-mail]

"Mute witness stand" makes more sense. They generally didn't bury them in sand.

Of course, there is the joke about Olive, the other reindeer. They even sell stuffed Olive The Other Reindeer toys now.

For years I thought the words in Star of the County Down were "down a bowling green", instead of "down a boreen green". I had thought it very civilized of the Irish to have bowling greens in their villages.

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06 Jan 99 - 07:23 PM (#52357)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Uncle Fred

This has been REAL entertaining. Our friend Dorothy always thought "She's got a ticket to ri-ide" was "She's got a stupid giraffe". Then there's Pete Seeger's "ONE TON Tomato, Why she's a ONE TON Tomato, One ton to-MAY-TO..... Robert Hunter maintained for years that if his lyrics sounded like something else that made sense, that they should be sung that way. Later on he was finally per- suaded to put out a book of all his lyrics. It's called BOX OF RAIN....I recommend it highly.

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06 Jan 99 - 07:50 PM (#52364)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Tim Jaques [e-mail]

My mind generally slips into low thoughts when I mishear things. I thought that the line in that song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" was "Girls just want to get f****d" and was shocked that it would be permitted on daytime radio. In fact when I hear it, I am still convinced that is what she is really singing. Who was that-- Madonna? Cindy Whatshername?

For years I heard the line in the John Prine song "Grampa Was A Carpenter" as "urinate in every pew". Years later I learned it was "hearing aids in every pew." And of course, with Prine, as I might have mentioned, I heard "eat a lot of peaches" as "eat a lot of pizza", which I thought an odd thing for a back to the land person to do.

Speaking of peaches, I once took a course from an Australian professor whose accent I could not fathom, and who taught a subject that was to me rather difficult. One day in answer to a question of mine he stated "perhaps some peaches would be of assistance." I was in the depths of despair -- what had I missed? What could peaches possibly have to do with the subject at hand? Was he mocking me in some subtle Australian way? I was doomed to fail in disgrace. Then he drew some pictures on the blackboard. . .

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07 Jan 99 - 12:14 AM (#52428)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: [e-mail]

I've loved the animated film "The Secret of NIMH" since I was a child. The theme has always been one of my favorite songs. It's a lullaby called "Flying Dreams." Music is by Jerry Goldsmith, lyrics written and sung by Paul Williams.

Part of the lyrics are as follows: "Sleep for now. Dreaming's how Lovers' lives are planned. Future songs and Flying dreams, Hand in hand..."

For years I thought part of the lyrics were as follows: "Sleep for now In Dreaming Town where Lovers' lives are planned..."

Oh, well. Another childhood illusion bites the dust.

Sincerely, Mary

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07 Jan 99 - 01:07 AM (#52446)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Barry Finn

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

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07 Jan 99 - 01:30 AM (#52450)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: katlaughing

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

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07 Jan 99 - 01:31 AM (#52451)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: katlaughing

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

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07 Jan 99 - 01:33 AM (#52453)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: katlaughing

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

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07 Jan 99 - 03:46 AM (#52481)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Steve Parkes

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

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07 Jan 99 - 05:13 AM (#52492)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Kris

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

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07 Jan 99 - 04:43 PM (#52598)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Buskboy

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?

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07 Jan 99 - 06:24 PM (#52624)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Barry Finn

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

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08 Jan 99 - 07:51 AM (#52737)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From:

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...).

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09 Jan 99 - 01:12 AM (#52982)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: RonU

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

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09 Jan 99 - 02:49 AM (#52989)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Margarita

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!

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09 Jan 99 - 12:07 PM (#53024)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Tim Jaques [e-mail]

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".

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09 Jan 99 - 03:18 PM (#53055)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Allan C.

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".

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09 Jan 99 - 05:22 PM (#53062)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Weskora

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".

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10 Jan 99 - 08:34 PM (#53266)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Tim Jaques [e-mail]

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

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11 Jan 99 - 05:09 PM (#53483)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: bbc

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

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14 May 99 - 03:33 PM (#78487)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: LEJ

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."

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14 May 99 - 06:37 PM (#78526)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: emily rain

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

:)

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14 May 99 - 07:08 PM (#78536)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Penny S.

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.

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14 May 99 - 07:55 PM (#78548)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Art Thieme

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

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14 May 99 - 09:42 PM (#78577)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire

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

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14 May 99 - 10:18 PM (#78586)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire

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

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14 May 99 - 10:21 PM (#78587)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire

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

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15 May 99 - 01:32 AM (#78615)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: WyoWoman

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

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15 May 99 - 02:17 AM (#78620)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mark Cohen

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?

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15 May 99 - 02:46 AM (#78627)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mark Cohen

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."

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15 May 99 - 03:38 PM (#78718)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: campfire

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

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15 May 99 - 10:07 PM (#78786)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Alice

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.;->)

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16 May 99 - 12:31 AM (#78802)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: alison

Hi,

Heard one yesterday I'd forgotten about.

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

slainte

alison

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16 May 99 - 01:01 AM (#78808)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Matthew B.

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)

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16 May 99 - 05:46 PM (#78957)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Margo

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

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17 May 99 - 06:56 AM (#79090)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Matthew B.

Well, steve, that does make sense.

Hmmmm....

I may have to re-think this. Fooey.

:p

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17 May 99 - 10:52 AM (#79124)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Steve Parkes

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

Steve

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17 May 99 - 11:08 AM (#79130)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Jon W.

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 :)

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17 May 99 - 11:51 AM (#79147)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Matthew B.

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

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06 Jun 99 - 12:31 PM (#84404)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: [e-mail]

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

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06 Jun 99 - 02:09 PM (#84417)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Rosebrook

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

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13 Sep 01 - 09:38 PM (#549519)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Genie

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).

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14 Sep 01 - 01:16 AM (#549700)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Ebbie

"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

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14 Sep 01 - 06:11 PM (#550344)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: lady penelope

" 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.

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14 Sep 01 - 08:17 PM (#550457)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Morticia

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

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18 Sep 01 - 05:26 AM (#553041)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST

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.

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18 Sep 01 - 05:57 AM (#553049)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Letty

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

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18 Sep 01 - 05:58 AM (#553050)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Terry K

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

Cheers, Terry

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18 Sep 01 - 12:11 PM (#553243)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: LR Mole

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.

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18 Sep 01 - 02:31 PM (#553355)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: dougboywonder

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.

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18 Sep 01 - 03:42 PM (#553421)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: guinnesschik

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.

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19 Sep 01 - 08:20 AM (#553839)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: mkebenn

"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

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19 Sep 01 - 04:37 PM (#554276)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: lady penelope

Naa, "oompah oompah, stick it up your jumpa" is deffinitley on there!

My Dad used to sing " One ton of melons" to Quant arra mera ( I have no idea how that's spelt )and until I eventually heard it on the telly, that's what I thought it was. Mind you this is from the man who brought his children the "Bluebell" song, so I was apt to believe anything was possible when it came to song lyrics.

After so many years singing " hark the jelly babies sing" instead of "hark the herald angels sing" I now can't sing the correct words unless they're in front of me!

TTFN M'Lady P.

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19 Sep 01 - 05:29 PM (#554310)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex

Like Wolfgang (a long way up this post) I remember Darcy Farrow as "young bandoleer". Sung by Mathews Southern Comfort. Can't check as my ex kept the vinyl.

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19 Sep 01 - 06:08 PM (#554351)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,[e-mail]

"Things" Every night I sit here by my window, Staring out there lonesome as a newt

I sang (to myself)for at least 25 years the above words A "Friend" corected me and laughed and still does. Ps he likes my version better - he reminds me of it every time we try to make out words for of a song.

Anyone got the words of the Pogues "Fairytale of New York " Right First time. "The guitars the guitars they deliver the gold But when the wind blows right thro you there's a place far below, When I first got my hands on that gold with the 'G' They promised me broadway was waiting for me" ..........It made sense to me at the time, only to be corrected later,

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19 Sep 01 - 06:08 PM (#554353)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Turtle

My nana always used to say "Love you more than Tunkintell," to us when we were kids. For years I thought Tunkintell (like Timbuctoo, Tipperary, and all those other fanciful places I sang songs about!) was a miraculous place like Oz, a South Sea island perhaps. Then one day when I was about 25 one character in a book I was reading said to another, "I love you more than tongue can tell," and the light dawned...

Also, my dad, a mountain-climber in his spare time, used to say, "Holy O Baldy," when surprised or upset. I always thought it referred to a mountain of some kind (after all, so many mountains we climbed were called Bald one-thing-or-another). I think I was in my thirties before I heard him say once, slowly, in utter astonishment, "Holy old bald-headed Jesus!"

Thanks to whoever refreshed this thread for us--it's given me the first giggles I've had in the past ten days.

Turtle

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19 Sep 01 - 08:26 PM (#554456)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Joe_F

For many years, on the basis of Ewan MacColl's recording, I believed that in "The Wark o' the Weavers" the line "There's folk that's independent o' ither tradesmen's wark" was "There's folk that's independent -- a' ither trades must wark". I thought it was delightful irony: being (financially) independent was a trade like all the others, except for one detail.

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19 Sep 01 - 09:19 PM (#554490)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: weepiper

Somewhere there's a little book with 'The Night Before Christmas' all done in mondegreens. I can only remember the first bit:

Two wads thin knife beef whore greased mess,
One all true douse,
No decree chore wads erring,
Naughty venemous.

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19 Sep 01 - 10:22 PM (#554539)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Genie

Campfire, thanks for the link to Brain Candy. I have to share with y'all one gem I got from them:
"The cattle are blowing the baby away ..." (from the second verse of "Away in A Manger." The real words, of course, are "the cattle are lowing, the baby awakes...")
Genie

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29 Oct 02 - 02:51 PM (#813796)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: mike the knife

I wish I had the copy of a thing a friend sent to me with the results of his trying to use Voice Recognition Software. It was to be a paper for a MBA program, & thus full of businness-speak. The results were surreal. Interspersed w/ the jargon was the most sublime gibberish. One passage read "Blood blood blood". I laughed Very Hard for a good hour.

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04 Mar 03 - 08:16 AM (#903057)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Franny B

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to making this thread the best read I've had in ages.

I have to share one sublime experience of a Mondegreen with you. My husband and I were eating an indifferent (and unidentifiable) meal in a downmarket restaurant in Varna, Bulgaria, to the accompaniment of a live band. Although the band was performing covers of well-known songs (Beatles and such like), it was obvious that none of them actually understood a word of what they were singing, and hence the performance was littered with Mondegreens. The best one, though, occured in 'Take Me Home Country Roads' when instead of extolling the virtues of 'West Virginia', they were singing the praises of 'Wet Vagina'.

F. x

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04 Mar 03 - 01:05 PM (#903281)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Ebbie

Family lore has it that in the country song that goes

'My heart is withered like the petal
of a rose I saw dying today...' a cousin of mine sang:

My heart is withered like a banjo, etc. We younger ones laughed at that for years.

Only recently did I realize that in all likelihood she had gotten mixed up from an earlier mondegreen, that she had first heard it as

My heart is withered like a fiddle, etc

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04 Mar 03 - 01:30 PM (#903301)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Cool Beans

My daughters used to think that Davy Crockett acquired carpentry skills at an early age because he'd built him a bar when he was only three. I guess that would be pretty impressive.

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04 Mar 03 - 02:31 PM (#903355)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST

Kris... I would dearly love to meet your mum.

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04 Mar 03 - 08:22 PM (#903626)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: JJ

The Bulgarian error mentioned by Guest Franny B above was a deliberate substitution in the lyrics of the West Virginia University Fight Song made by a friend of mine and his inamorata while undergrads there. The lyrics follow, so that you may make your own substitutions:

It's West Virginia, it's West Virginia,
The pride of every Mountaineer,
Come on you old grads, join with us young lads.
It's West Virginia now we cheer!
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Now is the time boys to make a big noise.
No matter what the people say,
For there is naught to fear, the gang's all here,
So hail West Virginia, hail.

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04 Mar 03 - 08:50 PM (#903644)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Just Amy

I am laughing so hard!

Tim Jaques - it is "Sweet Loretta MARTIN" (my college roommate was nicknamed Loretta Martin and we still call her that).

Matthew B - It is definitely "movin' in"

My biggest faux pas was that for 10 years or more I thought that line in the Simon and Garfunkel song, "Kodachrome" was "Momma, don't take my colored phone away." Duh to me.

I had a friend who had recently arrived from Syrian (actually Armenian) without much English. He was singing with an American band and thought the song "Night moves" was actually "Night Moose!"

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05 Mar 03 - 03:51 PM (#904178)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Genie

Oh, Franny! That "West Virginia" Bulgarian mondegreen is priceless!

You know, even though I now know what the line really is, when I hear NGDB's recording of "Mr. Bojangles," it STILL sounds like the lead singer is singing:

"...He looked to me to be the eyes of Ish*
As the smoke ran out."

Genie

*When I first heard it, all it conjured up was an image of a large statue to some South Sea Island god, with smoke and flames coming from the eyes of the statue.

The real line, for the few folks who don't know, is "He looked to me to be the eyes of age, as he spoke right out."

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05 Mar 03 - 06:18 PM (#904294)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Frankham

Spaw that puts me in mind of the famous Southern expression down here..
"Anjy". I asked someone here who was "Anjy"? He said, "Well you know anjy means you mama anjy daddy."

Frank

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06 Mar 03 - 04:58 AM (#904613)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Callie

Then there's always that Michael Jackson song -

Billie Jean is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the chair is not my son

I swear that's what he sings

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06 Mar 03 - 05:22 AM (#904618)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: KingBrilliant

I thought it was "But I'm jealous of my son"
oops

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06 Mar 03 - 05:37 AM (#904627)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mr Happy

there's a bloke comes to local sinarounds who is a siner/songwriter but he also does other stuff too.

a line in one of his own songs goes; 'flying away, high above the pyrenees' followed by the next line which for a long time heard as; 'homeward am i bound to go, can't hide my sunburnt knees!!'

this is part of the chorus, & he'd noticed me joining in wrong, told me its actually 'can't hide my summer tears!'

privately i thought my perceived lyric maybe more appropriate!

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06 Mar 03 - 05:46 AM (#904630)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,JTT

Not exactly a mistake, but I recently heard Johnny Cash's version of One, by U2.

I was stymied by the fact that he sang the line: "We *get* to carry each other", whereas I was sure that U2 sang: "We've *got* to carry each other" - a very different proposition, and much more likely from their puritan Irish background!

Doing a quick Google on it, I find that all American sites with the lyrics give them as "we get to carry each other" - that is, "we are allowed to carry, have the privilege of carrying, each other", whereas all Irish sites give "we've got to carry each other" - that is, "we are under an obligation to, we must, carry each other". Hmmm.

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24 Mar 03 - 01:46 PM (#917243)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: BUTTERFLY

Mr. Happy talks about a man who is a siner/songwriter who comes to a local "sinaround"; now that sounds interesting!

Obviously this is a mistake, there should be an extra "n".

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25 Mar 03 - 12:22 PM (#918001)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Bill D

I went to a 'sinaround' once, but by the time my turn came, all the good sins had been taken.

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25 Mar 03 - 12:58 PM (#918029)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Cool Beans

And speaking of Olive, the other reindeer, from about 50 messages back, I always thought there was another one, a reindeer by the name of Howe, who late in the game declared his affection for Rudolph', to wit: "Then Howe the Reindeer loved him.''

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25 Mar 03 - 03:10 PM (#918168)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Sam L

It's hard to come up with an Original Sin, most are so, like, last year.

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25 Mar 03 - 06:45 PM (#918365)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Snuffy

Now the year has passed away
Cast away your sins
There's lots of lovely new ones as
Another year begins

(Kipper Family)

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25 Mar 03 - 08:14 PM (#918424)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mark Clark

I'm on my way back to the old home
That rolls by it's own up the hill…

      - Mark

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08 Jul 05 - 07:53 PM (#1518495)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: jaze

I always thought the national anthem began... Jose, can you see. Wondered for years who Jose was.(sorry, can't do that accent mark)

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08 Jul 05 - 08:08 PM (#1518509)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Peace

Knew someone who commented that it was no wonder Lucille left. From the Kenny Rogers song she heard

"You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille,
With four hungry children and a crop in the field"

as

"You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille,
With four hundred children . . . ".

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08 Jul 05 - 09:09 PM (#1518540)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Genie

Jaze, not to worry. "Jose" is Spanish, not French. You don't need no steenkin' accent mark over the "e." §;-D

Genie

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08 Jul 05 - 10:34 PM (#1518598)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: ranger1

My SO for years thought that Bruce Springsteen was singing about a "dead devil in the freezer." It certainly makes more sense than a 10th avenue freezeout.

There was a song in the 80s with a line that I heard the first time as: "I'm just dying in your arms tonight, it must have been something I ate." The actual line is "I'm just dying in your arms tonight, it must have been some kind of kiss."

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08 Jul 05 - 11:33 PM (#1518638)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Peace

LOL

Once heard the song, "Yooouuuuu ooo ooo ooo send me .... honest you do ....

as

"Yooouuuuu ooo ooo ooo send me .... on a skidoo ....

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15 Mar 07 - 06:46 AM (#1997322)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Bardan

In farewell farewell by Sandy Denny I always used to hear "farewell, farewell to you who adhere" in stead of would hear. I think adhere is perfectly good.

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15 Mar 07 - 01:22 PM (#1997673)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Lady Nancy

I took the words to Molly Brannigan down in shorthand - many years ago when it was fashionable - and when I came to transcribe them,one of the outlines made no sense at all, so for years I sang "He's as hot and as bothered as a life's a lemon durmadon" and no-one seemed to notice. Then I picked up a book in a chrity shop with the words in it and it actually says "He's as hot and as bothered as a live salamander man" How I - and my mates in the know - laughed! I still sing Lemon Durmadon for the hell of it!

LN

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15 Mar 07 - 01:38 PM (#1997690)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,ib48

listening with ear plugs in,what a silly billy i am.And i once listened while under water,couldnt hear a thing.

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16 Mar 07 - 06:52 AM (#1998330)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mo the caller

My children laughed at me when I heard the Pop song "Chicken on the Loose Tonight" but I still think it makes more sense than whatever it really was.

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16 Mar 07 - 06:57 AM (#1998335)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Scrump

I once made the mistake of wearing earplugs when listening to songs. I couldn't hear a feckin' thing. I learnt from that error and have scrupulously avoided earplugs when listening to songs ever since :-)

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16 Mar 07 - 07:07 AM (#1998342)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Scrump

Oops. I just saw ib48's post above. Sorry for the repetition.

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16 Mar 07 - 07:33 AM (#1998367)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST

As a boy my parents would take me to church socials, and very often at the end of the evening people would stand in a circle, cross arms and hold their neighbours hand to sing Auld Lang Syne.

I had idea what this was about and so would sing my very hearty and very loud version of "for the sake of Old Mans Arm". It sounded right to me.

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16 Mar 07 - 10:52 AM (#1998619)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Riverman

Not very folky, but my wife, it turns out, had for years and years misheard the following line from Winter Wonderland: 'Later on we'll conspire/as we dream by the fire'. She heard it as 'Later on we'll perspire....' etc.

When put right, reason did insist to her that there was nothing particularly romantic (or logical) about sitting by a fire sweating horribly with your dearest loved one next to you doing the same thing. You could, after all, take your pullover off or move to a seat further away to carry on dreaming.

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16 Mar 07 - 11:25 AM (#1998650)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Scrump

...there was nothing particularly romantic (or logical) about sitting by a fire sweating horribly with your dearest loved one next to you doing the same thing. You could, after all, take your pullover off...

I thought that was the idea - making the room hot so you'd both have to disrobe... :-)

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25 Jul 07 - 12:08 PM (#2110988)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Uncle Fred

The great musicians of the world also creatd mondegreens.
When A.P. Carter heard the Wabash Cannonball he didn't have his pencil, unusual for him. What he heard was, "The boes' acommodations on the Wabash Cannonball" In other words, the hobos means of transportation. He interpreted it as "Modern Combination..." and that's what people remember. But there is a wonderfully composed version that was recorded by the great ethnomusicologist John Greenway. Imagine a boxcar with the name "Wabash Line" painted on the side. The train itself could not go to all the places in the song, but the single boxcar could go anywhere there were tracks; just like a luxurious private car that the rich traveled in.
"Hear her engine whistle and the lonesome hobos call
As they ride the rods and brakebeams on the Wabash Cannonball".

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25 Jul 07 - 02:40 PM (#2111107)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: oldhippie

MatthewB - I always thought the John Ford Coley line was "I'm not talking about believin'"

And, does anyone else hear Sheryl Crow sing: "All I wanna do, get hooked on phonics"?????

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25 Jul 07 - 02:52 PM (#2111120)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: dick greenhaus

The biggest mistake I ever made When listening to a song was proposing to...what's her name again?

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26 Jul 07 - 02:15 AM (#2111515)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Genie

Riverman, my cousin Marsha, who in her teens was the queen of the mondegreen, also heard Winter Wonderland that way.   She would sing "Later on we'll perspire as we sit by the fire
And face unafraid the friends that we made ...    ."


Of course, she also sang a standard from "My Fair Lady" as "Oh, the streets of town
Never let you down."

(That was supposed to be "On The Street Where You Live.")

§;-D

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26 Jul 07 - 02:26 AM (#2111518)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Genie

Uncle Fred, I'm sure this has been mentioned in other mondegreen-related thread -- partly because one of my earliest posts at Mudcat was about it -- but Maybelle Carter also either initiated or at least perpetuated some major mondegreens in the song Wildwood Flower.

The line that was once "I will twine and I'll mingle my raven-black hair with the roses so red and the lilies so fair" morphed, in the Carter Family version, into
"I will twine with my mingles of raven-black hair the roses ...    ."   
(What the heck is a mingle of hair, anyway?)

And the line that was, earlier on, something like "The myrtle so bright with its emerald hue
And the pale emelita and islip so blue"
became "The myrtle so bright with its emerald dew
And the pale and the leader and eyes look so blue."

Emelita and islip are flowers.   Mother Maybelle's mondegreen never has made much sense to me, but it gets passed on via recordings (e.g., Joah Baez) and folk song books (also Joan Baez, among others).

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26 Jul 07 - 03:19 AM (#2111537)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Cluin

I knew a guy who thought the chorus to Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" went:

Slow walkin' Walter,
Fire engine guy...

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26 Jul 07 - 10:24 AM (#2111767)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Mr Happy

In Manfred Mann's cover of Bruce Springsteen's Blinded by the Light, the line "revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night" is often cited as a prominent example of a mondegreen in popular music.

The line is often misinterpreted in Mann's version (the pronunciation is very exaggerated) as "wrapped up like a douche" (Springsteen's original lyric was "cut loose like a deuce").

Deuce, in the song, refers to a 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe, and not a hygienic procedure.

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26 Jul 07 - 05:35 PM (#2112112)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,lefthanded guitar

My country is a tree

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01 Sep 07 - 01:29 AM (#2138185)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: Genie

As I believe I've posted in some other mondegreen related thread, when the Beach Boys' song "Little Deuce Coupe" was popular, for the longest time I thought they were singing about "My Little Blue Scoop."   (I never paid much attention to the lyrics.)

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01 Sep 07 - 01:56 AM (#2138194)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: the button

A friend of mine thought that the chorus of The Pixies' "Monkey's gone to heaven," was "this much is known for certain." Despite knowing what the song was called.

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01 Sep 07 - 02:26 AM (#2138197)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: BK Lick

Searched the Mudcat and I don't believe anyone's yet mentioned this very graphic bluegrass mondegreen -- someone heard the line "to me boys it was sad" in Bill Monroe's "Goodbye Old Pal" as "two meatballs in the sand."

—BK

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01 Sep 07 - 03:28 AM (#2138208)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST

Christmas Carols.
We three Kings from Orry and Tar.
Even more embarrassing when off to the Isle of Man for the TT and sailed on the King Orrie.
Hang on, I might be right.

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17 Sep 07 - 12:52 PM (#2151180)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST

How about Elton John whose "cat locked me in your penthouse" in his song "Yellow Brick Road". (Of course there are several other unintelligible phrases in that song...many of which I have YET to figure out!)

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17 Sep 07 - 03:45 PM (#2151324)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: maeve

"You can't lock me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough"

Here's a link for the nameless GUEST.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road lyrics


maeve

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28 Apr 11 - 05:11 PM (#3144325)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Jesse

Not from a song, but continuing the Religious Ceremony sub-thread from over a decade ago:

The first time a friend of mine attended a Lutheran Church, he wondered at the oft repeated phrase: "May the Pizza DeLorean bewitch you!"

Afterwards he asked and learned it was: "May the peace of the Lord be with you."

For years our group would greet each other with the DeLorean version.

-Jesse

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30 Oct 13 - 03:53 AM (#3571317)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Norah

Don't know if anyone's still looking at this, but I always thought In the Jimi Hendrix Verizon of "All Along the Watchtower" he sang "people stand here and drink my wine. Come and dig my herb. None will level, undermine nobody else in this world."

Actually he said (according to the lyrics I've read anywa): "Businessmen drink my wine. Plowmen dig my earth. None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

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30 Oct 13 - 03:59 AM (#3571319)
Subject: RE: Mistakes I Have Made When Listening To Songs
From: GUEST,Norah

Jimi Hendrix version, not "Verizon". Oops.

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