As suggested - Favorite Misunderstood Song Lyrics. Post yours here

[LynneSin]

If you read my Album of the Day review - one of the most famous misheard lyrics was in "Blinded by the Light"

What the lyric was: Revved up like a deuce, Another runner in the night.
What you heard on the radio: Wrapped up like a douche, Another rumor in the night.


So why not wrap yourself up like a douche and post your favorite misheard lyrics!

[iscooterliberally]

1. I'll never be your pizza burnin'...

The Rolling Stones - Beast of Burden

[HopeHoops]

2. Like ALL of "Louie Louie" except for those two words.

Stuff your mouth with walnuts (whole) before singing this song.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. That was my favorite song in college.

Are there any words to that song?

[LynneSin]

5. I have an album that is nothing but "Louie Louie" over and over again

Various singers - same song

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. No words?

That was such a strange song but we just loved it.

[Doc Holliday]

12. The only arrangement

of "Louie Louie" that I ever understood the lyrics on was by the Clarke/Duke Project.

Should have written them down...misplaced the album years ago.

[HopeHoops]

8. Aparently, but I think you have to be REALLY fucking drunk to hear them.

[freshwest]

26. Alleged Lyrics to Louie, Louie

Louie Louie

a Louie Louie
oh no, said we gotta go
yeah yeah yeah yeah
y'a said a Louie Louie
oh baby
said we gotta go

a fine little girl, she waitin' for me
(me) catch a ship, across the sea
(me) sail that ship ah all alone
me never think how I'll make it home

a Louie Louie
yeah nah nah now
said we gotta go
oh no, said Louie Louie
oh baby said (a) we gotta go

(agh)...(or, possibly, F&^%!)

three nights and days I sailed the sea
(me) think of girl, ah, constantly
ah on that ship I dream she there
I smell the rose ah in her hair

a Louie Louie
woh no, said we gotta go
yeah yeah yeah yeah
y'a said a Louie Louie
oh baby
said we gotta go

ok lets give it to 'em right now!

me see

me see Jamaica a moon above
it won't be long me see me love
(me) take her in my arms again
I('ll) tell her, "I'll never leave again"

a Louie Louie
oh no, said we gotta go

yeah yeah yeah yeah
y'a said a Louie Louie
woh baby
said we gotta go

I said me gotta go now

lets hustle on outta here

lets go!

First heard it in Animal House and I loved it and the movie. You decide it the lyrics are correct...

[freshwest]

25. Man, I loved that song!

[HopeHoops]

3. How about the obvious one..."I'm your Venus..."

[arcane1]

6. "I'm living free with Philadelphia Frida..."

"she gives the pizza mom and daddy never had"

[Doc Holliday]

9. Hendrix - Purple Haze

\"...actin\' funny, but I don\'t know why....\'scuse me, while I kiss this guy...\"

On another thread I mentioned a former neighbor who used to mis-sing this lyric.

Additionally, I had a former bandmate who didn\'t want to do this song because of the \"gay lyrics.\"

As Jim Morrison correctly observed, \"People are strange...\"

(edited for clarity)

[Doc Holliday]

10. ....and speaking of The Doors....

...my daughter used to think it was, "Dig a little dog about an hour ago..."

[Quartermass]

11. Actually I think the proper word is misheard lyrics.

Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2012, 05:48 PM - Edit history (2)

Misunderstood songs is a different thing entirely. Here's what I mean.

Let's take three different songs, Jailhouse Rock, Every Breath you Take, and Born In The USA.

Jailhouse Rock is considered by most to be a romantic song, so is Every Breath You Take. Born In The USA is generally considered to be a patriotic song. But when you look at the lyrics these songs are actually not.

Jailhouse Rock is about male on male rape in prison.

According to Sting, Every Breath You Take is a song about stalkers.

And Born In The USA is not a patriotic song, it is about a Vietnam Vet who becomes homeless because of the hostility towards Vietnam Veterans after the Vietnam War.

But like the Bible, people will pick and choose their favorite lines and ignore the full context of the line in the song. Born In The USA is the line that people hear and considers that the song is a patriotic song. In truth, it is not and a very ironic statement when you read the full lyrics.

Now, as far as misheard lyrics go, my favorite one is this:

Don't go out tonight
It's bound to take your life
There's a bathroom on the right.

(Bad Moon Rising, CCW)

So BEWARE OF KILLER BATHROOMS EVERYONE!

They're all out to get you!

And fear their evil laughter!

When you hear that evil laughter you know something's afoot!

And that foot is without the rest of its body!

[Doc Holliday]

14. "the proper wotrd"

Side order of irony for Table 11, please.

I hate when I do that!

[Quartermass]

17. Yeah, I hate it when I do that too. It annoys the heck out me, even after I've been careful

I am dyslexic, but I am not a bad speller. I am also a bad typist on top of being dyslexic, so it's very frustrating for me.

[EFerrari]

15. Mondegreens.

A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning. It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song.[1][2] American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954.[3] "Mondegreen" was included in the 2000 edition of the Random House Webster's College Dictionary. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added the word in 2008.[4][5] The phenomenon is not limited to English, with examples cited by Fyodor Dostoyevsky,[6] in the Hebrew song Háva Nagíla (Let’s be Happy)",[7] and in Bollywood movies.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

[LynneSin]

16. My assumptions is that the bathrooms on the left are safe

[Art_from_Ark]

39. Speaking of CCW,

my favorite misheard lyrics by them are from "Around the Bend"

Instead of "leave the sinking ship behind", I always hear "leave the stinking shit behind"

[auburngrad82]

13. Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear

should read Gladly the Cross I Bear

[EFerrari]

19. My son heard me saying we were going to have roast beast for dinner

(and smashed potatoes) and when we pulled up to his dad's job at the warehouse, "Prepare to piss and barf" not "prepare to disembark".

lol

[EFerrari]

18. JON CARROLL used to write great columns about this:

Jon Carroll

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

So are we really to believe that a co-worker of Susan Strickland's heard that line from "Proud Mary" as "Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis, pumped a lot of Tang down in New Orleans?" I would very much like to be trusting, but I cannot verify.

How about that Carol Lashoff? Did her daughter really overhear a classmate singing, "I've got sperms that jingle-jangle?" Wouldn't it be lovely to think so?

That is the problem with mondegreens. It is certainly easy to mishear a song lyric or radio advertisement or popular phrase, but it is also easy to create a risible mishearing. One might perhaps be angling for a little newspaper ink.

And my readers, God love them, are quick to accuse others of invention, when they themselves may very well be mothers of invention. Oh, that sentence did work out well.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/24/DDGIJ7Q34H1.DTL

[geardaddy]

20. They're just iguanas...they're just iguaaaanaas.

They just wanna have fun.



Not actually misheard. Just a college friend always sang that when the song came on the jukebox for the 50th time in a night.

[Quartermass]

34. I sing two versions of that song myself

Girls just want to shoot guns

OR

Girls just want to eat buns.

[LiberalEsto]

21. "You and me and Leslie, groovin"

I honestly though those were the lyrics until a few years ago.
Finally realized it was "You and me, endlessly groovin"

[EFerrari]

31. We tried for a whole afternoon to figure out if it was

feed your dad or eat your dead at the end of "White Rabbit'.

[LibDemAlways]

36. You mean it's not "You and me and Leslie"? I'm confident if

you asked 100 people who are familiar with the song, many would identify that phrase as the correct lyric.

[LeftishBrit]

22. For a very long time...

I thought that the line in 'Groovin', ''You and me endlessly' was 'You and me and Elsie'. I also thought that 'Forever in blue jeans' was 'Reverend Blue Jeans' -some sort of trendy spiritual leader?

As a small child, I thought that the hymn 'Jesus bids us shine/ With a pure clear light/ Like a little candle/ Burning in the night' was advertising 'Jesus Spencer's shine/ With a pure clear light, etc.' I thought of Jesus Spencer's shine as some sort of polish, that could be purchased at Jesus Spencer's shop - presumably a bit like Marks and Spencers but more holy.

There is an Australian folk song that includes the lines, 'He's left us in dejection now/ Our thoughts are with him roving/ It's dull on the selection now/ Since Andy's gone a-droving'. When I first heard it, my political attitudes led me to understand it as 'These leftists in dejection now/ Our thoughts are with him roving/ It's dull in this election now/ Since Andy's gone a-droving'. (Perhaps this Andy was the only candidate who could have won the election for the Labor Party???)

My friend thought that the song, 'You don't have to say you love me; just be close at hand' was 'You don't have to say I'm lovely, just because I am!' I still prefer her version. Another friend thought as a child that a certain well-known 70s pop star was 'Alvin Sawdust'. And another friend, as a child, thought that the line in 'God Save the Queen': 'Long to reign over us' meant that it would *rain* over us for a long time - appropriate enough to the British National Anthem!

[geardaddy]

23. As a nursery schooler

I thought the line in the Pledge of Allegiance

"For which it stands" was

"For witches stands"

I was 4, whaddya expect?

[LibDemAlways]

38. I thought it was

And to the republic for Richard Sands. i figured Richard was a founding father.

[geardaddy]

41. That is awesome.

[RebelOne]

24. Here is a treasure trove of misunderstood song lyrics.

www.kissthisguy.com

[freshwest]

27. Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin. This is how I heard them, anyway!

[Adsos Letter]

28. "I swear yer gonna' find some whale meat smoldrin' "

That's how I used to hear Creedence Clearwater's lyric in "Green River"

Old Cody, Junior took me over,
Said, "You're gonna find the world is smould'rin'.


...it makes a lot more sense now...

[EFerrari]

32. LOL

[applegrove]

29. "Marsidotes and dosydotes". Of course that children's song is "Mares eat oates and does eat oats and

little lambs eat ivy".

[Quartermass]

30. Here's a whole page of Mondegreens for youse guys:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mondegreen

[murielm99]

33. Hold me closer, Tony Danza....

Count the head lice on the highway....

[Iggo]

35. Journey's "Any Way You Want it"

She loves to laugh.
She loves to sing.
She does everything.

She loves to move.
She loves to groove.
She loves eleven things. <------- (it's actually She loves the lovin' things)

All night.
Aaa-all night....

[Iggo]

37. Foghat's "Fool for the City"

(second verse)
Breathin' all the clean air
Sittin' in the sun
When I get my train fare
I get up and run
I'm headin' for the city
Evolution here I come <------- (it's actually air pollution, not evolution)

'Cause I'm a fool for the city...

[Art_from_Ark]

40. Back in 1968, "This guy's in love with you" as sung by Herb Alpert

always sounded like "The sky's in love with you", and I thought it was so nice that "the sky" (God?) loved me.

[deutsey]

42. A friend of mine told me that when he was a kid he thought

The Four Tops were singing "Sugar pie honkey butt" instead of "Sugar pie honey bunch" in "I Can't Help Myself."

[Arkansas Granny]

43. My son, 6 yo at the time, thought that every girl was crazy about the garbage man.

[hoopsnake]

44. Pretenders -- Middle of the Road?

I have seen Chrissie Hynde in concert singing perfectly clearly "I'm standing in the middle of life with my pants behind me." I'd figured she'd lost a bet. And now even on the CD I can't make it be "past" any more.

[Scout]

45. Eagles ... Hotel California

i thought "warm smell of colitas" was "warm smell of coitus" ... yes, i know it didn't make sense, but that's what i heard.