Embarrassing realization about a Cyndi Lauper lyric.

[Ken Burch]

Cyndi was on PBS tonight...great concert...and I realized that, for thirty-five years or more, I'd been hearing the lyrics of one of her greatest songs totally wrong:

She was singing "I don't want to be a WITNESS", and the whole time I had thought it was "I don't want to be your WET NURSE".

Anybody else go that long thinking a lyric said something entirely different than what it actually said?

[pinboy3niner]

1. When some mistook "There's a bad moon on the rise" for "There's a bathroom on the right" ...

...John Fogerty began singing it that way in one of the verses. He still does it at every concert.

[Ken Burch]

2. I knew about that...

Also about Hendrix doing the same thing when people thought he was singing "'scuse me, while I kiss this guy", instead of "'scuse me, while I KISS THE SKY".

(Of course, when Dylan, who wrote the damn thing, sang it, it was usually more like "scuuumuhwuhliksssthhhhhsyyyy", or something like that).

[lovemydog]

5. Jimi wrote Purple Haze

which has that line ''scuse me while I kiss the sky'.

The one you're thinking of that Dylan wrote and Jimi covered is All Along the Watchtower. 'There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief...'

[Ken Burch]

6. Shit, you're right!

...still, that's how Dylan WOULD have sung it...

[lovemydog]

7. Heh heh, most definitely.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. There's line in "Up Around The Bend"

where Fogerty supposedly sings "leave the sinking ship behind" but to me it sounds like "leave the stinking shit behind".

[jmowreader]

3. There IS that Chuggo song...

[lovemydog]

8. What is it?

[jmowreader]

17. It's called Ah C'mon

Chuggo sang "C'mon fuckin' guy," but two-thirds of the world thinks he's saying "C'mon, fuck a guy."

[lovemydog]

33. Haha! Never heard it.

Not sure I need to. Thanks jmowreader.

[Adsos Letter]

4. Speaking of John Fogarty...

In the CCR song "Green River" I always heard the lyrics "Said, 'You're gonna find the world is smold'rin'" as "Bet you're gonna find some whale meat smold'rin...'" I heard it this way for years.

It made more sense when I finally read the actual words...

[pinboy3niner]

28. Fogerty had a knack for it

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

10. The subject is called "Mondegreens"

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen for a write-up.

The one I consistently hear is from Manfred Mann's cover of "Blinded by the Light", ""wrapped up like a douche, another runner in the night" instead of "revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night". In the original by Bruce Springsteen, I don't hear it.

[pipi_k]

11. "Suspicion"

by Terry Stafford.

it's a real oldie, so I don't feel really horrible about thinking the lyrics said something else (because I was quite young), but anyway, a part of the lyrics go:

TERRY STAFFORD
"Suspicion"
(Doc Pomus - Mort Shuman)

Ev'rytime you kiss me
I'm still not certain that you love me
Ev'ry time you hold me
I'm still not certain that you care
Though you keep on saying
you really, really, really love me
do you speak the same words
To someone else when I'm not there
Suspicion torments my heart
Suspicion keeps us apart
Suspicion why torture me

Well, instead of "why torture me", I used to always think it went, "Wipe out your ears".

Hey. That's how it sounded on AM radio.

Hearing it on a better device, I finally realized what the lyrics were.


Oh, and Shocking Blue's "I'm Your Venus..."

yeah. We thought it said, "I'm your penis..."

[lovemydog]

24. 'I'm your penis I'm your fire at your desire'

[Ken Burch]

35. That may have been why that was such a...BIG...hit...

[Baitball Blogger]

12. And I thought, "City girls just find out early..." was...

"Silly girls just find out early how to open doors with just a smile."

[Ron Obvious]

13. I just found out yesterday...

About Simon & Garfunkel's Sound of Silence that the line goes:

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls"
"and whispered in the sound of silence"

and not

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway wall telling men all"
"to whisper the sound of silence..."

Not very funny, I fear.

[BlueJazz]

14. Natalie Merchant is wonderful and I like her a lot..but I'll be damned if I can make out...

...1/3 of her lyrics.
She "cuts" off the ending of words sometimes like>

gray

I say GRAAA
She says GRa (Just a hint of a long A sound at the end)

[Coventina]

15. That is awesome!!!

I wouldn't blame her for not being a wet nurse either!



My personal favorite mis-heard lyric comes from the sister of a friend of mine.

She thought Steve Winwood's "Bring me a higher love" was "Give me an iron lung."

[Ken Burch]

36. Well, Winwood did smoke a lot.

[NewJeffCT]

16. can't remember what I used to think it was

but, in the Van Halen song "Unchained" there is a line that says "blue eyed murder in a size 5 dress" - I heard something else besides "size 5" dress, but I'm drawing a blank on what kind of dress it was. and, I'm pretty sure I missed all the words between "blue" and "dress"

[NewJeffCT]

18. That song "Blinded by the light"

Everybody thought it was "douche" when I was back in high school - but, it's really "deuce"

[fizzgig]

19. i always hear douche

now i know what it actually is.

[NewJeffCT]

30. I think most of my high school

thought that as well - I think the song came out in the late 70s, so it was still around when I was in high school in the early to mid 80s - before we had all these internets...

[Bucky]

21. How exactly does one get dressed up like a douche anyway?

[dawg]

22. .

[antiquie]

23. ~

[lovemydog]

25. LOL. Who are those jerks?

[dawg]

27. They are the kind of guys who come up ...

when you do a google image search for "douchebag". Other than that, I don't know either.

[lovemydog]

32. They should add it to their resume.

Contact information: google 'douchebag'.

[NewJeffCT]

29. Or this

[link:|

[hifiguy]

31. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Epic douchiness.

[Yavin4]

34. They're John Gotti's grandkids

They had their own reality show for a while, and yes, they acted pretty much the way they are dressed here in this photo.

[Ken Burch]

37. They're probably from Jersey, so Bruce probably saw them(or their grand-dads)

when he wrote that.

[Bucky]

20. But please reassure me I correctly understood the meaning of "Girls just wanna have fudge"

I've based my love life on that song for 32 years at this point. I'm not sure I could handle the reboot

[lovemydog]

26. Oh, keep it as fudge.

It works well!

[easychoice]

38. Funds !!!!

The Girls just want to have Funds...
That's how my wife sang it...