The song “Secret Agent Man” sounds a lot like “Secret Asian Man.”

How about Manfred Mann’s Earth Band “Blinded By the Light”? For years my brother and I thought the main chorus was, ” Blinded by the light,
revved up like a douche, in the roner of the night.” Apparently not so per the lyrics. We couldn’t understood what that was supposed to mean anyway. Even Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets” gets screwed up with “electric boobs” when the real lyric is “electric boots.” Just goes to show that there’s artist liberty when pronouncing certain words.

It’s not uncommon for mondegreens to be used by comedians, particularly in the context of music lyrics.

I was at a Peter Kay show recently, where he rattled off quite a number.

Unfortunately the only one I can recall at this is by Shania Twain. In her song “That Don’t Impress Me Much” there is a lyric “I can’t believe you kiss your car at night” which, can easily be ‘mondegreened’, the word car, sounding far more like male genitalia (or a male chicken).

Still, I like the word and I also like the etemology too

“Bingo Jed had a light on” instead of “Big ‘Ol Jet Airliner” from the The Steve Miller Band song.

“There’s a bathroom on the right,” instead of “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”

from Creedence Clearwater Revival “Bad Moon Rising”

One time our family was trying to figure out what the words were to “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” in “An American in Paris”. The man had a bit too thick of an accent and so we came up with ” They’ve got the booze at the barbeque fair. Who is gonna carry me there?” someone finally found the lyrics to it and it was “I’ve got the blues And up above it’s so fair. Shoes ! Go on and carry me there !”

We sang “O, Susanna” in middle school chorus, which was the first time I realized that the line was not, “…with a band-aid on my knee.” As The Hot Word points out, my lyrics made more sense than “a banjo on my knee” — which I could not visualize at all.

And back in the day, several friends mistook the line in CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” as, “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

“Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple. A friend named their band after one of them misinturperted the lyrics: Slow motion Walter.
Great name for a band.

It might as well be invisible and liberty made into liver tea.

I don’t really get how anyone hears any of the above (besides In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, because that guy sings with a mouthful).

Haven’t uttered the US’s Pledge of Allegiance since elementary school (likely due to the secular motions against its contents). Either way, most instances of mondegreens occur for me when I’m listening to a new song. I’ll often get some lyrical passages wrong upon listening the first few times, especially if the words are slightly slurred or spoken relatively quick. I also find that the longer a mondegreen is embedded in one’s head, the harder it is to rework said lines to the intended words. Sometimes both interpretations will flip back and forth upon hearing the lines even still. Our aural senses have an interesting impact on our brain.

I love this article because I was famous for using mondegreen words in my childhood. My two favorites are: From Fleetwood Mac’s song Second Hand News come the lyrics “I’m just second hand news,” which I confused with “I’m just sittin’ here nude!”
The second one I used to sing was from the song Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, where I would confuse the lyric, “revved up like deuce,” as “racked up like a douche,” without knowing what a douche was, as I was only four years old at the time.

cunning linguists

I used to think Sara Lee’s slogan went “Nobody does it like Sara Lee.” Imagine my surprise when I learned it was actually “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”

In my older brother’s glory days, he used to sing like a badass the lyric from the song Play that Funky Music by Wild Cherry that says, “play that funky music white boy,” as “play that F#$%ing music white boy.” He was annoyed when, laughing, I told him he was singing the lyric wrong.

“…cats and rats and elephants, BOMBA JOUR!” It was her favorite part of the song. (have top admit it is more fun than”as sure as you’re born”) and we still sing it that way with a chuckle now that she is 12!

Now this article was good. But I am wondering how I can ever use the term ‘mondergreen,’ I am pretty sure people will take it as an attempt to show off. Someone would pull a mondergreen and I would say ‘Hey that was a mondergreen’ and they will not have any clue, I’ll explain and the joke will just melt somewhere.

I am not sure if I will ever use this word but interesting it is.

Instead of “cuz everybody knows that smokin’ aint allowed in school,” I thought it was “cuz everybody know they smokin’ in the [teachers'] lounges, too.”

When I was a kid we’d sing a hymn, at church, about Jesus’ resurrection.
The lyrics were: “Low, in the grave he lay.” Before I could read, I couldn’t figure out what Jesus was doing laying in the gravy!

my family always thought, in Michael Jackson’s “man in the mirror” that the line was “no mustache could be any glibber” (should be “no message could be any clearer”)

in michael jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” – “no mustache could be any glibber”, instead of “no message could be any clearer”

I had a friend in High School who thought it was “Virgin Emergency” on Foriegner’s ‘Urgent”.

And I thought that the Eagles ‘Heartache Toinght” was A Haunting Tonight, in my defense the song was released the week before Halloween.

And how many people knew that “Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me.” before Waynes World used it and you looked the lyrics up.

I’m surprised no one came up with the old classic – first one I ever knew about. That is, “Mairzy Doats.” The entire jingle is one. As a kid, I heard, “Mairzy doats, and lamseydoats, and little lamsey divey. A kiddeley divey too, wouldn’t you?” It’s “Mares eat oats and lambs eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy too” and so forth.

When I was 5, my mother taught me “Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer.” I was sure that the last line was “You’ll go down and hiss da ree.”

When I was a little kid, I just KNEW that “Hungry Eyes” by Eric Carmen from Dirty Dancing was really “Hungry Ass.” I thought it was the weirdest song ever and had no idea why my mom and sisters liked it, or let me hear it for that matter.

Years of teenage trauma were alleviated when this mondegreen was corrected in my mind. Freddie Mercury (Queen)… maybe, Lynyrd Skynyrd – Hell no!

In Birmingham they love the governor
Now we all did what we could do

(Now why I’m gay doesn’t bother me)

Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth

The Who song “Let my love open the door” has been misinterpreted as “Let my mother walk the dog.”

When I was a kid, I always thought “Fire’s Burning” went like this:

“Fires burning, fires burning,
John Earer, John Earer…”

It it supposed to be:

“Fires burning, fires burning,
Draw nearer, draw nearer,
In the gloaming, in the gloaming…”

I guess I thought it was about a guy named “John Earer.” LOL.

I just remembered one that we sing at Christmas every year! Dean Martin singing rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and at one part he says Rudy the Red Big Reindeer.

A family member recently asked what an “infanso” was after many years of misunderstanding Silent Night…

“She’s a must to avoid” from Herman’s Hermits ‘Must to Avoid’ was always ‘She’s a muscular boy’ to me.

One of my little sisters once asked my dad, “How do donuts make my brown eyes blue?” She had, of course, heard Crystal Gayle singing “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?”

When I first came to the U.S. i didn’t know any English but I still had to do the pledge of allegiance. instead of “with liberty and justice FOR ALL,” I said “frog” and i didn’t understand why everyone else in my class finished the sentence slower than me. Later on I knew that it’s “for all” LOL

Kids say the darndest things! Here’s a couple from my family experience:
A daughter wanted to sing the “donzer song”. Upon further inquiry, we learned it was the one that Francis Scott Key wrote about the “donzer lee light” so he could see the star spangled banner flying above Fort McHenry. “Oh say, can you see? By the donzer lee light.” Ha!

Here’s another one: In the LDS Church, the 13th Article of Faith begins thus: We believe is being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous and in doing good to all men… My kids like to recite it this way: We believe in being honest, true, chased by an elephant, virtuous…

My little niece was learning to pray by repeating her mother’s words: “Lord, we’re grateful for our free country…” Her daughter paused, shrugged and repeated, “Lord, we’re grateful for our freakin’ tree!”

When I was little and the song “All My Lovin” would play I thought Paul McCartney was singing “And while I’m away, I’ll ride home everyday” Iwhich doesn’t make sense, does it?) when it was actually “And while I’m away, I’ll write home everyday”.

While I don’t give this band many points for lyrics, Phish is famous for lines in many of their songs that are unprinted in any official source, and are sang purposely to be misheard and argued about among fans.

I always heard the line from Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the Mirror’ as: And no moustache could offend any clipper. (No message could have been any clearer.)

“Might as well be” has always chimed in my ears as “Marcus Welby” (as in the doctor played by actor Robert Young, from the eponymous 1970s TV program).

Anyone remember this one? In one of Beverly Cleary’s books, our heroine Ramona hears “The Star Spangled Banner” at school. When she hears “by the dawn’s early light” she concludes that they must be singing about a lamp, which she assumes is called a “dawnzer” that gives off a “lee light”.

My little sister believes “Helter Skelter” (by the Beatles) is actually Hell’s a scandal.

I’m an actor, and we have a sweet, enthusiastic, elderly choir lady in our troupe, and instead of singing “Adam Lay y-bounden” she says “Adam Lady Bounden” … most of us find it amusing, and don’t have the heart to correct her.

Hymns were always confusing to me as a child. When asked about my favorite I’d say it was the one about the bear – “Gladly the cross-eyed bear”. I was so disappointed to lose my cross-eyed friend when I found out the lyrics were really “…gladly the cross I’d bear.”

In the Electric Slide, as a kid I always thought that “I’m going to take you on a potty run” what what the lyrics, “I’m going to take you on a party ride” were saying!

I was taught the words were: Mares eat oats and goats eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid will eat ivy too, wouldn’t you.

For years when I was a kid I thought it was Holland Oats, like a guys name not Hall and Oats.

I once had a jam session with some guy who started off Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” with “Another one rides the bus.” XD

I had a friend who thought the Bee Gee’s “More than a woman” was ‘four-legged woman’. Too bad it’s not. I liked the song better that way.

Okay, it was me.

Many pubs in UK were and are still named “elephant and castle” to honor an “infante of Castile” who came to the court of England.

I swear the first time I heard The Pussycat Doll’s “When I grow Up” I thought it said. “When I grow up I wanna have boobies.” Oops guess it was “When I grow up I wanna have groupies” either way. Weird lyrics.

Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”: “And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, she’s a slutty mormon, you will know…” I thought, “whoa…TMI…”

Having been born and bred in Florida, I assumed that we were including all of our Hispanic immigrants in the National Anthem: “Jose can you see…” I also believed that the middle of the alphabet song was about fish: “abcdefg, hijk eleminnow p”!

My four year old reciting the ABC’s.

H I J K Animal-Pee Q R S

My sister thought the line “how can we be lovers if we can’t be friends” was “how can we be lovers if we can’t pay the rent,” which is a valid point too.

@Cecily, have you ever heard Weird Al Yankevik’s (sp?) version. Its an awesome song!

Here’s another one my 3 year old niece who was singing: Row, row, row your butt, gently down the stream…

When performing “My Fair Lady”, we were constantly reminding the star who played Eliza Doolittle to enunciate her solo, because it kept coming out “wooden tit be loverly.”

I always thought that Clint Black’s “Better Man” was butter man as a kicd growing up. “Cause I’m leavin here a better man, knowing you this way.Things I couldn’t do before now I think I can, so I’m leavin here a better man.” yep Butter Man. I don’t know why I thought it was butter man. Doesn’t even make sense.

“I sometimes see your pants (you pass) outside my door…Hello…is it me your looking for?”
from the Lionel Richie classic

and

“Far away my welly blew up” from Paul Simon’s Call Me Al. I don’t know what the real line is!

I always thought (and still kinda do) that The Band Perry’s song, “If I Die Young”’s lyrics were “If I die young, bury me in sand–” My friend corrected me to say it was actually “Satin”. I disagree, though because the rest of the things in that song were nature-y. Like “Lay me down on a bed of roses” and “sink me in the river at dawn” and “make me a rainbow to shine down on the mother–” Even if it IS “satin”, “sand” makes more sense.

“I can tell you, my lovely luminous stealthy sun, acting like poison, summer has gone” instead of “I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have gone” from Don Henley’s song “Boys of Summer”

MLB and I are on the same page with “a bathroom on the right”. If my sister hadn’t corrected me those many years ago I would still not know it was a bad moon on the rise. I must say that my stomach muscle is in knots from so much laughing so thank you for the enlightenment and enjoyment.

Mondegreen, huh? My friends and I always called it “Lyricosis.” in any case, I also started evidencing this trait at a very early age, when learning the ABCs:

“… h, I, j, k, elemental p…”. I always wondered why P got singled out for special attention.

Didn’t get any better with age. For several (pre-Internet) years, whenever I heard this line From Van Halen’s “Running With the Devil”,
“…I got no love, *no love you’d call real*…”
I’d take turns misinterpreting it as either “no loving career” or “no love in Korea”.

I also remember a college friend who, every time she heard Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face”, thought he was saying, “I supply the babies”. Kindred spirit, to be sure.

“Angie” (Rolling Stones) . I swear he’s saying “I ain’t dead” instead of “Angie.” No one has been able to convince me I’m wrong!!!! You gotta listen for yourself.

Now that the laughing as subsided I thought of another one. My mother once told me that my brother sang the Christmas carol Winter Wonderland with the words walking in your winter underwear.

Someone should compile and publish a small tome of mondegreens, if it hasn’t been done already. It would make for excellent light reading while in a waiting room or on a plane and when you’re doubled over in laughter everyone would surely be curious as to what you were reading.

Thanks to everyone who shared, you all made my day.

I know the lyrics are ’scuse me while I kiss the sky’ in Jimi’s song, but I saw in person Jimi lean into his bass player Noel Redding at the first Miami Pop Festival (actually at the Hollywood Race Track in Florida in 1968) and clearly sing ’scuse me while I kiss this guy.’ So he deliberately contributed to the mondegreen here.

@ AWP

Not familiar with the hymn. Might the lyrics be “Lo! In the grave…” ?

Sing at Christmas about Round John Virgin. (Round yon virgin.)

My sister was listening to “Bernadette” by the Four Tops, when my mother, horrified, asked “What kind of song is that? “Burn the Dead’!”

In Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” the British-accented Mrs. Potts sings “Tale as Old as Time.” As a preschooler, I was convinced the song was about very old tailors!

My sister is famous for doing that! Perhaps she shouldn’t be so sure she really knows the lyrics…to anything.

My aim is true – “my name is Drew”

A truly sorted end – “a truly sorbid end”

It flickered, flickered and died – “It flickered, flickered at night”

and my personal favourite:

My heart skipped a beat – “my arms got the beat”

lolololololololol

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
And to the republic for Richard Stands…

lol, for “sorted” I meant “sordid.”

My brother thought the lyrics to “Pon De Replay” by Rihanna were “gimme a piece of gum” instead of “turn the music up”

A popular intentional mondegreen in my youth was “a monk swimming” instead of “amongst women” in the Hail Mary. Continuing with the religious theme, another was to say “pleased to meet you” rather than “peace be with you” during the sign of peace at mass.

Is ‘ mondegreen ‘ another word for ’spoonerism’?

My husband still has to ask me what Stevie Nicks is saying in “edge of seventeen”-he always thought it was ‘just like the one-winged dove’ instead of ‘white-winged dove’.

Another friend thought Alanis Morrisette said ‘the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me’.

When Irving Berlin wrote the song, “My Defenses Are Down” for the musical “Annie Get Your Gun,” he asked his young daughter what she thought of the score after the child has sat with him in the audience during a dress rehersal. The girl replied enthusiastically that she liked all the songs, especially that one about the “mighty fences are down.” True story.

In “You Give Love a Bad Name” by Bon Jovi I used to think it was “Shout through the halls” instead of “Shot through the heart”
And in “Smooth Criminal” by Michael Jackson my dad used to think it was “Annie are you walking” instead of “Annie are you ok”

Well; that was certainly a lot of fun!

Another true story: As a child during the Kennedy Administration, I frequently heard that the President had gone to his vacation home in Hyannis Port on the radio or television. The place name seldom resurfaced after the Kennedy Administration came to a close. Imagine my shock when I encountered the name decades later and learned it was Hyannis Port and NOT Hiatus Port! (Where else would someone have a vacation home?)

Not: “Mares-e-dotz and doz-e-dotz and little lams-e-divy, skiddle-e-divy doo, wouldn’t you?”

Is: “Mares eat oats and Does eat oats and little Lambs eat ivy, Kids will eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”

I was once sining at the top of my lungs

Oh give me the beach boys and free my soul.

My brother laughed so hard and told me its

Oh give me the beat boys and free my soul.

When we were children my brother thought the line “it’s no fun bein’ an illegal alien” from the Phil Collins song was “it’s no fun bein’ an e-i idiot”

My favorite was my best friend’s sister who thought “Dancing on the boulevard” was “dancing on the ball of yarn”. She thought it was a fantastic metaphor.

@Schapi – when I was in kindergarten I thought “elimentopee” was a single letter in the alphabet (l m n o p)

I always struggle with lyrics because I focus more on the sound of the words than the meaning of them. As a young kid, I didn’t realize the song “Michelle” by The Beatles was being sung in French. I heard it as “Michelle, my belle. Someday monkey won’t play again on some. Picking on some…” I felt like a monkey when one day my girlfriend heard me sing “Michelle” — she laughed histerically and was rolling on the floor.

How about Peter Frampton’s “Show Me the Way”? Since 1976 when it first came out, I’ve been singing “I want you, show me the way.” A friend just recently told me it’s really “Oh won’t you, show me the way”! Oh well…

one of my cousins thought “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney was “Ham on a Bun”. It actually makes some sense that way.

For many years I thought the phrase “mareseatoatsanddoeseatoatsandlittlelambseativy”
was just a poetic exercise until I broke it down to “mares eat oats and does it oats and little lambs eat ivy”

Not sure if this is a mondegreen or malapropism, but when I was blissfully innocent, I thought “euthanasia” was a movement for good in the Orient–”Youth in Asia.”

I thought the music band INXS was pronounced “Inkses” rather than the correct “In-x-s”

One mondegreen that I always find myself thinking of is from the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive”:

Actual lyrics:
Now you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk.

My interpretation:
Now you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I don’t wanna spend no time to talk.

My sister used to think the Menards commercial went, “sing big money in the yard.” And up till I was 11 or 12 years old, I thought that the line “don’t go chasing waterfalls” from the TLC song was actually “go go Jason Waterfalls.” I learned the difference because a girl laughed at me for singing those lyrics.

When our son was young enough to idolize Spiderman, he would sing the Spiderman song: “…catches fleas just like flies…” instead of “catches THIEVES just like flies”.

Okay, Hindi people will get this fine but I am writing fro the non-Hindi speaking crowd. Hopefully it will get across.

( The following are just the imitation of sounds)

Actual lyrics:-
“Rona chahey, Ro nuh paey’
Word translation:-
“Rona (crying) chahey (want), Ro (cry) nuh (not) paey (get)”
Loosely:-
I wanna cry, but I can’t. ( I am hurt but I can’t show it).

What I heard ( which is technically not a mondegreen, but a terrible grammatical oversight)
” Rona chahey, Rona paey”
Loosely-
Crying want, Crying get ( If crying is what one wants then crying is what one gets.)

My little brother thought for the longest time that it was “Cat scratch jeepers” and not “Cat scratch fever” from the song by Ted Nugent.

My friend thought the lyrics to the Enya song “Sail away” were instead “Save the whales” )

Cool! I’ve always heard things wrong like thinking when my BFF said pigeon that she had said the b word and when my other fried was talking about a book on Mars he had said Miley Cyrus.

There’s a Star Trek episode which takes place on a dysfunctional future Earth. The Yangs are fighting the Coms. The Yangs win and in the celebratory ritual the bring out a tattered American flag and the tribal leader begins “E plag nista….” Captain Kirk points out that it’s “I pledge allegiance…” It tunrs out that the Yangs are the Yankees and the Coms are the Communists. Every time I have to say the Pledge of Allegiance now, the words E plag nista comes to mind.

Up until couple years ago, my entire life I believed that George Harrisons “I’ve got my mind set on you” as featured in movie Look Who’s Talking, was saying “Watch out, I’m gonna sit on you, sit on you”

My children used to sing rock me hot potatos insteed of rock me amadeus.

In my liturgical church, we sing a response psalm, “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest!”

Which sounds, to generations of little kids: “Oh, Santa, Oh, Santa–oh, Santa, oh Santa in the highest!’ This is sung extra fervently around Christmastime. Yeah, we’re not mixing our kids up any with the cult of Santa Claus!

From the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers,” I incorrectly sung Christ our roayl master “leans againgst the pole” until high school music camp when I actually saw music/lyrics and realized the words were “leads against the foe.”

I thought Amy Winehouse sang “… didn’t get a lot éclairs…” instead of “…didn’t get a lot in class…” in Rehab.

Instead of “Give me the beat boys, and free my soul” it turned out to be “Gimmie the BeachBoys, and free my soul”

My mother told me that, as a young girl reciting the Hail Mary, she always wondered about the line: Blessed art thou a monk swimmin’ (Blessed art thou amongst women).

My son, when small, used to sing along to Pink Floyd: “Mummy! It’s a gas! Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash….” (he sings it ‘money’ these days)

Fran Drescher beat me to using this, but I was raised in a medical family. Until I was 11, I thought the Beatles song “Lucy In The Sky” contained the lyric “the girl with colitis goes by…”

@ Cecily on August 12, 2011 at 11:10 am
I once had a jam session with some guy who started off Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” with “Another one rides the bus.” XD

Actually, Weird Al Yankovich parodied “Another One Bites the Dust” with “Another One Rides the Bus.” Possible your friend was familiar with that version and simply chose to sing those lyrics instead. I do stuff like that occassionally when singing songs if I am familiar with both versions.

I believed from the age of 5 until I was 10 that when I was allowed to order my Sunday dinner each week it’s because I did a great job. I ordered a chop chop sirloin, medium well with fries. It was supposed to be a Child’s Chopped Sirloin.

Song-wise, Tupac’s “How Do You Want It?” Tupac raps, “Comin’ up as a n!66a in the cash game, livin’ in the fast lane, I’m for real” Well, I thought he said: Comin’ up as a nI66a with a cat name livin’ in a fat lane, I’m for real…it’s funny to me, lol.

Tommy james and the Shodelles sang “Crimson and Clover, over and over”
My mom thought it was “Christmas is over, over and over”

Oh what fun it is to ride in a “one horse soap and sleigh”

When my daughter was young she sang “give me two pink enchiladas” during a song that actually says “give me two pina coladas”. She was three…she didn’t know what pina coladas were so two pink enchiladas made sense to her.

When I was younger, I thought that Another on Bites the Dust by Queen was Another one Bites the Butts. O.e lol.

In Narcissist by Hedley, I thought for months they were singing, “We’re gay” but they were truly singing “We gave”.

I also thought Another One Bites the Dust by the Bee Gees was “another one bites the doctor”. They both make sense so all is good.

I guess we don’t have too much of a younger audience, no offense. I say that because when I watched Digimon as a young boy I-and everyone else who watched, too, by the way- that the final words of the song said, “Digimon, Digital Monsters, Digimon Garlic Champions”, when it’s probably “Are the Champions”.

No matter how many times I heard it when I was little,I always heard:

Bet Betty has chow
(Black Betty had a child)

It got me so confused…I was trying to figure out how ‘chow’ could go wild.

A verse in “Battle Hymn of the Republic” sounds like “I’ve seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling cats” … however, it should be “I’ve seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps.” I’m not sure I’d like to be in the midst of a hundred circling cats, especially if they were smart enough to build watchfires.

When I was much younger, my siblings and I would often sing “John Smith in his underwear” to the line “This place is warm without a care” from the song Someday by Sugar Ray. Whether we were being foolish or really thought that’s what he was saying, I really can’t remember.

In Anna Nalick’s song “Consider This,” I always believed she was saying “I’m gay and I’m alright” and was actually rather let down when I read the lyrics one day and realized she had been saying “I’m okay and I’m alright” the whole time.

When I was a teenager, I thought the like “I won’t put my hands up and surrender” in the song “White Flag” by Dido was “I won’t poke my eyes out and surrender.” In my defense, I thought they were very odd and unpoetic lyrics and would listen VERRRY closely each time the song came on the radio, but that’s what it always sounded like!

Instead of “smoke on the water, a fire in the sky” I’ve heard it mondegreened as “slow motion walter, the fire engine guy.”

A friend of mine in high school overheard her mom singing the Billy Joel classic, “You make the rice, I’ll make the gravy. But it just may be a lutefisk you’re looking for.” (You may be right, I may be crazy. But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.) Dinner at her house might have been an interesting experience…

My sister’s made me watch high school musical 2 many times with her, and there’s a song in it where a couple characters are arguing (in song) over a game of baseball.
The line is: ‘I’ve got what it takes, playing my game,so you better spin that pitch you’re gonna throw me’
To this day I hear Chad telling Ryan to ’swing that bitch you’re gonna throw me’

An obscure song, “Pilot of the Airwaves,” by Charlie Dore, used to be known, to me, as “Islands in the Airways.” As a wee lad, I actually had an argument with a radio station’s DJ over this matter.

For about 5 years from age 7, I was convinced that the hymn “BALM in Gilead” was “There is a BOMB in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.” The reasoning of a seven-year-old concluded that people build bombs that kill people, but Jesus builds bombs that heal people. Only later did I figure out that Jesus IS the balm/bomb.

i pledge a grievance to the flag and the divided states of america, and to the republicans, whom i can’t stand, one nation, under dog, indespicable, with liberty for just us, not all.

in my case it’s “i wanna feel the energy ” but it’s actually “i wanna be in the energy” from Linkin park’s “A place for my head”

When I was in preschool, (my Dad ended up telling me this), my friend made a mondegreen that made more sense than the real lyrics. She would sing “The Farmer in the Dell” with everyone else in class, but when they got to the “Hi-Ho the Derry-o” part, (what is that supposed to mean…? honestly?), she would sing, “I’m on the stereo!” Ohhh, mondegreens… how I love you

What’s really amazing is how people could hear lyrics so badly off. I mean even from the sound of it, reading this list people are off by several syllables sometimes. I suppose it shows something about how language works. We hear what we have learned to expect to hear. Well, in those cases maybe.
“cause every girl’s crazy ’bout a sharp assed man” rather than “sharp dressed”.

When I was a kid, I used to think the band Americas’s song “Horse with no name” went, “In the desert you can’t remember your name ’cause there ain’t no one for to give you no name.” Hey, the horse didn’t have a name either. Were they trying to trick me with lyrics that actually went, “In the desert you can remember your name, ’cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.”?

My friend, Todd, misheard the lyrics in ‘For whom the bell tolls’ for years. When eventually the lyrics do come along in the song, there’s a line:

“Look to the sky just before you die/ For it’s the last time you will”

Instead of “For it’s the last time you will”, Todd heard “For it’s an ASS CLIMBING WHALE”

I tried for a long time to locate the music to a song by the Beach Boys that was about Ba-ba-ba Ba-babaran. Imagine my surprise when I purchased an LP and it started playing my song! Turns out the name of the song was “Barbara Ann”!

My husband had his own version of the same song when it came out. He thought the words were Fa-fa-fa Fa-Farmer Dan, until his older sister corrected him.

When I was a kid, we would sing a song in church that asked, “Are you sowing the seed of the kingdom, brother?” I heard, “Are you sowing the seed of the king, dumb brother?”

Also, Johnny Cash sang, “I’ve been stuck in Folsom Prison,” not, “I’ve been stuffin’ folks in prison.”

I always hear the Who’s song Teenage Wasteland as Teenage Waistline.

When I was little (I’m now 23), I thought “Frere Jacques” went like this:

Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Saw my cousin Tina! Saw my cousin Tina!
(Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!)
Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don.

The funny part: I really do have a cousin named Tina lol

“There is no pain, you are receding,” sings David Gilmour in Pink Floyd’s song ‘Comfortably numb’.

I was long under the satisfying impression that the words were, “There is no pain you are RECEIVING.” I expect this latter phrase leapt at my ears because, given the song is called ‘Comfortably numb’, it is presumable the lyricist meant to say that any pain, as there may be, was cut off from the receptor cells in one’s brain, rendering the person numb.

When my cousin, a Rock music enthusiast, who has delved into the genre in a more academic manner, told me the word was ‘receding’, I found myself comfortably in denial, and still insist the phrase is more sacred with the word ‘receiving’!

I thought a line in a Taylor Swift song was “a batch of night lights” bur she really was singing “that July 9th”

A couple of years ago, I confused “carved my name into his leather seats” with “carved my name into his legacy” in Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats”, since she says those words particularly fast, blending the end of the words in.

Thanks for the memories. My favourites are: the girl auditioning for Bulgarian Pop Idol, giving it all she’s got with Mariah Carey’s “Without you” (Can’t live, if living is without you)” as “Ken Lee, tuliboo dibou douchoo”.

Another is Desmond Dekker & the Aces’, “Israelites” – I love singing “Oh, Oh, me ears are alight”.

And my 3-year-old nephew singing “I like to noe bee noe bee” (Will.i.am’s “I like to move it move it”). Also, as a youngster I couldn’t get my head round the phrase “Whose is it?” I used to write “whozizits”.

Reminds me of the AC/DC song “It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock n’ roll” which we used to sing as “It’s a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll”

From Rudorph the red-nosed Reindeer, ‘Olive the other reindeer’ instead of ‘All of the other reindeer and my wife used to think that ‘Good-bye Ruby Tuesday’ was ‘Good-bye Groovy Music’.

Elton John singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, but heard:
“Lucy in Disguise with diamonds.”

“My love has got no money, he’s got his dungarees.”

In PAUL SIMON’S song, “50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER”, there is a line: “…You don’t need to be coy Roy…” that my dear friend Silvia would always sing: “…You don’t need to be corduroy…”

There have been a lot of them over the years (most forgotten until the song comes on) But this comes to mind…

Nickelback’s How You Remind Me where it says “These five words in my head scream are we having fun yet” Always sounded like “These five words in my head scream out heaven forget” I could never figure out how “heaven forget” was 5 words.

It’s much more fun to sing the Stevie Wonder song “all I do is think about food” than “all I do is think about you”

pretty funny!

My all-time favorite mondegreen is “Gladys, the cross-eyed bear” as a child’s mishearing of the famous hymn “Glad is the cross I bear.”

Long, long time ago, my teenage boyfriend answered the phone at my parents’ home when no one else was there, and took the message which read, “Call Corn and Cheese.” After going over and over, ad nauseum, the message with him [so how many versions - seriously! - of "corn & cheese" can one respond with???], we finally figured out that it could possibly, just may, be my parents’ legal office calling… “Cohen and Chase.” We all laughed so hard, our sides hurt. For several weeks after that, every time we tho’t of it, we’d burst out laughing, didn’t matter where we were. People must’ve tho’t we were really weird. Yeah, guess our lives must have been really dull at the time! Just remembering this again brings tears to my eyes! LOLOL

On another line…thanks for the enlightenment, folks..I always tho’t the words were…”Give me the people and save my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll.”

One more… take Michael McDonald . . . is it just me or do any of you find it difficult to understand the words he’s singing? My late husband always got a hoot with my interpretations, so he’d have to explain exactly what the guy was actually singing. I tho’t the recordings were bad enough, in his concerts, it was even worse! LOL I still enjoy MM songs, though, wonderful memories.

Gotta love life!!! blessings to you all . . . keep ‘em coming!

my young son, singing the Kenny Rogers’ song, would sing: You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille, With four hundred children and the crops in the field.” (s/b: four hungry children)

the hymn “In the Garden”

As a child, I thought the refrain said, “Andy he walks with me. Andy talks with me. Andy tells me I am his own,” leading me to believe God’s name to be Andy.

The words are: [And He] walks with me, [And He] talks with me. [And He] tells me I am His own….

Jose can you see? By the Don Zerlly light.

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As kids, we both thought the closing line in Gene Autry’s “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” was “You’ll go down and Hiss the Ree.” We never really knew what a “Ree” was until we discussed it years later and figured out it’s “You’ll go down in history.”

“Honors fleises
Income beezez,.
Inches nobsis
Inob keezez.”

This is my phonetic transcription. I’m sure there’s a more accurate one somewhere. Anyone else remember this movie?

In the carol Holy Night, as kid I always thought the line ’round yon virgin’ was ’round, young virgin’ – as in she was pregnant and young.

Another one I read somewhere – I think it was a Reader’s Digest: A young boy was singing a hymn where the lines should have been ‘We will come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.’ Apparently he was singing ‘We will come to Joice’s, bringing in the cheese.’

At age six I was made to play an angel in a Christmas pageant. At the end of it the three “angels” stood in a row and sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Sadly, no one had explained to me the phrase “with angelic hosts proclaim” so I sang what I thought it was, which was “with a jelly hose proclaim.”

I was in junior high when Kenny Rogers’ song “Lucille” came out. I could have sworn it went:

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

I thought, does he run an orphanage or what? I was relieved to know that it was four hungry children.

When my first daughter was very small, I was putting her in her car seat after church and she was singing a hymn she had just heard. But she was a little confused. Instead of “He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood,” she sang, “He sought me and bothered me…”

“You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog /
You’re quite all right!”
God, I hated hearing that misquote of a classic Elvis song for almost 30 years…….coming from my ex-wife!! GET IT RIGHT. OR DON’T SING IT.

When my adult son was 3 he used to sing “train tracks keep falling on my head” instead of “rain drops keep falling on my head”–one of those mistakes that’s just too cute to correct!

“Possum super ennui” by Def Leppard.

There’s a book of mondegreens out there. One I liked there (generational thing, of course) from Bachman-Turner Overdrive [no, no relation to Michelle Bachman] was the iminterpretation of their song title “Takin’ Care of Business” as “Bakin’ Carrot Biscuits.”

My personal mondegreen is very lame, and lasted well into my adulthood. The line from the Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” which is “…she makes the Indy 500 look like a Roman chariot race now” i heard, nonsensically, as “…she makes the eight-five hundred look like …”

My fav here is “leans against the pole”!

My music theory professor admitted that she thought the words to the song by Seal went, “Kissed on the nose by a grape” instead of the correct, “Kiss from a rose on the gray.”

Also, classical music is not immune: Mendelssohn’s “He Watching Over Israel” is forever known as the slumber-snot song – “He watching over Israel slumber snot (slumbers not) nor sleeps.”

In John Prine’s Fish and Whistle song (don’t remember if that’s the name) he sings “It’s a half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown”. He said someone once requested the Happy Enchilada song and he had to ask what they meant.

Lyrics from The Land of the Sea and Sun

Mine:
Once I had a notion / About this beach and girl / I put my thoughts in motion / And found my heart in her world

One version I found over the Internet:
Once I had a notion / About this Bajin girl / I put my thoughts in motion / And found my heart in a whirl

For some reason “Just an earthbound misfit” from Pink Floyd’s Learning to Fly always came out as “Just an earthbound biscuit” for me. And “I’m just a man in the middle of a complicated plan” from Man in the Middle by the Bee Gees apparently sounded like “I’m just a man in the middle of a conflict with a plant” to one of my friends.

LOL liver tea… u serious?

@Farooq M. Hashmi

No. A spoonerism is when you mix up the initial letters of words – for example, saying “queer old dean” instead of “dear old queen.” If I remember correctly, it’s named after a professor(?) named Spooner famous for doing so.

In our school choir, we used to love slipping intentional mondegreens in to songs, just to see if anyone noticed. One of my favourites was in the Christmas carol ‘The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came’ — it was very difficult not to giggle when changing ‘most highly favoured lady’ to ‘most highly flavoured gravy!’

*Anyone who wants to witness “”SONG MONDEGREEN”" at it’s finest, only need to pick up ANY Weird Al Yankovich parody album… All his song play on the “mondegreen” effect… that’s what makes them all hilarious… Some songs I never realize I was singing wrong, until I heard them on Wierd Al’s albums..
* But the one I always remember was the theme song to
“”ALL in the FAMILY”"….. I always though the beginning was
“” By the way the willow swayed, “” (when it really was) ,
“” By the way GLEEN MILLER PLAYED “”
And I thought the ENDING of the theme song was…
“” Gee, our lives were sour as grapes “” (when it really was) ,
“” Gee our OLD LaSALLE RAN GREAT “”

BUT … I only realized my mistake when they redid it after the third season…
Apparently OTHERS must of thought the wrong words too, so they “resang” the opening theme and enunciated it more. (correctly).

* Ahhh, those WERE the days ! * ( I miss them )

new york~~~ concrete jungle wet dream tomato~!~

In one of our school songs… “the bring you roses, and to be a saint” instead of “..to bring you roses , ne’er to be a stain”

I just remembered another one! “Santa Clause is coming to Town”. This lyric: The kids and girl and boy -land, will have a jubilee~ We’re gonna build a toy-land all around the Christmas tree…” I heard, “…we’re gonna build a toilet all around the Christmas tree.” I always looked at my parents in a strange way when they played the record!

As a music teacher, before I teach the Star Spangled Banner each year I always lead with a question. What color is dawnserly (dawn’s early) light. You couldn’t imagine the definitions kids come up with from pink to black.
It works for LMNOP as one letter too; with the younger set

For me it was Kokomo by the Beach Boys. Instead of “To Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama”, when I was little I thought it was “To Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty llama”. My mother and I still sing it that way.

We used to laugh at my brother because he swore that The Police’s Every Breath You Take lyrics were “I’m a pool hall ace”. When they are really “my poor heart aches”. I still sing it using my brother’s lyrics!

@ CMCB, there is one. A small book entitle, ” ‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” @ Colleen, what song are those lyrics from? And, I did think “Boys of Summer” was, “Poison summer”

My husband says that in the song by Stevie Nicks – He heard “just like a white-winged dove” as “Just like the white ranger” XD

My brother was great for mondegreens. First one. “If you don’t know Leroy Brown, you will, never ever know me….” instead of “If you don’t know me by now.” He thought Leroy Brown from Bad Leroy Brown had a best friend or something.

Also, “Old nylons, old ny, old ny….” instead of “All night long! All night, all night…”

And my biggest one. “I’m a beached whale” instead of “I will be there” by Michael Jackson. I figured, hey, it’s from Free Willy, right?

Oh! And the “marezy dotes” thing is actually a song based on Mondegreens. It’s done that way on purpose.

The Beachboys, “Kokomo”. I always heard “Come out with me, that mom’s a rotten sneak” in place of the line, “To Martinique, that Monserrat mystique”. Thought that the girl ’s mom wasn’t letting her go on vacation and that she was sneaking away with her boyfriend.

Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

Supposed to be:

“The French are glad to die for love”

I heard:

“The gents are there to die for love”

Cos you know, I’m sexist, not racist XD

In the Noel Coward recording of Carnival of the Animals, in the verse on the Wild Jackass he says “For with maidenly blush and accents mild”
I always wondered what a Maiden Liblush was until I found the verse printed out.

@ FireFlight: I kept hearing The Band Perry’s If I Die Young on the radio as – If I die young, bury me in silence…
I understand that it’s “satin” now but I kind of like “silence” too.

I always thought the line “dancing juice” from Bruno Mars’ Marry You was dancing jews.

In Vida la Viva, I thought that ‘be my mirror my sword and shield’ was ‘be my mirror oh solemn shield’
In At the Beginning, I thought ‘And life is a road and i wanna keep going’ was ‘We love the roll of all this ringed sole’

Pretty dumb, huh?

In real life, according to my archnemesis, I’m sort of a nerd. I don’t want to be the “Monday Green” nerd, too

I used to think it was ‘call me, call me, i’m fine’

I used to think it was ‘a maze zing grays’

I used to think the were saying, “This is the dawning of the angel aquarium” instead of “Age of Aquarius” in the song of the same name by 5th Dimension. I like angel aquarium better.

Instead of “Pour Some Sugar on Me”, I thought it was “Pour Some Shook-Up Ramen.” Classy.

I never could understand the Beach Boys lyrics in “Kokomo.” Was it:
Mounds of rotten steak? Vermont’s a rotten state?
It turns out it is: That Monserrat mystique.
Who knew?

I recently heard children who mistook the phrase in a church song “I’m Forever Grateful.” The real lyrics are: You clothed yourself in frail humanity.
They had been to Sea World recently and thought it was: “You clothed yourself in whales and manatees.
Sounds like fun!

There is a techno dance song out there titled “Put your Ass in the Air” but I listen to it because it sounds like the singer is saying “Put giraffes in the air, put giraffes up in the air.” With the nonsensical nature of dance lyrics, either one is acceptable.

I thought Bohemian Rhapsody was actually entitled Bohemiam Rap City…

RATHER PROPHETICALLY, MY VERY LITTLE GIRL COUSIN RECITED, ” I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE UNITED STATES OF A MERRY- GO- ROUND.”

Several years ago I heard a comedian talking about the Lion King song ‘Circle of Life’. In the beginning of the song he was sure he heard “pink pajamas, penguins on the bottom”. Don’t know the actual lyrics, but it gets me laughing every time I hear the song.

There’s a line in a song by Pulp, ‘Raised on a diet of broken biscuits’, which I always thought was ‘raisins doubt their place in biscuits’. Always imagined sultanas having some kind of existential angst

I’ve got one for ya.

A recipe I was following called for five gerkins. I could not find out what gerkins were on my own, so I went to the neighborhood specialty food store, approached an employee and said, “Do you know what gerkins are?”. She said “Gerkinzar? How do you spell that?”. Not catching the mistake, I said, “I don’t know”. Searching the store, we eventually ended up in the produce section and asked the person there, “Do you know what gerkins are?” She said, “Gerkins? You mean pickles!” A good laugh was had by all.

I was basically slackjawed once when a friend of mine and i were walking along and he started singing the rolling stones get off of my cloud like this;
“hey-hey, you-you, get out of my car!” Unbelievable.

Ok, I must admit, most of these mondegreens– ok, well, maybe half– I’ve heard, too. One of the weirdest ones I’ve come up with is in Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, she sings,” want you in my rear window, baby you’re sick”
I thought it was “want you in my room when your baby is sick”, like she was cheating with him on his girlfriend when she had a cold or something. SO not what it was.
by the way, has anyone else noticed that when typing out comments for this, it gives you the “incorrect spelling” warning for mondegreen?

A young friend in the 60’s asked if I heard the new Beatle song “Take A Back Right Turn”… (Paperback Writer). I still hear that in the song.

A 60 yr. old friend thought the Buckingham’s song, “Kind of a Drag” was singing “Canada Dry”.

And when my son was little, Eric Clapton’s song “Cocaine” was on the car radio and he was singing along in the back seat. I almost had an accident when I heard his little voice sing, “She’s alright, she’s alright, she’s alright, Cookie” !!!!

My daughter thought that the hymn that we sang on Easter Sunday morning was “up from the gravy arose”.

Liver tea is the leftover Muscato that has been used to flavor Foie Gras. It’s an overnight process

Friend of mine really liked the AC/DC song “Dirty Deeds in a Thunder Jeep”

My mom thought Steven Tyler wanted to “Do the Funky Lady”

“Howard, it be thy name,” from the Lord’s prayer instead of, “Hallowed it be thy name.”

My son used to sing “Silent night. Totally night”
And I thought it was ” Round young virgin”. She was round because she was pregnant!

Any one old enough to remember belting out “my country tears of thee, sweet land of liver tea”

As a 4 year old I listened to music daily and sang everything I heard. 1960 brought Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely”. I was told years later I sang it, “Only Bologna”

I actually knew the term mondegreen. I remember being quite surprised that a word existed to describe what I had experienced in my youth. I first discovered it as a “word of the day” and am now further fascinated to learn of its etymology (Lady Mondegreen). For so many years I listened to Tommy Row sing “Dizzy” and thought he was saying, “like a world Buelle it never ends.” Of course now, but only recently now (I am 54), do I realize he was singing “whirlpool”. Great article.

I always though “don’t stop believing” was “don’t stop the beavers” when I was a little kid. I always wondered why they wouldn’t stop those beavers.

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

An inside joke in my family comes from the “three year old me” standing up on the pews at church and singing loudly: “Glory, glory had a eula!”

Instead of “Suddenly, I see” by KT Tunstall, I used to sing, “So, Leah, see” which, to be perfectly honest, made zero sense. LOL

Annie are you wookie, are you wookie Annie?

“There’s nothing that a hundred men on Mars could ever do” instead of the real line from the Toto song, ‘Africa’: “There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.”

A college friend thought it was “This is the dawning of the age of aquariums” instead of “Age of Aquarius” in the song of the same name by 5th Dimension. As if we were all in a fish bowl.

At the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland, there’s a part where a group sings, “pretty good, sure as you’re born”, but because of their Southern accents, it sounds more like “pretty good. Show us your bone” as in a femur or something of the sort.

My sister and I used to always sing “I could be your bottle feeder, put your tiny hand in mine…” Yeah, we thought it was dumb, but we just shrugged and chalked it up to “quality” pop music. Years later we found out it was “father figure”…(by George Michael)….hahaha! Oh dear. OOPS.

I’ve had a couple.

In Ms. Jackson by OutKast, I always thought “I’m sorry Ms. Jackson,” = “A strong British accent.”

And “How to Save a Life” by the Fray always sounded like “how to say goodnight.”

When I pledged allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands in kindergarten, I pledged to the flag and to the republic of Richard Stanz. I couldn’t figure out who Richard Stanz was, but I knew he was surely very important.

My wife is a recovering Catholic. When she had to recite the Lord’s Prayer when she was young, she always said, “Harold be thy name”, because that was her father’s and older brother’s name.

My wife used to think the country song “Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi (California) again!” was “Oh, Lord, stuck in low diaphram!”

This reminds me of “misheard lyrics;” if you don’t know what that is, look it up on YouTube.

I have 2 unrelated examples. One is mine, and I haven’t solved it in 30+ years since the song came out. Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” has a line in it that I know cannot possibly be what I am hearing, but I cannot find any other solution. “Some people call me Maurice, when I speak of the pompitousness of love”. I’ll accept help for this!
The other was a few years ago with my at-the-time 10 year old daughter. We were ordering in a family restaurant, and in a very polite manner asked the waitress “I’d like the pasta with marijuana sauce”. We all just looked at her in shock and then cracked up…my husband blurts out “She watches a lot of COPS”. (yes, it was marinara sauce that she wanted. )

OH one more…I was thinking about it the other day. Instead of “Nip it in the bud”…my kids (the grown ones!!) still think it’s “Nip it in the butt”.

When I was young I thought meatloaf was “like a bang on the head” instead of a bat out of hell…

And not too long ago I was convinced that in Blink 182’s Rock Show the line “she’s so cool, better sneak in through the window” was “better stick it through the window” (being Blink 182 I assumed that whatever “it” was, was rude!).

AND (yes, I’m that dumb) in Sum 41’s In To Deep, I thought someone was somehow “trying to keep up my bum and my head instead of going under” – they were in fact “trying to keep all the thoughts in my head”

My husband thought a line in a Nickleback song (“How you remind me” or something like that) was “let’s rewrite an ending named Vince”… it’s actually an ending that fits.. he didn’t care that his version didn’t make sense =P

mondegreens often occur when one is studying a new language. sometimes the way singers pronounce certain words just doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t match what we learn in school.
my friends and i couldn’t understand what john travolta meant when he sang “agantchu de motapayen, andalusia controh.” it wasn’t until several years later that i found out the words were actually, “i’ve got chills, they’re multiplying, and i’m losing control…”
also, as a child i was quite horrified to hear irene cara sing, “take your pants off, and make it happen!” (take your passion)
many websites that purport to list the lyrics of popular songs often have mondegreens.

When my daughter was younger (about 8, she is now 25), we were driving in the car and a Peter Frampton song came on. When it was over, I heard her friend say “What a dumb song. Why does he love her wig everyday?”
Of course the real words are ” baby I love your way, everyday!”
We still laugh about it today when we hear that song.

Until yesterday, I always thought it was Crocodile Joe instead of “Cotton Eye Joe” by the Rednex. Perfect timing for this article.

i did hear “liver tea” but not indivisible and by the way does anyone play minecraft?

I thought “Big girls don’t cry” was “Big girls, small fry”

My BIL thought Neil Young “I’ve been in my mind, it’s such a fine line” went “It’s such a fine mind”.

The one I wish were the real lyric, though was the Stones Playing With Fire

I thought it went “You’d better watch your step girl, I’ll start living with your mother” which is a much better threat than “or start living with your mother” – my son corrected me on that one, so I had it wrong for about 40 years….

Haven’t they made some games based around this idea? Mad Gab is one that I know.

I heard “The lord has a Myspace” instead of “The lord God almighty”

I had a buddy in high school who mistook “Panama” by Van Halen to be “Cannon Ball”.

I always sang “my body lies over the ocean” instead of “my Bonnie lies over the ocean”

My wife used to think that the words to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock n’ Roll” was: “I rebadib abow da day bah doh”, when it is actually “I reminisce about the days of old”. And in “Come Dancing” by The Kinks, I thought the lyric was “My Aunt Matilda died”, instead of “Part of my Childhood died”.

Australian national anthem. For years I said most of the words wrong because the girls next to me on that first day of assembly said it wrong too! Only realised my mistake while watching football on the TV! Oops!

The song “Rocket Man”, by Elton John, I always thought he sang, “burnin down the field with Carol’s bones.” He really sings, “Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone.”

The lyrics from the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive”:

Actual lyrics:
Now you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk.

My daughter always thought it said…
Now you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I’m a woman’s man, from time to time.

She was corrected by reading this post.

I had a friend that thought the lyrics to the nine inch nails song down in it was “I was at the paaarty” instead of I was up above it. Don’t ask me.

or what about “Reverend Blue Jeans” for Neil Diamond’s “Forever in Blue Jeans?” I laughed so hard when someone told me what it actually was!

Adele’s “Rumour has it” came across to me and my friends as “Puma Hazard”

In “Ambience” by Falling Up, I was positive the lyrics were:

“Cause this girl, you and I Have come to know, is a lie, and we must move on… I can see past, those fine eyes that led me on And you see that I’m knowing this, ever since I kissed her lips”

My sister informed me that it was actually:

“Cause this glow, you and I Have come to know, is a lie, and we must move on… I can see through these glass eyes that led me on I’m in this room you’re in that And you play hearts like instruments.”

In Counting Crows’ song “Big Yellow Taxi”, I thought the lyrics were “They built paradise and put up a pumpkin light.” instead of “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” xD

OH! And in Empire State of Mind, I sing “concrete jungle wet dream tomato” Even though i know the real lyrics, I sing this one instead. ^-^

I also thought Sting was singing, “I’m a pool hall ace….” instead of “My poor heart aches…”
Then my wife thought the Springsteen song had the words, “Snappy and Kate, we laid in bed…” (Last night me and Kate, we laid in bed)

You want mondegreens? Look up some Elton John lyrics and see how you’ve been singing completely wrong lyrics for years….

One of the hardest ones to for people to figure out, I think, is “Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani. Almost every online lyrics version is different, but my favorite is my friend’s (she is the mondegreen queen):
“‘Cause my butt-cheek got shut in the refrigerator. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve been acting so cold…” (actual lyrics: Cause I’ve been acting like sour milk fell on the floor, It’s your fault you didn’t shut the refrigerator…)
By the way, there are websites devoted to misheard lyrics–amiright.com and kissedthisguy.com. I’m off to check them out properly.

From the original “Star Trek” series, this is the final line from the opening words as I thought I heard them as a kid:

“To bold Lego where no man has gone before!”

Obviously, I was a huge Lego fan back then.

“Round John virgin, mother and child”

When I was about five, I asked my teacher how to spell “smorning.” She asked me to use it in a sentence: How are you the smorning.

When my brother was about 2, he would walk around the house singing “Mama’s scroungy!” after hearing “She Drives Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals. Our mother was quite amused.

I STILL don’t know what the lyrics are to Sheryl Crowe’s “Real Gone” but I’m pretty sure I’m mishearing: “there’s a new cat in town, he’s got a high-paid defense” … “you think he’s so swell, but it’s just perpetuating prophecy”.

“There’s a Bathroom on the Right” –> actually “There’s a bad moon on the rise” from Bad Moon Rising
I’d say this is more popular than the ones in the article XD

When my aunt asked one of my cousins what he’d done in Sunday school he replied, “We sang the warship song.” Turns out the lyrics were “Let us worship together.”

I remember lyrics that I thought were “A pup in the sky, where the little birds fly.” My mom corrected me, “Up, up in the sky, where the little birds fly.”

I always thought the hand shake/cheer at my school went
“Lemonade (clap clap clap)
Crunchy Ice (clap clap clap)
Zip it once (clap clap clap)”
Zip it twice (clap clap clap)”
but it was sip it once sip it twice which makes more sense

@Eric Damiens
I’ve always wondered why there were “Elephant and Castle” restaurants in the UK and some here in Canada. Thanks for solving that mystery for me. I wonder which infante it was? The only one I can think of offhand is the Portuguese princess who married Charles II of England, but left him no legitimate heir to his throne, though more than a dozen illegitimate children who inherited various palaces, manors and titles.

I’ve found the remarks I’ve read highly entertaining and am sure I made my share of mondegreens, especially while I was learning English after coming here as a 7-year-old immigrant. Unfortunately, that was a long time ago and I can’t remember any particular example from my or my siblings’ youth.

However, the only joke I could ever tell halfway properly was one involving a mondegreen:

A circus parade was passing by a nunnery and some of the younger nuns were eagerly leaning out of the second-floor windows to see the animals and human performers. One leaned out so far that she plummeted onto a passing clown. Said he, “That’s verging (virgin) on the ridiculous.”

I’ve heard people listening to the song ‘Howl’ by Florence and the Machine say that ‘I am eternal’ sounds like ‘I’m on a toilet’.

Children’s church song: “In the pretty garden the flowers are nodding”,
my sister would sing, “In the pretty garden the flowers are naughty”

When I first listened to Disturbia:
Original: “Your train of thought will be altered.”
My Interpretation: “Prepare to follow the altar.”
I thought at first someone was about to be sacrificed to a monster or something! Though actually that would’ve fit…

Here’s a childhood one. In Disney’s The Little Mermaid, there was a part of Poor Unfortunate Souls I never got until I saw it in captions.

Original: “The men up there don’t like a lot of blabber.”
My Interpretation: “The men up there don’t like a lot of bladder.”
O: “They think a girl who gossips is a bore.”
MI: “They think a girl who gossips is a boar.”
O: “Yes on land it’s much preferred for ladie’s not to say a word and after all dear what is idle prattle for?”
MI: “Yes on land it’s not with fur for ladies not to say a word and after all that they’re on idol channel four!”
O: “Come on then! They’re not all that impressed with conversation. True gentlemen avoid it when they can. But they dote and swoon and fawn on the lady who’s withdrawn. It’s she who holds her tongue who gets a man!”
MI: “Come on then! They’re not all that impressed with conversation. True gentlmen avoid it when they can. But they don’t assume/seem informed on the ladies whose wit drawn. It’s she who holds her tongue who gets a man!”

Also when I watched Disney’s Tangled, when Rapunzel sings When Will My Life Begin:
O: “I’ll add a few new paintings to my gallery.”
MI: “I’ll add a few half paintings to my gallery.”
You might wonder how I came up with that, but just listen to the song- somehow it sounds like that!

I’ll post some more when I think of them.

Young son of a friend of mine used to travel a lot in the car with us & we always listened to Cher-he misheard & sung with great relish at the top of his lungs ” F&*&ken turn back time, F&*&ken find a way” which fits really well actually & I always (miss)sing the lyrics this way & He had not even seen the video clip

One of my favorites is from the joke about the little kid who’s pet cat dies. Dad digs a hole and they stand around it for a funeral. The kid ends it by saying, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and in the hole he goes”.

My wife chastised me for teaching our daughter the following nursery rhyme:

Round and round the mulberry bush, the hunter chased the weasel
Then all at once a shot rang out… Pop! goes the weasel

White Zombie has a song Devil Man, that goes:

Devil man, devil man – calling devil man

I always thought it was “Deviled ham, deviled ham – carve it! deviled ham”

What can I say? I thought those rockers were hungry!

I thought for 6 months that Tom Jones was singing “Sad bum, sad bum, you’re my sad bum’ (Sex bomb)
Lady Gaga’s Poker face seems to contain the lines, “Cherry pie Cherry pie” (Can’t read my).
an old favourite was “every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you”.

For many years, I thought the Eagles song “Life in the Fast Lane” was “life in the vaseline.” Yeah… I don’t know! I was pretty embarrassed when my kids corrected their Classic Rocking mom! I even had the album! I’ve found by listening to my iPod, after years of singing my heart out with the music, I’m surprised to learn the real words to many of my FAVORITE songs!!

I always through that “But me born and raised (in the ghetto)” from Snow’s “Informer” was “But me born and raised in connecticut.”

Hail Mary, full of grapes.

Here’s the ultimate: late British comedian and opera singer, Harry Secombe, in an operatic performance announced: we’re going to sing the next one in Italian because we’ve forgotten the words.

Children’s author Beverly Cleary’s beloved character Ramona Quimby in kindergarten learns what she calls the “dawnzer song” and that it said something about the “dawnzer lee light.”

For years I thought Clapton was singing, “I shot the sheriff, and I did it in sulky pants.” It’s self-defense. And what the hell are sulky pants anyway?

When I was little, I thought Roy Oberson’s song line, “Only the Lonely,” was “Holy Baloney.”

Imagine the flurry, when my 3 yr. old daughter called my sister a “whore”, which she pronounced without “r”s. I tried to explain to my sis that my daughter had no idea what a “whore” was, but she was so offended, she couldn’t accept it. Later, I asked my daughter what a “whore” was to her. She said, “It’s a weally scawey pohson.” Obviously, she meant HORROR!! My daughter is 26 now, and we still laugh about that one!!!

One other one that I just remembered. My cousin was raised a strict Christian fundamentalist. She used to sing “bringing in the sheets” for “bringing in the sheeves.”

I also could never figure out what Michael Jackson was singing in Billie Jean until I read the lyrics. It turns out it was “the kid is not my son.” I had absolutely no clue what he was singing there.

3OH!3 “don’t dance”
I used to think the chorus went “I’m gay you’re gay your the main attraction” its actually “I’m game you’re game”

As a kid ,for a long time, I thought the guy who transmogrified into the Hulk was Dr Blue Spanner ,he was my Lady Mondegreen

Funny, Greg. I always heard “Pour Some Sugar on Me” as “First Down. Shoot Your Own Name.” I still sing it that way to annoy my wife and daughter.

As a child, in the song “Picnic TIme for Teddy Bears” I always thought they lyrics were “watch them, catch them underwears” when it is really “watch them catch them unaware”. My daughter and I still sing it the wrong way and laugh every time!

Here are 4 actual mondegreens from my personal experience.

1. The theme song from the show “The Facts of Life” said this: “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.”

My wife, as a child, was certain it said, “You take a book, you take a bath, you take a look, and there you have the facts of life.”

2. A Queensryche song says: “I’m all alone, and it’s another rainy night…”

My friend sang it: “Ohhhhh, love is just another way to die…”

3. The Christmas song, Sleigh Ride, says: “Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup, it’s grand, just holding your hand.”

Until I was corrected as a teenager, I always thought it said, “Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup, let’s scram…” I think it was because the preceding line said, “Giddyup, let’s go.”

4. A relative of ours, when reporting that she was lactose intolerant, wrote that she was “lactose and tolerant”.

From the Beatles and Etton John’s cover of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, I always thought the line was “The girl with Colitis goes by” rather than “The Girl with Kaleidiscope Eyes”

My roommate’s boyfriend used to sing the Garth Brooks lyric, “I’ve got friends in low places,” “I’ve got friends in loads of places,” for years before he was corrected.

Does anyone remember the old tune: “He flies through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young man on the flying trapeeze”?

My mother used to sing that to me when I was a young boy, but – perhaps because of her line of work – I understood the first line to be “He flies through the air with the greatest disease …”

She was a medical secretary, and my mondegreen made her laugh.

When “Tease Me, Please Me” would play on the radio, I always thought that they were saying “Cheeze Nips, Cheeze Nips, and no one has to know! Oh no!” It fits suprisingly well with all the lyrics.

And when “Night Moves” by Bob Seger would play, I always thought they said “Tight Poop!”. The constant grunting noises throughout the song by Bob made me laugh and cringe… and when he said that he was “…workin’ on the tight poop!” I practically lost it.

I pledge all engines to the flag and the untied stays of America and who the repugnant four widget stands, one nation, underground with liver tea and just ice for all

No?

There IS bathroom on the right…and now on the left, too.

An old Christian hymn by the name of “Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear.” I’m sure you can guess the actual title.

It’s just the awning of an angel aquairium. Just the awning.

Canadian National anthem…. first time i heard the end of it… “We stand on guard for thee” I heard ‘We stand on God for thee’, I was like…. wow, we Canadians really think we’re something don’t we. Seemed a little sacreligious. XD

A high school buddy of mine thought the Bee Gees’ “more than a woman” was “Strawberry woman.”

Chicago’s “No-tell lover” was “motel lover” in my mind. And Elton John’s Benny and the Jets had “electric boobs and a mohawk, too” instead of “electric boobs and a mohair suit.”

“Like a cheese stick like a cheese stick n-n-now i’m feeling so fried like a cheese stick”
instead of
“like a G6 like a G6 n-n-now i’m feeling so fly like a G6″

And why can’t Peter Pan ever ever land?

Because he’s going to Never Never Land. You idiot!

when I was little, we always used to sing “my country ’tis of thee” after the star spangled banner at this homeschool bible study I went to. this is how I thought the lyrics went, with the real ones in parentheses:
my country tis of thee
sweet land of liberty
of the icing (of the I sing)
land where my fathers died {except I only have one father…?}
land of the pilgrim sprite (land of the pilgrim’s pride) {they had sprite back then?}
on every mountain side
let freedom ring
I had no idea why they sang a song about sugary foods and multiple parents after the pledge of allegiance every day, not that I cared, I loved singing regardless of they lyrics… then I learned the real words and what they meant… 0.o

Kenny Rogers – Lucille
“You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel (Lucille),
with four hundred (four hungry) children and a crap (crop) in the field,
I’ve had some bad times,
lived through some sad times,
but this time the hurtin won’t heal,
You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel (Lucille)”

Avril Lavigne – Things I’ll Never Say
“I’m feeling nervous
Trying to be so perfect
Cause I know you’re worthless (worth it)
You’re worthless (worth it),
Yeah”

And who quotes Kenny Rogers and Avril Lavigne in the same post? I do. XD

So the song “I’m Blue” by Eiffel 65 has a part that goes Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di. For a while,I thought he said “I’m in need of a guy”!

I had a friend who thought TLC’s “Chasing Waterfalls” said “Go, go Jason Waterfalls” instead of “Don’t go chasing waterfalls.”

My mother is the queen of mondegreens. Among her best:

ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man”: “Everyone’s crazy ’bout a shotgun man.”

Cool and the Gang’s “Celebrate Good Times”: “Celebration time, come on!”

Macy Gray’s “I Try”: “I blow bubbles when you are not there.”

Third-Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed”: “Semi-hemmed kind of life”

K D Lang singing that she “can’t stand gravy” baffled me for ages made more sense than constant craving.

In some party song they played at a school dance, I was sure the words “Jump on it, Jump on it!” were “Zamboni, Zamboni!”

In listening to “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon, I thought that she was singing: “Your hair strategically dipped below one eye, your scarf it was Africa” which does not make any sense whatsoever.

cmbc,

More on “Winter Wonderland” I thought one of the lines were:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
and pretend that he is parched and brown…

I wondered if the song was a veiled suggestion that spending summer tanning at the beach was better than winter and building a snowman. When it was revealed to me years later that it was “and pretend that he is Parson Brown” it was still confusing, since such an honorific was less common than Pastor or Minister.

For years, I thought that the line “she thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway” (from 3 am by Matchbox Twenty) was “she thinks that happiness is a mouse…”

Attack by 30 Seconds to Mars

The lyrics are
Run away, run away, I’ll attack
But I always heard it as
Run away, run away, I love tag

Knew a child that recited the “one nation indivisible” portion of the pledge of allegiance as “One naked individual, with liver tea, injustice for all.”

There is the famous Boney M song ‘Ballerinas of Babylon’ and the Christmas carol about the school ‘Ding Dong Mary Ellen High’

Then Madonna – ‘Last night I dreamt of some bagels’

In Paramore’s song, ‘Brick By Boring Brick,’ there’s a line in the chorus that goes, ‘Go get your shovel, and we’ll dig a deep hole to bury the castle.’ My Mum was singing it the other day and here’s what she came out with:

‘Go get your chauffer, and we’ll dig a deep hole, to bear with the custard.’ xD

In that song Story of a Girl, there’s a line “while she looks so sad in photographs, i absolutely love her when she smiles”

a friend of mine in high school always sang it strange and we eventually found out that he thought it was “while she looks so sad and odercrast”

he just shrugged when we asked him what on earth he thought “odercrast” even meant

My favorite line in “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey is “Heaven’s just a funky moose…”

In reading through these comments, I just now discovered that the lyric in Blinded by the Light is “revved up like deuce” and not “wrapped up like a douche” – which I’ve always found rather disgusting. The actual lyric makes so much more sense with the next line of the song “another runner in the night” LOL (if that is, in fact, the correct next line!)

When I was a kid there were public service announcements that warned “TB strikes every seven seconds.” (TB is short for tuberculosis). We kids thought it was saying “TV strikes every seven seconds,” apparently reflecting the concerns some experts voiced regarding children’s overexposure to the influence of the media.

BeeGees
“More than a Woman.” becomes “Bald-Headed Woman”

And for years I would sing “Imiglints en die in glove” instead of “Limitless undying love” in the Beatles’ “Across the Universe.” I knew that wasn’t the lyrics but it’s what I came up with when I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. Still slip into that even though I now know what it’s supposed to be.

There are endless misinterpretations, supposedly made by kids, regarding the Lord’s Prayer.
ACTUAL LORD’S PRAYER:
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

HERE IS A COMPOSITE OF EVERY MISINTERPRETATION I’VE HEARD OVER THE YEARS:
“Our Father, Howard, in Heaven, How’d you know my name?
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us.
Lead us not into Penn Station, but deliver us from evil.”

Actually I think that sometimes maybe we do need to ask God to forgive our Christmases!

Silent Night, Holy Night.
All is calm, all is bright.
Round young virgin…

Saw her in my mind all round and young until I actually READ the words in the hymnal as a teen!

There was a discussion about misheard lyrics on the radio a while back. Someone mentioned that one of their relatives thought “Give peace a chance” was “Give Jesus pants.” I looked it up on Google and apparently a lot of people thought that’s what it was too. And there are so many ways that AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap can be heard

oh, and another one… I was SURE Marvin Gaye was singing “There’s something wrong with me loving you.” (instead of “nothing wrong…”) Just figured that one out a couple of years ago.

A little guy in my daughter’s first grade class drew a Christmas picture of a bullet sitting on the branch of a small bush. When asked, he rolled his eyes, unable to believe we didn’t recognize “a cartridge in a pear tree”.

Let’s see, in the Star Spangled Banner, there’s been a joke about this. “José, can you see?” (From the first line “Oh say, can you see?”)

instead of “gladly the cross I’d bear”
i thought it was “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.”

one of my friends always thought that “my Bonnie lies over the ocean, my Bonnie lies over the sea” was “my body lies over the ocean, my body lies over the sea.” when we finally told her the real lyrics she was like “oh. well i guess that song wasn’t as morbid as i thought”

Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. My sister and I both thought he said “Annie do you want cake.” The lyrics are “Annie are you okay?”.

I always thought that in Celine Dion’s song A New Day Has Come, she said “let it fill my soulendrum, my tears”. When I told my mom, she said what are you talking about?!? It says, “let it fill my soul and drowned my fears”. Oh..

I always thought “bring me a higher love” was “bring me an iron lung”…never did make sense as to why they were singing about polio!

In All My Love by The Doors, I always thought it said “Seven horses seem to be on the lawn.”, until pointed out to me that the actual line is “Seven horses seem to be on the run.”

I used to think the song “Boys of Summer” went “I can tell you my love for you will still be strong, into the poison, summer is gone,” instead of “boys of summer.”
My friends and I were having an argument about the song “Only Girl in the World” by Rihanna. In the first line, I thought it said “I want you to love me like I’m a hot ride,” another friend thought it said “like I’m a hot guy,” and finally, my last friend thought it was “I want you to love me like I’m a hot pie.” LOL. We still don’t know what the line actually says!

Ok so now you know what a mondegreen is…

My name is Hooben…Do you know what a “Hoobenism” is?
(I also coined a word.)

A hoobenism is when you can say something that is grammatically correct but impossible to write grammatically correct. There’s lots of them but the one I most often use for an example is: (now don’t forget this is grammatically incorrect)

“There are three two’s in the English language.”

Actually there is only one ‘two’ and one ‘to’ and one ‘too’ so to use any one of them in a written sentence is not accurate…

Another way of describing a hoobenism is:
When you say it, its true…When you write it, its false.

The Rascals’s “Groovin’ ” did not say; “Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie … Groovin’ “, but “Life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessly .. Grooving’ “.

Instead of “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” I always thought it was “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” O.o

A female co-worker said her husband had a severe case of “in testicle” flu. A male co-worker was walking past and muttered, “that’s the worst kind.”

Band: Megadeth, Album: Rust In Peace, Song: Take No Prisoners.

I though the lyric was ‘we don’t have to associate it with whaling’.
The actual lyric is ‘we know how to and sure as shit will win’.
The band sang about plenty of environmental issues, so it kinda made sense. Just shows mum was right about not being able to hear what they were singing about!

@betty on August 12, 2011 at 9:29 am

I’m surprised no one came up with the old classic – first one I ever knew about. That is, “Mairzy Doats.” The entire jingle is one. As a kid, I heard, “Mairzy doats, and lamseydoats, and little lamsey divey. A kiddeley divey too, wouldn’t you?” It’s “Mares eat oats and lambs eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy too” and so forth.

Definitely my favorite. I read ALL of these posts and busted my gut on almost all xDD

This article if interesting. But I never mistaken any of those for anything…

My friend told me that she always thought that instead of “in excelsis deo” it was “in egg shells a day old” from the hymn “Angels We Have Heard On High.”

Police song ‘Roxanne’

Actual: I won’t share you with another boy.

Mondegreen: I was gay with another boy.

Of course, the lyric from Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light” comes to mind: “revved up like a deuce” being mistaken for “wrapped up like a douche.” I grew up wondering how my father could stand listening to a song about a used feminine hygiene product. More recently, I heard Joanna Newsom’s song “Peach, Plum, Pear,” and I was certain her line “made me bolt like a horse” was actually “made me bold like a whore.” I found my interpretation much more poignant.

My friend’s younger brother always thought that “Winchester Cathedral” was really “Winchester the Negro”. And when he tried to tell him otherwise, hgis brother defended his mondegreen by reciting the other lyrics “Winchester the Negro, you’re bringing me down, you stood and you watched as, my baby left town”.
Kinda makes sense…

Beach Boys: she’s my little doop scoop

Instead of the Carpenters singing “There’s a kind of hush”, I thought it was “There’s a tiny brush”

Carpenters: “There’s a kind of hush” was “There’s a tiny brush”

Beach Boys: “She’s my little deuce coupe” was “She’s my little doop scoop”

To: Farooq M. Hashmi on August 12, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Is ‘ mondegreen ‘ another word for ’spoonerism’?

A spoonerism is when you swap the first letters of two adjacent words by mistake.
ie. Par Cark, for Car Park, or Fog Dood, for Dog Food.
It comes from the Reverend Spooner, who was always doing it, much to the amusement of his congregation.

As a young child in the 80’s hearing the song “You spin me right round” I thought it said, “You spin me right round, baby, right round like a rabbit, baby, right round, round, round.” When my Mom heard me singing about the spinning rabbit, she laugh and told me it was a record, which I didn’t understand since we had tapes by then. Lol.

Read this in a story once:
I pledge allegiance
To the frog
Of the United States of America,
And to the wee puppets
Of witches’ hands,
One Asian
In the vestibule
With little tea and just rice for all.

Mary & Berry instead of Marion Berry

For praying NYers only:

“…and lead us not into Penn Station…”

I used to think the lyrics to the ACDC song “Dirty deeds done dirt cheap” were “dirty cheese and the dunder chief,” instead of the true lyrics “dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap.”

When I was younger, I thought “Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer was “King’s Jesters” hahaha

It is the TV commercials that get to me. I suspect part of it is because they think it will catch your attention, which it does. I could give plenty of examples. The thing is, you notice the stupidity, but not what they are advertising.

I hate the one that starts “Sandbagged and pleated” instead of “Sam begged and pleaded”. I don’t have a clue what they are selling.

My son insisted Robin Williams’ genie told Aladdin to “Wake up and smell the homeless.” Even after I introduced him to the taste of hummous.

I always thought Aerosmith was singing about “Loving la vida loca” instead of “Love in an Elevator” And who could forget that heartfelt Guns & Roses anthem “Sweet China Guy” (Sweet Child of Mine), or that famous ZZ Top “Super Dooper Sleeping Bag” (Slip inside my sleeping bag)?

Why would anyone sing about killing people?
I had this in my head as a child, when I heard the line in Jingle Bells “oh what fun it is to sing a slaying song tonight!” Since we sang the song in church where they taught us about Cain slaying Abel, and since I’d never seen a sleigh, it seemed to be the right word but with the wrong spirit.

“I pledge allegiance to Queen Fragg and her mighty state of hysteria.”- from Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Waterson

Someone asked if anyone had compiled a list of mondegreens. The answer is yes. It was a book called ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy and other misheard lyrics. One of my favorites was “Thirty thieves and a Thunder Chief” instead of “Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap” by AC/DC.

When I was very young I heard someone say, “Gesundheit” after someone else had sneezed. Having no knowledge of the existence of any language other than English, let alone understanding any, what I heard was “Kazoo type”.

Misheard- “I miss my family once again”
Correct- “I miss ol’ Bamy once again”
Misheard- “Now what I gave doesn’t bother me”
Correct- “Now Watergate doesn’t bother me”- both from Sweet Home Alabama, by Lynyrd Skynyrd

I thought “at the Casbah” was “at the Catbox” forever.

Vatican Lokey beat me to the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”’s “the girl with colitis goes by,” but I haven’t seen anyone mention Neil Diamond’s “Reverend Blue Jeans” (“forever in blue jeans”) yet. Rock critic Dave Marsh thought that “Surfin’ USA” began “If everybody had a notion” instead of “If everybody had an ocean.”

I was disappointed when I first read the lyrics sheet to the Who’s _Quadrophenia_ and discovered that the line in “5:15″ isn’t “Sadly ecstatic that their heroes are used” but rather “Sadly ecstatic that their heroes are news.” I think it’s stronger the way I first heard it, but then again I’m not Pete Townshend. Speaking of whom, @Eileen: “Let My Love Open the Door” is actually from Townshend’s solo album _Empty Glass_ and is not a Who song proper. There is a song on that album, “Gonna Get You,” that I still swear sounds like a Who outtake from _Face Dances_.

Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton re-recorded “Those Were the Days,” the theme song they sang for _All in the Family_, to more clearly enunciate the last line “Gee, our old LaSalle ran great” because viewers couldn’t understand what they were singing. Around our house, the best guess was “Gee, R. Rolla sang great.”

Am I the only person who thought the line “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air…” in the Star Spangled Banner was, “And the rocket’s red glare, Pilgrims bursting in air…”? It made sense to me, people die in war…

Cool…

So I’m interested to know if anyone interpreted the “Steve Miller Band” song “Big old airliner” as “Big old chet got a light out”? Or how about The Beach Boys “LIttle deuce coup” as “LIttle Two Scope”?

Andrew

Warning: The following are contagious. The songs will never be the same.

Joe Cocker’s elevator music:
The lift is up where we belong,
where the eagles fly on a mountain high.

Listen closely to it. It’s what Joe is really saying. Those other words are way too hard to annunciate in a song.

The classic fertilizing song:
One ton of guanna, my darling, one ton of guanna.

Admittedly it sounds slightly different from Guantanamera but at least it’s something we can understand in English. And it makes sense to a gardener.

When Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” first came out, my 4 year old niece thought the lyrics “All the sigle ladies” were actually “All the cigarrettes!” My sister and I still chuckle over it whenever we hear the song.

Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me”:
instead of “didn’t I , didn’t I , didn’t I see you crying”. My sister sang, “Tina, Tina, Tina I see you crying.” while my Mum sang: “diddle-i, diddle-i, diddle -i, see you crying.”

Transformers cartoon theme from the ’90’s. Actual words: “Transformers – robots in disguise”. 3 year old son sang ” transformers, robots and dese (these) guys.”

When I was a little kid, I was convinced for quite a while that the alphabet was recited as follows:
a b c d e f g h i j k “m&ms and peas” q r s t u v w x y and z

Thanks so much for this – rofl ! Cris – chased by an elephant ! priceless!!

diabetes has become diet bees
maple leaf – make believe
and my little sister’s: tennis racket – tennis whack-it

Bless Gilda Radner for Emily Latella’s commentaries ALL of which were based on mondegreens. “Why is everyone so concerned about America’s natural race horses?” (resources) “Why is there so much news coverage of the presidential erection?” (election)

To Farooq – a spoonerism is when the first consonant sound of two words get switched: “baking cookies” becomes “caking bookies.”

This isn’t the pledge of allegiance, because I’m Canadian, but there is a line in our national anthem that goes “We stand on guard for thee”.

Being raised in an atheist household, for years as a child I sung it as “We stand on God for thee,” and I wondered why all the Christians didn’t mind singing about us stomping on their deity.

My siblings and i have been singing, “I’m blue if I were green I would die, if I were green I would die…” for years! I realised this was incorrect this year when it came on the radio while driving with my friends. It was actually, ” Im blue daba-dee daba-da daba-dee…”

in katy perry’s “hot n cold” i thought that she said ‘yeh you be a mess like a bi**h i would know’ but she actually says ‘yeh you PMS like a bi**h i would know’

I can’t help but notice that it becomes easier to misconstrue the lyrics when the singer has an accent with which we are unfamiliar. For example, if you listen to the UK bands Elbow or Oasis, you will find that their singers’ Mancusian accents almost force you to the lyric sheet to avoid mondegreens. As I recall, it was a bit like that with the Beatles when they first became popular. Things changed, however, when the rest of the world became more accustomed to their accents.

The worst band I have heard for this problem, however, is a band from my own country. The band is Australian Crawl. While lead singer, James Reyne was reasonably well spoken, as soon as he commenced to sing, he veered between a continuous mondegreen on the one hand and complete unintelligibility on the other. The band made great music with the side effect that no matter what words you used when singing along, you were probably wrong.

PS -we should also not forget “it’s a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll.” by AC/DC, or my all-time favorite, “massage in a brothel.” by the Police.:)

“soul of Christ sanctify me” was usually mistaken when i was young as “soul of Christ sat beside me” which is a little creepy.

The first line of Desmond Dekka’s 1968 reggae hit “The Israelites” is
“Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir”
but I always heard it as
“Get up in the morning, saving for breakfast”
Actually, most of that song is hard to hear so I’m sure there are plenty of other mondegreens to be found there.

I used to think that the last line of every verse of the Twelve Days of Christmnas was ” a partly ginger pear tree.” And in a kids’ book i read about 50+ years ago called “The Feud at Fennels”, one of the boys thought there was a cross-eyed bear called Gladly (from the hymn entitled “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear”)

A girl friend sang ‘Five Foot Eleven in a pontail’ should have been Five Foot of Heaven in a pony tail!’

The Outkast song ‘Sorry Miss Jackson’ I heard it on the radio and didn’t hear the title so thought for the longest time it said

‘soft British accent, I am for real’

Poppadum peach – ‘Papa, don’t preach’, Madonna

I remember I got up in front of the class to perform the song “women in uniforms” instead I thought it was “fluffy the unicorn”
Not to similar but, close enough

My favorite: “… And lead us not into Penn station”

all the ones the songs i mauled are in my language i’m afraid. i have been laughing myself to stitches over your lyrical misdemeanours though. lol.

Growing up I thought Aretha Franklin was singing “you make me feel like I man or a woman”. I didn’t find out until I was in my twenties that it was actually “you make me feel like a natural woman”. LOL!

When I was 6 > ‘And I’ll lead them all wherever they may be, and I’ll lead them all on the dance settee’. If Jesus jumped on the sofa, why couldn’t I?

My best friend’s little brother loved the song “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga.

The correct lyrics are: “Can’t read my, can’t read my, no he can’t read my poker face.”

In his little three-year-old voice, he would proudly belt out “cherry pie, cherry pie…”

i drank a liver tea, it’s a tea that’s healthy for your liver. it consisted of dandelion roots, milk thistle seeds, yarrow – what i remember atm. it upsets me, that the author of supposedly educational article lies about it.

“Drinking Caparoni All Night Long”

instead of

“The Train Kept A-Rollin’ All Night Long” – Aerosmith

…I always wondered what Caparoni was and why I never saw it on the bar.

“two naked darn songs, whoot! whoot! whoot!” – who let the dogs out…. wooof! wooof! wooof! my son would sing this with full conviction and no apologies. (we discovered later that his hearing had been blocked by ear infection)

Aerosmith: “Do the funky lady,” instead of “Dude looks like a lady.”

My mother always used to play Simon and Garfunkel when we were kids, and my sisters and I were convinced that the chorus to “Hazy Shade of Winter” went “Look around, Lisa Brown.”

And another favorite, which I haven’t yet managed to correct in my head:
Original version: “Up from the grave he arose/ With a mighty triumph o’er his foes.”
Our version? “Up from the grave he arose/ With a mountain sitting on his toes…”

As a child, I would say, “for the witch it stands” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Songs I “mondegreened”:
“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all ICICLES in my way” (rather than “obstacles” in my way).
I thought “My Woman from Tokyo” was “My Woman is Okay-o”.
And until recently, I too thought there was “a bathroom on the right” rather than a “bad moon on the rise”.

The song “Invisible Touch” says, “She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah.” It sounds like “She seems to have an invisible tough shit.”

It’s a cheese-stick (“G6″)

There’s a Peter Gabriel song, ‘Shaking The Tree’, with some African singing in the chorus that goes “Souma Yergon, Sou Nou Yergon”. My little brother used to sing “Soup and noodles, soup and noodles, and chicken for tea”.

surprised i haven’t seen this one yet, from “Dirty Deeds” by AC/DC. “Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap” sounds like “Thirty Thieves and the Thunderchief”. like a bunch of cutpurses in a muscle car

“Her legs pread out before me”…is really “were laid spread out before me”

From Pearl Jam’s Black they were referring to photos….I still say it wrong

There is an entire music video for CCR’s have you ever seen the rain on yourtube full of these

How about “Olive, the other reindeer”, instead of “all of the other reindeer”,

or

“Mary had a little lamb, its fleas were white as snow”, instead of “its fleece was white as snow”.

I always thought AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds was Dirty Dee and the Dunder Dees when I was a kid.

The Stone’s Honky Tonk woman. The first chorus “it’s a Honky Tonk woman” sounds like it says. However, the second and third choruses sound to me like “It’s a Honky Tonk Willy”. I listen to it over and over and it still sounds like “It’s a Honky Tonk Willy”. Could it be that the Stones are having fun at our expense?

Just curious if I’m the only one who hears it like that.

In Sir Mix Alot – Baby Got Back my sister and I always thought it was
“Eewh Rumpelstiltskin!”. We later relized it was ” Ooh rub that smooth skin!”. And now I just found out it is neither, it is “Ooh rump of smooth skin!”
I have to say i like our version the best!

Pour some shook-up Ramen was from that commercial back about 10 years ago…

“We laid rubber on a Georgian Nassa…” Doesn’t make sense, but that is what it sounds like he says…how can you just make up the correct word without much worldly context at 6 years old

My dad’s convinced that “It’s rotting out my teeth” from “Geek, Stink, Breath” by Green Day is “It’s rotting out my d___” even though I showed him the lyrics from the original cassette.

This kinda stuff happens to me all the time. I’m constantly having to make up lyrics to sing along with my favorite songs. My step-dad and his daughter are poor singers when it comes to pitch, but they can hear a song one time and know all the lyrics. I sing well, but it’ll take me 10 hearings before I catch half the words. It’s interesting, I’m not sure how we can both hear the same things but I don’t understand them. Likewise, I don’t understand how they can hear the same thing and not be on pitch. I know spoken communication and sung music are controlled by different parts of the brain. People that have stopped talking in their old age have still been reported as being able to sing their old hymns or other songs from their youth. Perhaps my sister has an affinity for the concrete while I gravitate towards the abstract?

It’s not from a song, but when I was very little, I thought there was a letter in the middle of the alphabet called “elemenno.”

Also, there was a place in our house called a “living lerm.” What a “lerm” was, I didn’t know, but my 4(?)-y/o mind just accepted it as gospel, like anything I heard from adults at the time.

For some good laughs, look up misheard lyrics videos on YouTube. Some are “meh,” but some are genius, especially if you’re already familiar with the artist and the song. (Some great Dream Theater and Nightwish ones.)

Aerosmith: Sing With Me. For 20 years I thought it was “Sing Women, sing through the tears…” Only learned the real lyrics when on Military Duty in Kosovo and my team member bet me those were not the right lyrics. Sure enough “Sing with me, sing through the tears…” and then a year later when I saw Aerosmith in concert for the first time. The lyrics were up there and sure enough ” I still sange Sing Women, sing through the tears…”

Here’s one: I came home from kindergarten one day, very exicted about having learned a new song: “Little Laurie Had A Luliah.” My mother, understandably stumped, asked me to sing it. So I belted out the lyrics, to the tune of “Glory Glory Hajelluliah.” Still makes me smile …

Norah Jones’ Chasing Pirates. I sometimes hear “chasing heartache” instead.

I always thought that the chorus of The Killers’ “Somebody Told Me” went like “Somebody told me that you had a boyfriend, that looked like a girlfriend, that I had in Fairview, where he was last year.” apparently the last part actually goes :”that I had in February of last year.” I actually once made a friend through this because we had both developed the same mondegreen and had been singing it the same way for years.

Mairzee dotes
And dozy dotes
And little lamzee divey,
A kiddlee divey too,
Wooden shoe.

there was a song where one line was “it’s too late to apologize” and i thought it was “it’s too late to call the judge.”

I tohugh, when I was a child that Van Halen’s Panama was saying “Cannon Ball” during the chorus

With a burnt up shed it’s a lonely view

From Red Hot Chili Peppers, Scar Tissue:
With the bird’s I’ll share this lonely view.

Pastor Kevin blushed when my family reported that as a five-year-old, instead of singing “Heaven is a wonderful place,” I sang, “Kevin has a beautiful face.”

There’s a popular Christian group called Newsong that’s been around for a long time. One of their songs from the early 2000s is a multi-artist collaboration called “Sheltering Trees,” talking about how we all need friends to support us. The chorus goes as such:

We all need sheltering trees,
Friends who will get down on their knees
And lift us up before the King of Kings.
We all need sheltering trees.

Though my dad knew the lyrics, he at first thought they said “We all need shelter and cheese.”

in tonight i thought it was “wach out cuz im naked” idk the real lyrics

When I was a kid a I thought Old MacDonald had a helper whose name was Honest Farmey:

“Old MacDonald had a farm, e i e i o. And Honest Farmey had a cow, e i e i o…”

Somebody convince me that “Help me, Rhonda” does NOT contain the line “Since you put me down there’ve been owls pukin’ in my bed.”

in rush’s freewill i thought it was “im unfortunute thats what you mean” insted of “on a fortune hunt thats far too fleet”

When I was a kid, I thought “grilled cheese” was “girled cheese”. It never made any sense.

My dad calls peameal bacon “female bacon”.

Am I the only one who thought that Whitney Houston was telling us to “CLIMB Every Woman” (I’m Every Woman)?

Also, to “Liz Brown” and “Betty”, you ladies must be young’uns because your real lyrics are:

Mares Eat Oats and DOES Eat Oats
And Little Lambs Eat Ivy
A Kid’ll Eat Ivy, Too, Wouldn’t You?

The Far East Movement song Like a G6:

Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6

I always thought it was:

Now I’m feelin so fried like cheese sticks
Like cheese sticks, Like cheese sticks
Now I’m feelin so fried like cheese sticks

My husband always thought the Three Dog Night song Mama Told Me Not To Come was “I’m a toad in the tub”.

There’s the Til Tuesday song, “Voices Carry”, which actually sounds like “Mrs Kerry”.

Plus, does anyone recall TV from the 60’s? After the opening credits of a show, the sponsor would be announced by the words, “Brought to you by…” But, as a little kid, it always sounded like. “Brock chew bye!” I could never figure out what that meant.

The song is Decadence by the BeeGees.
The correct lyrics are “whatcha doin’ on your back”…you should be dancin’. Yeah!
I was singing “shooby-doobie pants”
Yes, I was still a young adult before my fiancee (now, wife) corrected me.
She still corrects me

This guy I knew in college always insisted that the lyrics were “Super awesome hombre” instead of “pour some sugar on me”. We all swore he had potatoes in his ears.

Bon Jovi’s shot throught the heart, I thought was Javaaaa the HUUUT, ‘cuz he’s to blame (he gives love a bad name).

I never understood why Jimmy Buffet always lamented, “I don’t know where I’m a gonna go to ball a cantaloupe.”

in the song Blow i thought it was “we get it for free, no blt” idk the real lyrics though.
ALSO
in the song Baby by Justin Beiber (yuck) i thought its was “thought you’d roll with me tonight” not “thought you would always be mine” i only listened 2 it becuz ma sister did and NO HEADPHONES, also the radio

When I was small, we had a song at church to aid the learning of the books of the New Testament in with the lyrics, “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts and the Epistle to the Romans”. I sang it, “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts and a Pistol to the Romans”, and never batted an eye. I thought it was a nod the violence of the ancient Romans.

And my personal fave from above is:
Somebody convince me that “Help me, Rhonda” does NOT contain the line “Since you put me down there’ve been owls pukin’ in my bed.”

Growing up, I used to think Bananarama’s song ‘Venus’ was something that rhymed with a male body part…..

Im your *enis, Im your fire, at your desire…..

I never understood why when it came on the radio, my mother never questioned it.

When I was in second grade I thought God was this big gray Being up in the sky, because of the lyrics we sang to “Our country ’tis of Thee… Sweet land of Liberty”. I thought it ended with “Gray God our King” instead of “Great God our King”. I always wondered why God wasn’t in color.

My mom is famous for a few:

“Spotlight” (Mute Math)– instead of “spotlight is on!’ she thought it was “Spark by desire!”

she always thought “today is your birthday” was “Tuesday is your birthday”

Then there’s my favorite, in the song, “white flag” by dido, she thought “I wont put my hands up, and surrender” was really “I will poke my eyes out, and surrender.”

I think the most famous of hers is instead of “voices carry” she thought it was “Richard Scarry”

“In holy mattress owning” instead of “holy matrimony” haahaha I love it.

The Pledge of Allegiance “…invisible, for witches’ stands, one nation…”

In “Ticket To Ride”, the Beatles sing:

“She’s got a chicken to ride, my baby donkey”

(She’s got a ticket to ride, my baby don’t care)

Youthful ears make great mondegreen fodder. My younger sister gave us several when she was a kid. My favorite of all was a full on, hip-swinging rendition with the arm up, elbow locked, and palm facing you singing “Stop in the neighborhood, before you break my heart” by the Supremes.

@Coach

“Far away, my well lit door”?

@ J in Suwanee

“One of my cousins thought “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney was “Ham on a Bun”. It actually makes some sense that way.”

You mean it isn’t “Man on the Run” ?!?! I never knew that until I read your post. Well, speaking of mondogreenes . . .

My cousin misinterpreted Lady Gaga’s song, Poker Face.
Instead of “Can’t read my, can’t read my, poker face, she’s got me like nobody”
It’s “cutie pie, cutie pie, poker face, she needs water got no water”

In Katy Perry’s song “Last Friday Night” many people mistake the line “It’s a blacked-out blur” for “It’s a black-top blur”. I really think that’s stupid.

I thought Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It” was “What’s Love Doctor Dolittle,” and the line in Kirk Franklin’s “Revolution” sounded like “All my red lobsters throw your hands up” when it actually said “All my real live saints throw your hands up.”

–A friend’s little sister thought they were “Taking Care of Midgets”, not Business.
–Nine Inch Nails “Down In It”: instead of “I was up above it” I thought he said “How is everybody?”
–When I was real young, instead of singing “forever young” I swore he was singing “For Andrea, I want to be for Andrea”

I didn’t know till I read this that Seal was Kissed by a Rose on the GRAY – I always sang “grave”! My favorite that I’ve read on here is “lovely luminous, stealthy sun, acting like poison, summer has gone” Hilarious!

I always thought on the Pledge of Allegiance ” For which it stands” for
”Wiches Stand” and for like 7 years I thought that apparently wiches had a part is US history.

In the song Are you gunna be my Girl? (I think thats the name) sang by Jet it says “Big black boots, long brown hair” well it was misinterpreted by me as: “Big black boobs, long brown hair” (I sang that song that way for a LONG time)

Anyone with a 6 year old has heard a ton of these. My favorites:

1. A “light saber” (aka Star Wars) is a “life saber” (poetic, I think).
2. “Arm pits” are “arm picks”.
3. “Butt cheeks” are “butt beeps”.
an so on and so on…

Goddess on the mountain top
Burning like a silver flame
The summit of beauty and love
And Venus was her name

She’s got it
Yeah, baby, she’s got it

My mom thought the chorus was “Cheese diet. Yeah, baby, cheese diet.
Really mom? Why would someone sing about cheese?

this word describes my life. i’m constantly messing up lyrics.

two of my best/worst mistakes have been:

“I’m a soccer ball” instead of “I’m unstoppable.”
“Why do these deer come at night” instead of “why do these tears come at night.”

Of course, once something like “mondegreen” is on your mind, you hear them everywhere. Hearing the Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?” earlier today, I remembered that for years I thought they were singing, “Gimme gimme lovin’.” And having just heard Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me with Science” made me wonder how he could do this: “I can smell mechanicals.” It’s actually, “I can smell the chemicals.”

And another one: Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” “She’s just a girl who cleans not I am the one/But the girl is not my size” instead of “She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one/But the kid is not my son.”

Pat Benatar, Hit Me With Your Best Shot- I always thought it was Hit me with your pet shark haha

My friend got the lyric from a popular song “like a G6″ confused with “like a cheese stick”. Wow. I still mock her to this day.

I’ll be there for you
Fe fi fo fum
I swear to you
If and when you breath
I’ll be the air for you
You might say,
“I’ll be there for you”

I’m looking through you
Where did you go?
I thought I knew you
Wha did I know?
You don’t look different
when your down there
I’m looking through you

And your underwear!

My husband thought the lyrics to the Marcy Playground song “Sex and Candy” was “I smell sex and candied yams” instead of “I smell sex and candy, yeah”.

The Bee Gee’s song “More Than a Woman” sounds like “Bald headed woman”.

When I was five years old I watched Disney’s Pocohontas a lot. Towards the end there’s a song about Savages. Only I thought that they were saying “sandwiches” instead of “savages”.
“They’re sandwiches, sandwiches, barely even human!”

My mother-in-law, as a child, heard the words “Cherries hurt you” in a hymn that actually said “Cherish virtue.” All the more appropriate as she was violently allergic to cherries.

For years I struggled to understand what Marc Bolan was getting at with “Metalguru, is a Jew” which eventually turned out to be Metalguru, is it you?”

I still have no idea what Chrissie Hynde is singing in “Brass in Pocket”. I even had to record it for a client once – the singer and I wrote out and recorded a ‘best guess’ phonetic version and never heard a word of complaint.

Slightly off topic, after hearing Captain Kirk state “Spock knows” in an episode of ST whenever one of our friends was suspected of exaggerating we’d all shout ‘Spock nose!’.

“cashew nut” in “Don’t tell me you’re sorry ’cause you’re not” – Rihanna’s Take A Bow

How about “She’s got a chicken to ride” instead of “She’s got a ticket to ride” from Ticket to Ride by The Beatles. That one always got me.

In Mary Poppins “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”

“Me father gave me nose a tweek until me eye was bad (and told me I was bad)”

The one that got me, and to be honest, I still have no clue what this song says, is “The Circle of Life” from “The Lion King.” My attempt: “HAAAAAAH JEE BEEN YAHH HABADIBISHDEMBABAHHH” It’s a tough one to say the least!

Back in 1998, me and a group of friends were watching the video for “Why don’t you get a job” and at one point, the character from the Pretty Fly video comes marching out, and my one friend goes, “look, it’s Wayne!” and we were all puzzled. He explained.

“Do you know Wayne? Do you know Wayne”

When the actual lyrics are

“For you no way, for you no way”

we bugged him about that for years.

For the longest I thought The Eagles song “Heartache Tonight” said
“Gonna be a ‘party tonight, a party tonight,’ I know”
Made sense to me, and makes for a happier song!

One is…The nursery rhyme About My Son John I was like 4 and grandma bounced me on one knee and sang diddle diddle dumpling “Mice on John” (she sang it fast) He went to bed with his stockings on one shoe off one shoe on.. I thought why do mice sit on John and take off their shoes

another was around 1974 with Paul Simon’s Kodoachrome (Kodak slides) I’ve Got a Nikon Camera I sang I got a knife and comb yet it made sense back when your under 10 years old

Now I know the term for it thanks for teaching me mondegreen.

@Richard Ostrofsky

Thanks for reminding me. For the longest time (and really, even now when I listen close) I am sure Alanis Morrisette is saying “The Cross-Eyed Bear that you Gave Me” Instead of “Of the cross I bear that you gave to me” in You Oughta Know.

And the Moist Song, Believe me, the lyrics are “I’ll take the note
The words that say I’m weak”, but instead of “weak” I hear the nonsense word “Wheesh” I still hear it. it drives me nuts.

And don’t forget U2’s “Where the sheets have no stains”…

It brings tears to my eyes to remember my sister who just recently passed away, but when we were little we always sang Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” as, “Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, she’s a slutty woman you will now.. oh whoa whoa..”

Our mother tried correcting us at an early age, something about Jesus, but well.. when something is funny, it’s funny (:

My younger daughter was driving, and her older sister was in the front seat with her, while I was in the back. The younger is explaining about something she saw behind her as she was driving. “… so I saw it in the review mirror…” To which I started laughing. “It’s rear-view, honey.” She turns to her sister with the kind of hiss that can only come from a girl getting back at her sister – “I TOLD YOU!”
My older daughter was blushing furiously as she sheepishly explained that she had “corrected” her sister – and non too kindly – when she was first learning to drive.

In the song “Fly Like an Eagle” my cousin used to sing “Shoot the Children with no shoes on their feet” instead of “Shoe the children . . .”

I thought the song “Stroke Me” was actually “Stunt Man”. The worse part was, one day I heard it one the radio, and I turned it up, and started singing it; I thought it was a rock and roll song to some old action movie. My mother laughed, and told me it was “Stroke me, not stunt man.” I was embarrassed for the rest of the day.

In “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, by The Beatles, the lyrics are “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes”, and I hear the medically inclined: “the girl with colitis goes by” – go listen to it!

I had my friend practice her song for talent show at my house. I heard a beautiful rendition of “If I Die Young” with a twist. “If I die young, bury me with satan, lay me down on a bed of posers, sing me at the river, with Fawn, send me away with the worms of a love song.”

Easily the best one ever is int he Metallica song enter sandman “Dreams of war, dreams of liars, dreams of fragons fire, and of baked apple pie.” witch is actually “And of things that will bite.” I have had a frined who loves the band as much as I do have to call me up and say “wait what are the real words again?”

In class, the teacher next door wanted a clock (idk y!) and they pronounced it without the “L” and the class had:
ROFL’ed
LOL’ed
LMAO’ed
(i put ‘ed’ there b’cause eg. laughed out loud-ed)

“Our class needs a spare c*ck ” rofl…

ohhh. and one time i was talking in class… (as ma normal life goes…) and the teacher caught me and said “hava try, work it out” i thought he said “hava try, Jerkertout” and i said back what JERK?

My little girl thinks that the song by The Animals – Humans, contains the line:
“Are we humans? or are we hamsters” instead of the official “Are we humans or are we dancers”
I think I like her vesrion better and it certainly has become the sung version in our house!
Love the idea of a word to describe these gentle errors in language, mondegreen will cerainly become part of our vocabulary.

When I was younger I used to think that the words for “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd was:
“We don’t need to education,
we don’t need no fault control (we don’t need to thought control)
The ducks are hazards in the bathroom (no dark sarcasm in the classroom)…”

Which I thought was quite reasonable seeing as we aren’t faulty goods and ducks WOULD be hazards in a bathroom. LOL

Upon being told that those were the wrong lyrics (and not being told the right ones) I decided that the lyrics must be:
“We don’t need no education,
we don’t need no false control
The dukes of hazard are in the bathroom…”

The sad thing is until just now when I googled the real lyrics I had no idea that my second version was wrong :S lol
I had also thought this was logical seeing as false control would be bad and the dukes of hazard would be bad to have in a school bathroom….

xD

For the longest time I thought ELO’s “eee-eeevil woman” was “med-ieval woman,” i still can’t hardly tell the difference in the chorus

this is an example of a sort of backwards mondegreen, in that the actual lyric turned out to be what i thought it was and everyone else had it wrong. it is from the cure’s pictures of you and all my pals sang “whiter than snow,” when the lyric is:

“Remembering you running soft through the night
You were bigger and brighter and wider than snow”

i always liked how this made sense to me, for, as white as snow is, it is really really wide in how it covers everything….

Glycerine by Bush ….”Don’t let the days go by…Glycerine”
I always heard “don’t let a day go by… without Listerine”

I always thought that the line, “Somebody needs to know the time / Glad that I’m here,” from “Good Morning, Good Morning” by The Beatles was “Somebody needs to know the time / Lack of time here.” I still like “lack of time here” more than “glad that I’m here.”

This one has to do with the Jamaica National Pledge, while in primary school I always think the last sentence in the pledge say “so that Jamaica may , under God, increase in beauty, fellowship and properity, and play her part in advancing the the welfare of the whole human race”. Funny enough I always say the old woman race. Now thats a mondegreen.

What do you all hear when Stevie Nicks sings ‘On the Edge of Seventeen’ ?

When she was just a young girl, my wife loved that Scorpions song “Raunchy like a hurricane”.

My favorite mondegreen is in an episode of Family Guy when Brian is asked to the prom by Meg asher last hope of getting a date, and Brian asks if he turns Meg down, would she would herself. She says “Yea!” I still don’t know if his subsequent line is “Well my answer pretty much died,” or “Well my hands are pretty much tied,” because he was laughing during the delivery. Great article! It got the brain-cogs spinning!

It was well into high school before I understood you didn’t say “blesh you” after a sneeze.

From “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by green day, I always thought the “She goes left” part was “Seagulls left” haha

Just call me angel…just brush your teeth before you leave me, angel
for …just brush my cheek before you leave me… Only recently did I figure out the words to that song. It’s better with brush your teeth, as it puts us all in a dental awareness moment.

When I was a kid I thought it was “Fallen Oaks”, instead of “Hall and Oats”.

My niece always sung the words “walk like a chip shop” instead of Walk like an Eygptian, The Bangles! But you have to be British to appreciate the Chip shop.

“mally moos and drowsy dreams” in “Out of Touch” by Hall and Oates
Still not sure what it really is…

Growing up my brothers and I always hear Cher’s “Gypsys, Tramps and Theives” as “Gypsy’s Chimpanzees”

A friend of a friend thought Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut is the Deepest” was “The First Coming of Jesus.”

My dearly departed best friend used to laugh about his ex-girlfriend’s version of “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.” They would actually get to the point of an argument! He’d say, “I’m not talkin’ ’bout movin’ in” and she would say, “NO NO! It’s ‘I’m not talkin’ ’bout millenium’.” I think she finally got it straight but it was hilarious to hear about this huge, continuing argument!

Beach Boys Kokomo : “To Martinique, that Monserrat mystique…”
it always sounded like “To Martinique, that Mountain rotten stink..”

I used to sing a line Leona lewis’s song i got you wrong i sang…

come and have a cigarette when it is actually
go ahead and say goodbye

i know it sounds weird but if you listen it’s easy to mistake

My fav is still the kid who thought God’s name was Howard…”Our Father, who is in Heaven, Howard be thy name….”

And then there was the one who thought Jesus’ second name was ‘Andy’ because of the hymn ‘In the Garden’: “Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own…”

Love all these excitement because didn’t realize mondegreen could be so much fun. Thanks….

The mother of a girl I dated in high school (the Bee Gees were big then) said one time, “I just don’t understand it. Why would they sing a song about a bald headed woman?” (more than a woman). You just can’t make this stuff up!

When my son was 4 (now 11), he was a fan of Dora the Explorer. When he saw an episode that had something to do with a cart of apples he sang out the Jimmy Eat World song ” It’s gonna take some time in a little apple ride, everything everything will be alright” REALLY it’s “It just takes some time, Little girl you’re in the middle of you’re life (ride?- conflicting lyrics sites) everything, everything will be just fine, everything everything will be alright.” We still sing it the way he used to when we catch it on the radio every now & then, just for a cute little chuckle!!

I’d like to add to the song by Steve Miller Band, Big ‘Ol Jet Airliner. We used to sing Big ‘Ol Jed and Lyonel. I always imagined two moving company guys that resembled Laurel and Hardy picking up a couch with someone still sitting on it and carrying it to their truck.

Panic! At the Disco’s “New Perspective”: he says “Stop there and let me correct it”, but I heard “Strawberry money directive”. It seems ridiculous that I thought those were the lyrics, but if you know Panic! it’s not that farfetched.

About 45 seconds into “Sway” I always heard Dean Martin clearly sing “Other dancers may pee on the floor”. When I point it out to any one who will listen, they too hear “pee” instead of “be”.

Blessed Assurance is one of my preacher’s favorite hymns (and mine). One day after church, my wife complained we sang it too much; I had to agree it got too much play. The kids (then 9 and 7) said that they understood that it is important and that Mommy had a lot of ways to get it for you, but didn’t understand why it was “blessed.” It took a while before we realized that they, being accustomed to hearing from their mother, grandfather, and uncle, all life insurance agents, talk about life insurance, thought the song was about their mother’s stock-in-trade. Now we have two full alternate verses, starting: “Blessed insurance, the policy’s mine, now I have coverage, it’s OK if i die.”

Growing up, my siblings and I thought the lyrics to George Michael’s “I Got My Mind Set On You” were “Wake Up, I Might Sit On You”.

I used to think that the chorus of “1985″ said “Waiting for Nirvana” where it said “Way before Nirvana.”
There was another one I realized just recently, but I can’t remember what song it was in…. :/

Wow, I learned something new today. I had no idea that Michael Jackson sang in “Smooth Criminal”: “Annie are you okay?” To this day, I always thought he was singing, “Annie are you walking?”

When I was a boy, I was shocked when I heard Styx’s “Mr. Roboto” on the radio. I thought they were singing, “I kill Roy.” I told my dad about this song advocating murder, and he said, “I think his name is Kilroy.” I responded, “What kind of name is that?”

When my sister was young, she asked me about Bette Midler’s song “One More Round.” She thought Midler was singing “Let the voice rats hear you” (instead of “Let the Boy Scouts hear you”). That made me laugh.

Right! It was Miss Independent

“What is the feel of taking those off?
Weekend could work to open the door
Surprise in town
To feel what’s real”

haha makes no sense, right? it’s actually:

“What is this feeling taking over?
Thinking no one could open the door
Surprise! It’s time to feel what’s real”

I was in middle school when I first heard it, and I could never really pick out the lyrics; I never really thought to look them up until recently. ^^”

Hate to be a stickler but the mondegreen of smoke on the water, fire in the sky is: slow motion walter, fire engine guy.

The other was the stones’ beast of burden’ coming off as ‘don’t want to be your pizza burning’… and I still don’t know what sarah maclachlan is singing in building a mystery when she says, ‘you stretch your ass to wear your suicide pose’

time to head to lyrics dot com.

jj

And there was this one from a Reader’s Digest joke:
A mom was listening to Scarborough Fair with her kids, and when it was over, one of them asked, “Well did he?”
The mom said, “Did who what?”
“Did Parsley save Rosemary in time?”
(“Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme”)

I always thought when I was in Elementary school in the pledge it was “And to the republic for Richard Stanz” which now I know it “And to the republic for which it stands”

I always thought that Journey’s song “Don’t Stop Believin” said “Strangers dancing” instead of “Strangers Waiting”

When my mom was little, her brother was listening to “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith. Imagine the look on her brother’s face when she asked him why Steven Tyler was singing about a “fork display”.

Our friends’ kids from Denmark were singing High School Musical 2 songs (in English). Since they spoke no English and the songs were meaningless to them anyway, they were singing along to what they thought they heard– which apparently was “Dabbywuff”, instead of “Fabulous”.

I thought it was “Send me cider and guide her” instead of “stand beside her and guide her” in the song God Bless America.

Led Zep… goin’ to California with an acorn in my heart…

I had a work mate who could not understand why “Police nabbed my dog” was followed by “I want to wish you a merry Christmas.” She said we were screwing with her when we told her it was Spanish. “Feliz Navidad” and she looked up the lyrics to prove us wrong. Ahhh yes José Feliciano became my hero from there on out.

1. I always thought the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” by the Arrows was “I Love Raw Egg Rolls.”

2. In “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” I thought he was singing, “Turn around, four-eyes.”

3. In the song “I Just Can’t Wait to be King,” (from Disney’s The Lion King) Simba sings, “I’m gonna be a mighty king, so enemies beware!” I used to sing (and admittedly sometimes still do sing), “I’m gonna be a mighty king, my enemies be bears!”

4. Also from Disney’s The Lion King, I thought “Hakuna Matata” was “How Fruity My Tatas.”

5. In Disney’s The Lion King 2, I thought Zira was singing, “It’s my little boy” in lieu of “That’s my lullaby.” Almost makes sense.

You can probably see why I’m glad the internet has song lyrics

There’s this Korean band called M Black. In the beginning of one of their videos the lead singer says “M Black” in a real breathy way and it sounds like “I’m black”. (no racsim intended )

this is my year old niece’s rendition of twinkle twinkle little star: “tinko tinko likul scar….”

It could also be ‘it all’(x3) from Adele’s Rolling in the Deep as ‘in all’.

Or ’sail away’ as sand the way or snail way and ‘deh, deh’ has ‘eh, eh’ and shrugging in Orinocco Flow (Enya).

Growing up I always thought Kenny Rogers Lucille had a verse that said 400 kids and the crops in the fields…instead what it said was 4 hungry kids..lol

I thought one of the Young Rascal’s lyrics was “You and me and Leslie” when it was “You and me endlessly.”

“Step on a grit” from DEVO’s Whip it. It should be step on a brick. From the same song there is also “Tattoo Detective” when it should be Try to detect it.

I thought in Smash Mouth’s song Rock Star he was saying “She was looking kinda dumb with her finger in her bum, and the shape of an L on her forehead.” Which I always thought was gross and didn’t make sense. One day I finally figured it out “She was looking kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead”

I used to think that the lady with Bette Davis Eyes could make a crow blush. Which would be quite a feat. Not a major mondegreen, but they played that song seventy million times in my youth, so I pictured murders and murders of blushing crows.

Let’s see, there’s CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” with some people thinking that the lyric “there’s bad moon on the rise” was “there’s bathroom on the right”.

A huge THANK YOU to the folks who posted the correct words to ‘Blinded By The Light’! For all these years, I wondered if he was really saying ‘douche’.

As a younger kid, in H.I.M.’s ‘Killing loneliness’, I’d sing ‘Memories and sharp-ass daggers/ Pierce into the flesh of today’ instead of ‘Memories, sharp as daggers/ Pierce into the flesh of today’. Heh. Good times.

“We understand it all”, said fast, “Weiner stand tall”

Read ‘em in wheat.

oh, another one i just remembered. last year at Christmas time my son (then 5) would sing the Twelve Days of Christmas. He needed help remembering 12, 11, and 10 but then he’d do the rest from memory and i thought it way too cute to correct him. amongst other things, there were 6 geese a’ playing, 5 gold and rings, 3 french hands, 2 turtle ducks, and some parts in a gingerbread tree.

In “Always” I thought he said “When it’s cold, Outsideeee, and I hear, Your nameeeee” but he really says “Am I here in Vain” LOL

I am surpsied I didn’t see this: “One ton tomato. I ate a one ton tomato” Or this: “One pound of metal. Juanita one pound of metal”. Both were meant to be this: “Guantanamera”.

Van Halen’s hit “Panama”.
Always thought they were singing “Animal! Ani-mal-al!”
Until I was corrected. lol

I was 6 yrs old and learned how to sing Yankee Doodle.
Correct lyrics are: “…And with the girls be han-dy.”
My interpretation: “and whip the girls be han-dy.”
A very confusing point in my life!

‘and the republic of Richard Stans.’ (the republic for which it stands from the pledge of allegiance)

The British band, The Who, were among the first to go beyond merely singing songs onstage. They “put on a show” which included smashing electric guitars at the end. Pete Townsend still has a guitar he calls Frankenstein, because it is made of parts of seven different smashed guitars. It didn’t take long though, to find that smashing guitars can be expensive, and there aren’t a lot of replacements. On their next tour, as part of the stage decorations, there was a huge wooden guitar. As the climax, they would release a wrecking ball, which swung across the stage and smashed some plywood.

Step forward to (Jefferson) Starship’s song, We Built This City. There’s an homage line in it which says, “Who, rides the wrecking ball into our guitar.” One lyric site translates it as, “in two fast guitars,” another one gives it as, “in two hard guitars.” In the background there is a radio DJ talking about, “Lookin’ out over the Golden Gate Bridge, and I’ve seen that bumper-to-bumper traffic.” This is listed as, “a minimum amount of traffic.”

@ Al

Re; Star Trek pledge of allegiance

Because it would be “The (common) People” who spoke the pledge, I heard it as, “E PLEB nista,” as in the Latin for common man, pleb. Plebe, plebian, plebiscite.

Back in the mid-1960s there was a song with the refrain:

Dance, dance, dance when you hear that beat
Dance, dance, dance — get up off of your feet
Dance, dance, dance — let your backbone slip
Let’s go to the place out on the Sunset Strip

I was grown before I realized what the true words were. I thought the refrain went:

Dance, dance, dance when you hear that beat
Dance, dance, dance — get a whop on your seat
Dance, dance, dance — let your backbone slip
Let’s all do the eck-ba on the Sunset Strip

I still visualize people doing a dance called the eck-ba and whopping one another on the sit-down!

Try this…
I pledge all egiance toda flagged, of United dates of America, one nation, under sod, with liver tea & just ice for all.

Smooth Criminal to a child’s mind “You’ve been hit by.. You’ve been struck by.. A smooth dinner roll!” instead of “smooth criminal.” I got it right eventually much to the amusement of my parents..

When the “Like A G6 ” song comes on, my sister sings like a “cheese stick ” haha.

I was listening to a song called “Be Thou My Vision,” and the lyric is “Riches I heed not, nor mens’ empty praise.” For a long time, I thought the lyrics were, “Riches I heed not, nor mens’ empty brains.”

A Hungarian friend of mine who was a big fan of Lenny Kravits, but not very good with English, would always sing “as long as i’m breeding” instead of “as long as i’m breathing” in the song I’ll Be Waiting… and couldn’t understand why I found it hilarious.

Summer weekends at the Jersey shore. My friends laughed as I sang Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics… dead devil in the freezer. Took they awhile to realize I was NOT singing 10th avenue freeze out Still love hearing Bruce.

An ol’ classic, “Mareze Doats and Doze Doats and little Lamze Divey, a Kidelle Divey II, Wood Nut and you?” (Mares eat oats and Doe’s eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kidd will eat ivy too…wouldn’t you?)

I remember back when it first came out and I’d never heard the song, I saw someone on a message board online post that they thought the lyrics to the chorus of Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” went, “Imma fight til we see the sudden light.” (Someone else corrected it as sunlight instead of sudden light.) I then went and listened to the sample available on iTunes, and it does sound like sudden light. Personally, I kind of like sudden light better than sunlight.

In grade school we learned the Pledge of Allegence by rote with my teacher leading a daily repeat-after-me until the class had it down. Finally one of the kids asked, “Who is Richard Stands?” Who? “You know…’ and to the Republic for Richard Stands…’! One of the original signer of the Declaration of Independence no doubt!

Curious to know what the lyrics were actually supposed to be, instead of the nonsense that my brain thought they were, I looked up the lyrics for “Enough” by a Rotterdam November. Apparently, the person who typed up the lyrics had as hard of a time as me, since they said the lyrics were “All that I wanted and all that I needed was my life, precated uniqueness.” Precated, huh? Apparently, it’s actually “you created a uniqueness”. Honestly, though, precated sounds a lot cooler.

For years my sister would sing a line in Kenny Rogers wrong. instead of ‘you picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, 4 hungry children and a crop in the fields’ she sang ‘400 children…’

there were probably a dozen others she came up with if i could only recall them all

Our particularly bland Australian national anthem has a line: “Our home is girt by sea” ie. surrounded by sea. But often misinterpreted as “Gert(rude) by sea”

Before I watched the movie with the subtitles, I thought that in Prince Caspian, during the duel between Peter and King Miraz, Miraz says “Das is eines nid espite” when really he’s saying “Does His Highness need a respite”…. I seriously thought they’d just put a bit of German in there…. rofl

HA! I can’t believe I’m not the only one (other than my mother) to hear the word douche in “Blinded By The Light,” as well as many other mistaken lyrics that I thought only my weird little brain contrived.

As a small child, I thought the line from Dion’s song “Runaround Sue” was “I keep away from a run away sewer” instead of “A-keep away from-a Runaround Sue.” If you listen to it, you’ll hear the extra syllable that he adds to the word Sue.

When I was in middle school, my friends and I noticed a girl that we knew singing “Everything Zen” by Bush out loud while listening on her cassette player (yes, I said cassette player to anyone out there born after the 80’s). She was singing the line “there’s no sex in your violence” as “there’s no sex in Nevada.” She only realized her mistake when she noticed us falling over ourselves laughing. To be fair, a lot of Bush’s lyrics seem kind of random, but we made jokes about this for years, like if there’s no sex in Nevada, why is prostitution legal there?

Also, in her defense, I thought a different lyric from the song was “Trust you with my wife,” but in reality it’s “Try to see it once my way.” I still hear my version when that song plays…

My mom at age 3 asked her dad what a rancer do was. He asked her to use it in a sentence. She said it was in a song, “Daisy, Daisy, give me your rancer do.” (answer do)

My 3y/o Stepdaughter use to sing “there’s a man on the rug” for the song “Band on the Run.”

Until I could easily check lyrics on the internet, I was mystified why “Heart of Glass” by Blondie would include a line like, “…riding high on love’s true jewish light…”

As anyone else can probably tell, the words are “… riding high on love’s true bluish light…”

@ Izzi’s mum

I have heard another interpretation of the lyric in the song “Human” by the Killers. Instead of “Are we human or are we dancers?” I have heard some say the line is “Are we human or are we denser?”

It actually makes some philisophical sense that way.

For a long time I thought the Gin Blossoms song “Hey Jealousy” said “Hey Chelsea.” And I don’t think I’m the only one!

Also, who knows if it’s a joke or not, I heard of someone thinking the Elvis Costello song “Oliver’s Army” said “I’ll Have a Lasagna”

In my early childhood, the Rogers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific” was headlining Broadway, famous in particular for the non-operatic singing of bass Ezio Pinza. His show-stopping number was the classic, “Some Enchanted Evening.”

I distinctly remember one of my childhood playmates thought the song title was “Sam and Janet Evening.” sort of like a married couple, like Ozzie and Harriet, or Lucy and Dezi.

Apparently, it did not matter what the rest of the lyrics were. It made sufficient sense that way.The idea of UNmarried couples never occurred to us.

TLC “Waterfalls” …as a little kid I always sang, “Don’t go Jason Waterfalls” instead of “Don’t go CHASING waterfalls!”

I once made a mistake thinking that an amy winehouse song went: “they tried to make me go to rehab”. which is ironic cos thats where she should have been.

Coach: The line from Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” the line is “far away my well-lit door Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly.” Not “Far away my welly blew up”

I used to think “your to blame” in Bon Jovi’s Shot Through The Heart was “your to late” still makes sense though.

Now I feel weird that I don’t mishear lyrics like this…very interesting word to know, though!

IN a favorate couple have a secreat signal their personal life in talk a group friends a little man asked some question ,that couple remember their secreat signal,that situation under standing only that couple, see in to eyes and lough no one understanding, that calds>>>>>>>>

dogs say goodnight (Dark Sacred Nights), in Louis Armstrong’s interpretation of “What A Wonderful World”.

In the middle of Madonna’s Like a Prayer, one of my mates used to sing “level crossing” at the top of his voice, just as Madonna was actually singing “let the choir sing”.
Despite us insisting that there was no logical reason for the phrase level crossing to crop up at that point in the song ( or any other song ever written since the dawn of time for that matter ) he was absolutely convinvced this was the lyric !
Takes all sorts I guess………………………………

Sofa King, as in “He’s Sofa King awesome!”

KD (Kati) Lang – Constance Gravy instead of Constant Craving.

Irene Kara’s “Flashdance”: “Take your passion and make it happen.” I thought it was “Take your pants down and make it happen.” I was in sixth grade, in my defense.

(lyrics by Katherine Lee Bates;
music composed by Samuel A. Ward —
more history on the poem and music)
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to Chinese sea!

Well, this article really hit home for me. I have CAPD – Central Auditory Processing Disorder, so what might be an unusual event for most folks – mondergreens – is an every day occurrence for me. I am constantly deciphering what people are saying, sometimes with unexpected results. For instance, I was donating blood for the Red Cross earlier this week. I thought the interviewer, who had just confirmed my name, was now asked me for my email address “what is your email?” He was actually asking “have you always been female?”. The look on his face when I started rattling off my email was enough to tell me I’d misinterpreted the question. Another time, I was in Philly walking to work early and the street was faily empty. A guy accosted me, saying (or so I thought at first” if I “had the time of day”. I realized my error when he repeated the question – which to do with getting laid – not the time of day. I sidestepped away from him and managed to get to work safely. And like some others, I thought the commercial for “secret agent man” sounded like “secret asian man”.

Man, I don’t even know where to start! I’m deaf in one ear, and am ALWAYS mishearing what people say. It got so bad that my coworkers made up a twitter account (www.twitter.com/whatmeganheard) and started recording what people actually said vs. what I heard. lol Songs? Forget it! Hot Chocolate’s “I Believe in Miracles” was, until recently, “I believe in Malcolm”, The Temptations’ “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” was “Sugar Pie Honey Butt”, and so many more…

My grandfather convinced my 12 year old cousin that the Star Spangled Banner was actually about a boy who couldn’t afford Yankees tickets. He climbed a tree to watch the game, and they sang to him, “Jose, can you see?” She believed him (because Grandpa is always right) and the next day, she tried to convince her classmates and teacher at school that they’d been wrong all along.

My college roommate thought the correct lyrics to “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette were “It’s not fair to deny me this *cross-eyed bear* that you’ve given me.” She explained that it was a gift he won her at the carnival and wanted to take back. (It’s “cross I bear.”)

Instead of: I pledge allegiance to the flag

- I lead the pigeons to the flag

My nephew, Bill, thought the words of a song were “let’s lock the door and throw away the kitty now and was very upset!” It should be “let’s lock the door and throw away the key now.” Jay and the Americans of course! Margaret b2da

“Huh mosh a kuh” for “I’m all shook up.”

For those of you old enough to remember Herman’s Hermits’ song ‘Silhouettes’, there’s a line that says ‘Let me in or else I’ll beat down your door’, which sounded like ‘Let me in or else I’ll pee down your door’.

When I listened to Lady GaGa’s “Love Game” I thought for weeks she was singing “Domino game” after the chorus but what was actually said was “Doin’ the love game.” My cousin looked at me like I was stupid when we were singing it in the car, never knew why until about a week later when I learned the real lyrics.

I attempted to transcribe Boston’s “Don’t Look Back” many years ago. No matter how many times I listened to the first line of the second verse, I could only get “It’s a blind hard fazo” out of it. A while later, I finally saw the lyrics were “It’a a bright horizon” I probably could have listened to it a hundred more times and not gotten that!

To this day, I get the last two lines of the first verse of Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart” mixed up…”Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowin’, I took a wrong turn and just kept going” For some reason, I always sing “Like a river that don’t know where it’s going, I took a wrong turn and just kept flowin’” which could make sense…

A great recent source of mondegreens is CeeLo Green’s “Forget You” I can only imagine how many people have misinterpreted “She’s a X-Box and I’m Atari” into all sort of perverted things (sexbot, sexpot, etc…)

It’s great that we have lyrics.com and sites like it to keep up honest and settle those bar bets!

I read a LOT of these and didn’t see it mentioned that a commercial a few years back worked in a mondegreen on purpose, when two guys confuse Rock the Casbah with Lock the cash-box.

I also had a problem with Lucy in Disguise with diamonds and Elton John’s ‘I hope you don’t mind if I put down the words’ instead of put down ‘in’ words….

Johnny Rivers secret “asian” man.
And lead in song for Shawn Hannity’s radio show…Let freedom ring, let the “white girl sing”.

And, of course, The Israelites by Desmond Deckker & the Aces, which is one long string on mondegreens from end to end:

Het up in the morning
Staying in bed, son
So that every mouse can be bled
Oooh, oooh, MY EARS ARE ALIGHT!

I think, actually, Maxell tapes made and advert based on that.

For the longest time, I thought Van Halen’s song “Panama” was about “Marilyn Monroe”. Then one day one of my highschool teachers mentioned the coincidence that the song, while being about a car of the same name, was actually once used for sonic warfare in Panama.

I’m also a victim of Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady”. I originally thought it was “Do the Leggy Lady”, some kind of dance move perhaps. I only recently learned that the song is actually about a transvestite. Every one of my friends was similarly duped and just as surprised when I revealed the truth.

Eiffel 65’s song “Blue” was also a trip-up for me and my friends back in junior high. We spent a week arguing over what was being said during the chorus – the most popular theory was “I’m blue, if I was green I would die”. When we finally looked at the lyrics, we were sad to discover they were simply “I’m blue, daba-dee daba-dye”.

I always thought it was “oh what fun it is to ride in a one more sopen sleigh” instead of “in a one horse open sleigh”. I ALWAYS wondered what the heck a “sopen” was. LOL

Sade’s song, “You give (uh), you give me a Swedish tattoo.”

When I was younger, I heard part of an Elvis song in a movie. When he said “We can’t go on together”, I thought it was “We’ll bash two gnomes together”.

Simon & Garfunkel’s I Am a Rock: “I’ve been waltzed (I’ve built walls) in fortress deep and mighty / that none may penetrate / I have no need of friendship / friendship causes pain / it’s laughter and it’s nothing like its name (it’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain)…”

When my son was little he told me he learned to say the thing about the witch and the bucket: “and to the bucket for witch it stands….”

My favorite intended mondegreen is Boynton’s Hippo Birdies Two Ewes.
Anyone need a translation? Happy Birthday two you.

My favorite intended mondegreen is from Boynton, the cartoonist.
Hippo Birdies Two Ewes. Is a translation necessary? Happy Birthday to you.

LOL… i am actually Laughing Out Loud as I read some of these….. they are hilarious… and I must admit, I am guilty of using some of these same mondegreens!!

When I was a beginning reader–preschooler–I often took rides with my aunt & uncle down I-75 to my grandmother’s farm in Kentucky. My uncle, as I now understand, had kidney stones and needed to ‘relieve himself’ frequently. In those days–nearly 50 years ago–before 24-hour restaurants, gas stations at every exit, etc., sometimes we had to make a quick stop so my uncle could dash behind a clump of trees and ‘take care of business.’

Well, I was quite proud of my emerging reading skills when I realized that there were signs on the interstate designed specifically to help a person with this issue! How thoughtful the ‘highway makers’ were to have those large, yellow, reflecting signs that read “P*ss With Care,” and “Do Not P*ss” prominently placed for every driver and passenger to see!!!

LOL…. I’m sooooo glad I never shared that with my elders until I was old enough not to be punished for saying those words!!!

From Breathe’s “Hands to Heaven[Sweet Caress]” –

When we were little, my brother and I thought the lyrics was “who will eat my sandwich?” not “you relive my sadness.”

Chorus:

Tonight, I need your sweet caress
Hold me in the darkness
Tonight, you calm my restlessness
You relieve my sadness

When I was a kid, I thought the lyrics to Irene Cara’s song “What a Feeling” from the movie Flashdance were “Take your pants down and make it happen” instead of “Take your passion and make it happen”… I was maybe 5, I didn’t know any better!

Also,

I haven’t seen it yet but what about Blue Oyster Cult… I don’t know if it’s supposed to be:
“Pulling muscles from a shell”
or
“Pulling muscles for Michelle”

A friend of mine used to think Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” sounded like “Paying the rent collect.”

In Metallica’s song, “Frayed End’s of Sanity” there’s a line that correctly says, “fighting the fear of fear” and it sounds like “buying a Miller beer.”

In high school we had to sing “When They Saw the Star” in chorus; the boys always sang the line “one bright day I saw in rich array” as “one bright day I saw Rachel Ray.” Every time.

And Barbara Streisand’s song “People” always sounded like “people who eat people are the hungriest people in the world.” The “no more hunger and thirst” line was extra convincing.

My mom, until we got some sheet music for the Pocahontas song Colors of the Wind, thought that we were asking the spinning bobcat why he spins. The real lyrics are “or ask the grinning bobcat why he grins.”

CCR Keep on Choogling- “Keep on chewin, if you don’t know, you are not a man”

The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever- ” Strawberry Fields for Rabbits”

Morrissey Wide to Recieve- “Why, Why, Why Whine to receive”

Bobberan by the Beach Boys. Bob, bob, bob, bob-bobberan. Took forever to figure out it was Barbara Ann.

Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin is a favorite in our house. The song came on the radio and my kids were singing along. When it got to “knocking on heaven’s door”, my 4 year old daughter looked at her older brother and stated, “It’s Kevin’s door, duh! Heaven has a gate.” Now whenever we hear it we end up laughing.

Oops! Wrong song! Should be Guns N’ Roses Knocking on Heaven’s Door. I’m terrible at remembering songs and bands!

I had a much older 1/2 sister named Shirley. We memorized the 23rd Psalm in Grade 3 and I was well into my 20s before I realized it was not “Shirley, goodness and mercy” that would follow me all the days of my life

‘Overheard@ at funerals: in the name of the father, and the son, and INTO THE HOLE ‘E GOES…

From Some Enchanted Evening (South Pacific):
Who can explain it
Who can tell you why
Fools give you reasons
WHITE MEN NEVER CRY (Wise men never try)

Oh dear – I have so many. The ones I can think of:

EmilyFrances, I thought it was “The dark’s a chasm in the classroom” up until I read your post re Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall.

A childhood friend always sang “Take your pants down and make it happen” instead “Take your passion and make it happen”. (Irene Cara’s Flashdance/What A Feeling)

I thought the Go-Go’s “Our lips are sealed” was “Honest I feel ya”.

From REM’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It: “a tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies” was “turn ‘em in ‘n turn ‘em in ‘n turn ‘em into flies.”

My family uses mondegreens all the time. Just the other day, my mom misheard “bomb patrol” as “boob patrol.” She also misheard the commercial in which they say, “We take Garlique every day” as “we take our leak every day.” She quickly figured out her mistake, but it’s still a running joke in my family.

When I was a child, I thought Journey’s “Open Arms” was “Agatha.” And my sister thought that when they said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Elton John” in the middle of one of his songs, that they were saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end of the song.” For years, she was confused about why they said that halfway through the song!

When I was 8 years old WWII was in its first year. My family always went to church. There is a prayer or something that everyone would say out loud together called the Apostles Creed where Jesus went through all these problems and that goes in one part that he “suffered under Pontius Pilate” (the Roman Emperor – Pontius is pronounced “ponshus”)

Well with the war going on strong, and lots of warplanes, I was apparently influenced pretty much because I always said it “suffered unconcious pilot”
and I clearly remember that I would actually visualize Jesus with his long hair and his halo, slumped in the cockpit of a crashed and burning plane and I always wondered how he got out in time to be crucified later. I sure was dumb at age 8!

I thought the line in Kokomo by The Beach Boys “that Montserrat mystique” was “your mom’s a rotten stink!”

To Rick:
“Honors fleises
Income beezez,.
Inches nobsis
Inob keezez.”

This is my phonetic transcription. I’m sure there’s a more accurate one somewhere. Anyone else remember this movie?

Yes! “Murder, He Says” starring Fred MacMurray! I saw it once on TV as a child and loved it! Have always wanted to see it again

Carol King–Winter spring summer or fall.All you have to do is play football
Cher– cheap cheap Tramps and queens

My uncle is 69 years old. Until about 3 years ago, he thought “Big Girls Don’t Cry” was “Big Girl, Small Fry.” We all had a good laugh when we heard him singing along to the song

Games Without Frontiers by Peter Gabriel

The lyric repeated at the beginning and end is “Jeux Sans Frontieres,” which is French for “Games Without Frontiers.”

I thought it was “She’s so funky, Yeah!”

Continuing the Beatles theme, I could never make sense of”take the back right turn!” It made more sense as written by Lennon & McCartney: Paperback Writer!!!

My brother and sister jumped all over me when I sang the lines from The Beatles’ “Penny Lane” that go:

“He likes to keep his fire engine clean
It’s a clean machine” as

“He likes to keep his fire engine clean
With a Gleam Machine”.

I still like my version better.

Also, for years and years I thought the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann” was about a guy named “Bob Barant”:

“Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob Bob Barant…”

Caramelldansen misheard lyrics. ’nuff said. ;3

And in the song “Love You Like a Lovesong” by Selena Gomez and the Scene I keep hearing/singing “A centerfold miracle, lyrical” as “A sinful miracle, lyrical.”

And when I went to listen to “Poor Unfortunate Souls” on Youtube, I noticed a lot of people misheard when Ursula sings “They come flocking to me crying” as “They come f******* to me crying” in the song… And I occasionally heard it like that after that… heh. xD;

If i were green, i would die
if i were green i would die
correct:
da bu dee, da bu da
da bu dee da bu da
{Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65}

…and my classic favourite from childhood. this is from sesame street: “who are the people in your neeboro, in your neeboro, in your nee-bo-ro…” instead of who are the people in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood, in your neigh-bour-hood…

moi cousin got a wee jobbie at some place in town where they were using

magic counting boxes [ I think they are called computers] for some thing or

terother……

for a couple of weeks , he would tell me he was working at the Nerd

centre….figures , don’t it….

Tiff Wimberly on August 12, 2011 at 8:30 am
“Bingo Jed had a light on” instead of “Big ‘Ol Jet Airliner” from the The Steve Miller Band song. – I had a friend who thought it was, “Bingo shed had its light on”.

One thing is certain, rock n roll lyrics are fertile ground for the ol’ Men on the Green.

@ Mike

Pulling mussels from a shell.

I used to sing and at the same time wonder what “up above the verse of sky” meant in the nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ! …..may be the lack of effort from my side..but I found out that its actually “up above the world so high” only in my high school!!!..sad but true….anyways I am happy to learn that it has a name and I love it..”Mondegreen!!!”

One that I remember fondly is from, of all things, “Deck the Halls.” I always thought the line “donning now our gay apparel” was “dawning now our day of peril.” I often wondered why this was a Christmas song.

Two examples that work in German only (sorry, guys):

“I got the power” (Snap) -> “Agathe Bauer”
“All the leaves are brown” (California dreaming) -> “Anneliese Braun”

And one of my favorites in English:

“Give me hope, Joanna” (Eddy Grant) -> “Give me dope, Joanna”

Mondegreen. I didn’t know that word existed to describe what many people may experience. My personal blunder is expressed below.

Rihanna: “Horse play”

It should be, in fact it is! “What’s my name?”

I “corrected” my fiance (who has waaaay better hearing than I do) that it is in fact the mondegreen.

Cheers,

Daniel

Not a song but along the same lines……..

There’s a story that went around where I work that one of our secretaries misheard some dictation. Instead of typing ‘ipso facto’ she typed ‘if so, fatso….’ and then spent the rest of the afternoon wondering why we were calling one of our valued customers ‘fatso’.

“Just speed it” instead of “Just beat it” (Michael Jackson)

Can’t remember what the song was called but the lyrics go “I’m blue, double dee double die”. I always thought it was “I’m blue, in Aberdeen I will die.”

I heard about a little girl who drew a Christmas manger scene. She included an unexplained chubby man in her picture.. When asked who that was, the child replied “Round John Virgin”.

de
dana
dan

How about in Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven,
“And every wino down the road” instead of “and as we wind on down the road”?

@Mike – ‘pulling mussels from a shell’ is by Squeeze, not Blue Oyster Cult

In “You and Whose Army?” by Radiohead, I thought the “we ride tonight” part was “we want to know”. But I guess Radiohead songs are prime mondegreen territory, right? xD

A lot of lyric sites have the “there there” part of “There There” (also by Radiohead) down as “thin air”

“I Was Barney Rubble” instead of “I Was Born a Rebel” by Tom Petty

Rolling Stones “Beast of Burden” sounds like “pizza burning”

My six-year-old is great for these:

Lyrics for Blake Shelton’s ‘She wouldn’t be gone’ read:
“Now I’m cursin’ like a fool,
Prayin’ it ain’t too late,
All I wanna do is fix my mistakes.”
He replaces “Mistakes” with “Mustang.”

Zac Brown Band’s ‘Toes’:
He sings, “Got my toes in the water, ANTS in the sand,” which, for those of you that know the song, is preferable to hear from a child… By now we’re pretty sure he knows the ‘correct’ lyric, but continues to sing it his way to avoid trouble…

“you’d say anything to a butterfly” instead of “You’d say anything to avoid a fight” (Huey lewis)

“Hungrey Thighs” instead of “Hungrey Eyes”

and my fave

“Believe in a worm.” instead of “Evil Woman.” (ELO)

Ain’t no woman like the one I got ===> Ain’t no woman like the one-eyed Gott.

….I thought, for almost a year, that Eric Clapton’s was singing “Captain Midnight” instead of “After Midnight.”

The Radio stations “The River” and “Classic Rewind” had these things that said, “The good thing about classic rock is that you know all the words:” And then had some hilarious mondegreens:
“I’ve got a slack-jacket (black-magic) woman”
“You’re like a canary in a coma(coal mine)”
“I want to rock and roll all night and part of (party) every day)

Then they say: “Well, most of them anyway”

“……..in the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is PARSE and brown.” Never knew what a PARSE was until my wife explained what made so much more sense….
“…….and pretend that he is PARSON Brown”

I hate it when that happens.

Boyz II Men – On Bended Knee

I was singing “Stomp on your fingers, the baby so mean” for at least 14 years. lol!!

The correct lyric is “Stop pointing fingers, the blame is on me”

i have sooo many of these..

me: im blue i was beat i must die i was beat i must die i was beat i must die
real: im blue da ba dee da ba die da ba dee da ba die
me: im leavin Wendy im Pitter Pan knowin jesus way things i couldnt do before i jumpinthepan cuz im leavin ears a Pitter Pan
real: im leavin here a better man knowin you this way things i couldnt do before now i know i can and im leavin here a better man
me: so test all of your boys and hollywood girls will you dance on your feet and hold on with your claws
real: so testosterone boys and harlequin girls will you dance to this beat and hold a lover close
me: and they came with bears gifts of old common sense and furs
real: and they came bearing gifts of gold frankinsense and mhyrr
me: frosty the snowman jolly pappy soul ..mm.. popcorn and a button….(mumbling)…. FROOOSTY snowmannn!!!!!
real: frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul. with a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal
me: our father has art in heaven halloween be thynam.. king dumb, COME!!! Willby DONE!!!!!! erf as inside of kevin. give a day of hairy bread and forgive pet Travis as we give those a pet Travis against us. Lead us not into menstruation, but liver us in evil. ah, men
real: our father who art in heaven, halo’ed be thy name. thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. amen.
me:

My sister used to think the words to Shania Twain’s song Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? was “whose bed have your boobs been under?”

Just remembered another… so the nickelback song “savin’ me” came on the radio one day and my mom was sure that on the part that said “I’m fallin, I’m fallin” they were actually singing “I’m farting, I’m farting.” Yeah mom, they would definitely be singing about that!

I assume that mondegreen would also mean blooper/s?

@ Evan

I think it’s “Don we now, our gay apparel.”

Childern are great for mondegreens:

As a child, I remeber ordering Sunday dinner for myself and with great pride I requested a chicken fried “snake” instead of “stake.” The family stills jokes about it!

Oh, and as kids, a friend’s brother wished her a “happy dirt day!”

I misheard a lot of the Beach Boys’ lyrics when I was five years old. This one’s my favorite:

Bop her head
She thinks I’m dead
Bop her head
You’ve got me rockin’ and a-rollin’
Rockin’ and a-reelin’
Bop her head, Bop, Bop,
Bop, Bop her head.

(Should be:
“Barbara Ann
Take my hand
Barbara Ann
You’ve got me rockin’ and a-rollin’
Rockin’ and a-reelin’
Barbara Ann, Ba, Ba
Ba, Barbara Ann.”)

I have two. When I was a child my mom would have me and my brother recite The Lord’s Prayer. I thought “hallow it be thy name” was “Halloween thy name”. There was also…”Now I lay me down to sleep”. For some reason to me, it always sounded like. “Now-a-late me”…

@ Cofused

It’s hallowed, not haloed

@ Confused

It’s not cofused…but it wasn’t proofread either.

My own contribution to the WWM (Wonderful World of Mondegreens) comes from the 60s rock and roll song “Love Potion Number Nine.” I always heard the lyric as

I took my troubles down to Madam Rue
You know, the gypsy with the polecat stew.

It wasn’t until I actually saw the lyrics printed out a couple of years ago that I realized the lady in question was Madam Ruth, who had a “gold-capped tooth.” I kind of like the mondegreen version just as well. Polecat stew sounds interesting.

In the song “Loser” by Beck, the Spanish phrase “Soy un perdedor” means “I’m a loser” but it sounds like “Soil on a cabinet door.” Credit to my friend Alex for offering me this as a possible lyric to this confusing song.

Neal Sadaka’s “Laughter in the Rain” was popular when my son was very young. He thought the line “Ooo, I hear laughter in the rain” was “Who are you after in the rain” I had him listen very carefully, but he could never be disuaded.

Oh, that’s funny! I’m glad to know there’s actually a word for this! Everybody is applying it to misheard lyrics, but in my family this happens alllll the time in normal conversation. lol

Is there a word to describe when you blend words together (“tricopterous” – some kind of blend between triceratops and rhinocerous or something…?) or when kids can’t say words properly (my nephew used to call his trampoline the “pantrolie”)?

My favourite above is “raisins doubt their place in biscuits”…

My bother thought the “light from above” in God Bless America was “light from a bug.”

My babysitter had to correct me when I was a little girl. I thought The Archie’s sang, “Sugar, oh honey, honey, you are my camping girl and I can’t stop wanting you..’ I’d much rather be a CAMPING girl than a candy girl any day.

I always thought that Barbara Ann was : “Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob Moran.” I wondered why a man wanted Bob Moran to take his hand.

Also, When Tom Jones sang, Guatanerumera, I thought he was saying, One Ton Tomato, I Ate a One Ton Tomato. I wondered how someone would be able to eat a one ton tomato, and even still why they would be able to sing about it!

In the “All in the Family” , I thought they sang, “O the way that Miller (Glen Miller) played, songs that made the hit parade” , and “Jee our ole Lasalle ra grate” (our old LaSalle ran great) What is la grate, and how does a Lasalle do it? LOL And Archie came up with some great malapropisms! Hilarious! Just like my Dad!

Went to a dance
Lookin’ for romance
Saw Bobarantz
So I thought I’d take a chance

My dad has the best ones (he can’t understand the lyrics to any song):

In Rod Stewart’s “We’re Having a Party”, “on the radio” became “on the alley-o”. In Guy Sebastian’s “Who’s That Girl”, “walking in the club” became “walking the kerb”. And, my personal favourite, is The Pussycat Doll’s “When I Grow Up”: “be careful what you wish for ’cause YOU’RE JUST LIKE JANET!” (just might get it).

People at my school sing this:

“Australia all let us ring joyce, for she is young and free”

instead of “Australia all let us rejoice, for we are young and free”

makes me laugh every time

When I was little, I took Spanish at my elementary school from a woman from Argentina. We sang Feliz Navidad with her, and she always sang “from the button of my heart”.
Another one was I misheard “is that the man I once adored”…I thought it was “is that the man I want, some doard”. I simply figured that a doard was a stupid jerky kind of guy.
And in the Nicene Creed, I always used to say “one holy and athostolic church” instead of “Apostolic church”…I only found that out like a year ago…pretty depressing for a lifelong Catholic.

” I pled a leader 2 da new ninety stays of America” for the opening line of the “Pledge of Allegiance”, instead of “I pledge allegiance to the United States of America”…

My kid used to say I want some “funky fry shitken” instead of “Kentucky Fried Chicken”

My friend’s little sister used to say “Olives are seals” instead “our lips are sealed”
And when i was little i thought the line “right about now, the funk soul brother” was “right down now, the funk is so rubber”

In “Across the Universe” when John Lennon sang “Jai guru deva” I thought he was singing about a guy named Jackaroo Dave.

My friend used to say “Entire State Building” for the Empire State Bldg!

I used to think in the song “Groovin’ that he was singing “You and me and Leslie”
(Instead of you and me endlessly)

It took my father many years to find out what he thought were Chester Draws were actually a “chest of drawers.”

Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys was always “Bomb Iran”
…I think the Ayatollah Khomeini was unpopular at that time and we were hearing a lot about issues in Iran.

I always thought a lyric in the Nirvana song “About A Girl” said ‘I’m taking Benadryl’ when in actually said ‘I’ll take advantage while’. And the Oasis song “Wonderwall” lyric ‘Backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out’ said ‘Might be, the weather’s on the street, there’s a fire in your Auntie’s house’. As well with the Bikini Kill song “Feels Blind” lyric ‘We eat your hate like love, we eat your hate like love’ said ‘We eat your hate like blood, we eat your like blood’.

My mom once turned off the radio in horror when she thought she heard Rod Stewart sing “all you did was “wet” my bed”

hmmmm… what where was mom’s mind?

The song with the lyrics, “I believe in miracles, you sexy thing…” I thought they were singing, “I believe in milk-o, you sexy thing…” LOL

My brother thought Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” said “Eddie are you walk jay, are you walk jay Eddie?” Which led to years of “Are you guys walk jay back there?”

I pleasure legions, to the flag of the ninety stays of America.

And to the public, for riches dance, one asian, under cod, with liver tea and just this for all.

Now put down your chairs and I want no talking.

When I was 5-6 when the original Mighty Morphing Power Rangers came out; my my brother and I thought that theme song went like this “Coco Power Rangers………..CoCo Power Rangers”

instead of ” GO GO Power Rangers……………GO GO Power Rangers”
we didnt realize that until umm….when the Samurai Rangers come out again this year right? hahahahaha

The band Radio Birdman is named after a misheard lyric by the Stooges. It’s actually “radio burnin’”

[...] we use today: ampersand. When a word comes about from a mistaken pronunciation, it’s called a mondegreen. Find out why [...]

For a long time, I thought Kenny Rogers was singing –

It’s a fine time to leave me, Lucille, “four hundred children” and a crop in the field.

Eventually I realized it was “four hungry children”.

Love mondegreens. Some great ones here, like “and to the republic for Richard Stands” — Hilarious!

For thirty years I thought the Beatles song ‘Penny Lane’ was ‘And Elaine’ until I recited my version to a music store salesperson in front of a line of waiting customers. Several of those customers were injured from lack of oxygen as they struggled to breathe while laughing – for this I am truly sorry.

Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.

I would hate for a wonderful mondegreen to get out there in the universe incorrectly, so I feel compelled to correct someone’s comment above about Mairzy Doats, &c…The words to that cute little song are “Mares eat oats, and ‘DOES’ eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy, too; wouldn’t you?” “Does” as in “Doe, a deer, a female deer.”, not “lambs eat oats.” Thanks to my dearly departed mother for teaching me that. Thanks to the person who thought of it, too. An excellent mondegreen. To the person who thougt of this, I’m sorry. You probably just forgot the proper lyrics, and when you read this you’ll be saying… “Oh, yah!” The mondegreen now stands corrected as “Mairzydoats and dozydoats and lidelamsydivy, a kidlidivy too, wouldn’t you?” It’s so much fun to say when you know what it is supposed to be, don’t you agree?

Every time I listen to “Crash” by Gwen Stefani, I hear “Drive back, baby, to me, fast in your car. I’m here waiting. Crash! And do me real hard”, while the actual lyrics go “Drive back, baby, to me, fast in your car. I’m here waiting, crash into me real hard.”

I could read these all day! I love mondegreens!

Some of my favorites:

My college roommate thought Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” was “Hot Slup Got to do with it.” When I asked her what the hell she thought “hot slup” was, she said she imagined it to be similar to porridge or Cream of Wheat.

My 4 yr niece came home from Bible school singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Barbie tells me so.” She didn’t know what a Bible was. Mwahahaha!

I used to sing Roger Miller’s King of The Road, “I’m a man of means, by gummy!” (I’m a man of means, by no means)

I thought John Fogerty’s Centerfield lyric was “Put me in cold” meaning to me that he had never played before. (Put me in, coach)

When my kids were little, they sang Jackson Five’s I Want You Back with “Oh, baby, I was born in Mexico!” (Oh, baby, I was blind to let you go!)

And don’t forget the Rascals’ classic from Groovin’ “Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Lesley”!!! (you and me endlessly)

I thought in Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Starting Something” when they say “you’re the best of both” that they were saying “you’re a vegetable.” lolz

I distinctly remember in elementary saying, “For Richard stands,” instead of, “For which it stands,” during the Pledge of Allegiance.

I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way.
I have a cousin that said it a little different, “I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I can see all oxes and cows in my way!!!”

I have a thing for mondagreens.( and now I actually know what it’s called!) especially in song lyrics… and I have this habit of singing the wrong lyrics, even though I know they are wrong, just because I think it’s funny. One good example, is The only song I like by Fallout boy ” This ain’t a scene, it’s an arms race” There is a video of the “misheard lyrics” on you tube somewhere… but I only sing the wrong lyrics, becuase they are waaay better. ” I’m a little man/ and I’m also evil/ also into cats/ also into caaaaaaats.”

@Norm on August 14, 2011 at 3:37 pm

Congratulations

My name is Hooben…Do you know what a “Hoobenism” is?
(I also coined a word.)

A hoobenism is when you can say something that is grammatically correct but impossible to write grammatically correct. There’s lots of them but the one I most often use for an example is: (now don’t forget this is grammatically incorrect)

“There are three two’s in the English language.”
—————————————————————-
Yes, that can be a complication, can’t it?

As a teacher, I would probably turn the whole thing around a little in order to make it clearer: “There are three words in English that are spoken or pronounced like the word “to.” It’s certainly longer than your “three two’s.”
—————————————-
Which other examples have you come across? I guess it occurs most frequently with homonyms, but have you come across other types of examples?

My principal used to always tell us the story of how, when she was little, she’d go to church and sing hymns about “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.” That is, until she realized that the song actually said “Gladly the cross I’d bare.”

When I was a kid, I misinterpreted the following line from the holiday favorite, “Winter Wonderland”:

Real lyric: Later on, we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire
My mondagreen: Later on, we’ll PERSPIRE, as we dream by the fire

It made perfect sense to me…that fire must have felt quite hot.

some fantastic examples here (as well as some unbelievable mis-hearings ). One perhaps reverse mondegreen that I’m surprised to find missing is “Isle of view”, the name of an album by the Pretenders.

It was a long time after listening to the album before I tried saying it out loud

me: Are you ready?

her: I’m Russian, I’m Russian!

me: You should be Finnish by now!

This happens often with young children as was the case when my sons were toddlers. I overheard my oldest son explain to his brother, “Tomorrow is a holiday called Happy St. Pat Sajak’s Day, and if you don’t wear green, I can pinch you.” This was after having watched Wheel of Fortune at his grandma’s house.

I used to mistake the lyric “gave proof through the night” in the Star Spangled Banner for “Babe Ruth through the night”

I thought “Life in the fast lane” was “Life in the Bat Plane.”

I used to think the line in jingle bells was “a one horsopenslay”

When I was younger, I thought the lyric for ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ was “the girl with colitis go by” instead of the correct “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes”.

This always happens to me! The first time I heard the song “Pretty Girls” by Iyaz, I wasn’t really listening to the lyrics and thought it said “Gotta do the white boy jump, do the white boy jump.” The next time I heard it I was singing “gotta do the white boy jump,” and it sounded stupid so I listened to the lyrics and it turned out he said “Trying to pick the right one, trying to pick the right one.” LOL

My aunt informed me after regaining her breath from laughing at me that Carly Simon was not singing about “the wife of the postman” in “You’re So Vain.” I still think it makes as much sense as “wife of a close friend.”

Also, I was always confused by Weezer singing “Beverly Hills, rolling like a silver grenade”

“Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea / and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah-lee…”
As a kid I heard “auto-mist” and assumed it was a poetic way of saying car exhaust. Poor Jackie Paper!

in Asleep by the Smiths “there must be” definitely = masturbate. My sister and I certainly thought so.

It took me 20 years before I admitted to mine – You Sexy Thing. I could never quite figure out who Malcolm was and why the Hot Chocolates believed in him so much.

In my head: “I believe in Malcolm. Where you from, you sexy thing.”
The lyrics: “I believe in miracles. Where you from, you sexy thing,”

Really makes just sooooo much more sense.

When I was in high school, I had the stereo turned up real loud when my dad came home from work. He asked my brother, “What’s all that noise?” My brother replied, “That’s Aerosmith, dad” to which my dad asked, “Harold Smith? Who’s Harold Smith?” My brother corrected, “No, its Aerosmith.” By then, my dad was exasperated and said, “Well I don’t care who it is, tell him to turn it down.” This is the same man who couldn’t understand why CCR would make a song about a “baboon on the right.”

I know this a few weeks later, Rick, but the “Honors flieses” song is from a 1945 Fred MacMurray film called “Murder, He Says.”

The “translation” is:
“on a horse are flies, in a comb are bees, on a chest is a knob, in the knob is a key.”

Kanye West – Gold digger
Jamie Foxx’s bit

She gives me money
When I’m in need
I gotta Wii
(Personally I prefer the PS3)

Check it out – http://youtu.be/6vwNcNOTVzY

Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. I always thought it said, “can you help me, I thought you were my friend,” when it actually says, “can you help me, I thought you were my brain.” I like mine better. Also, The Beatles, “she’s got a ticket to ride,” I always thought it said, “she’s got a chicken to ride,” very disappointed when I figured that out.

My girlfriend in highschool thought Huey Lewis and the News (this tells you when I was in high school) were singing “The heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland” (instead of “still beatin’ “). Which it may be, for all I know.

Classic Simpsons moment ^^^

My favorite is Stewie’s solo line in the theme song to “Family Guy:”
(this is how I hear it; sing along if you know it!)

Lois: It seems today, That all you see,
Is violence in movies, and sex on T.V.

Peter: But where are those good old fashion values….

All: On which we used to rely?!
Lucky there’s a family guy!

Lucky there’s a man who,
positively can do, all the things that make us…

Stewie: effin’ cry!

All: He’s a Fam-ily Guy!

According to official written lyrics,
Stewie supposedly sings “laugh and cry!”

But I don’t think I’m hearing it wrong…what do you think?

LMAO – oh my god, haven’t laughed this much in a long time. Thanks all you guys and the original writer… must bookmark!!!

When I was a little girl, my dad was a big gum chewer. He would say he wanted some chewing gum; only I would hear it as “chwingum”, and for years, I thought that’s what it was called! LOL

I thought the words to a song were “I see the stars today” instead of “our school will shine today”….

Like that song ‘All I need is a Miracle’ which can easily be misheard as “All I need is a beer or two…” Seemed appropriate.

My daughter had to do a class assignment naming the Presidents in her first grade class. She gave Abraham Lincoln the name “April Ham Linken”. Too funny!!!

When my son was 4 yrs. old, he would sing (at the top of his lungs) “Take it to the lemon one more time”, by The Eagles.

In my household growing up, my parents referred to a bureau as a “chest of drawers.” Maybe it was their West Texas pronunciation that had me thinking (until second grade, or so) that it was a “Chester Drawers.”
Also– my (much) older brother loved Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and played it incessantly. I always heard Chuck telling a Big Toe Man to roll over.

I always wonderd who John Virgin was and why he was gatherd around the baby Jesus with the shepherds and wise men. Untill i fond out the lyrics were “Round yon virgin, Mother and child” not “Round John Virgin”

I crack up everytime i hear Beast of Burden by the stones….
“I’ll never be your Beast of Burden”
“I’ll never be your pizza burning”

Our auditory senses do have a strange and strong effect on our comprehension. I was reminded of an excellent example by this article, though it may be a bit old. I used to own the album Led Zeppelin IV on 33rpm, and the rumor was always that there were satanic lyrics if you hooked up the motor backwards on the turntable. I found a website with several recordings, played forward and backwards, so you can judge for yourself. The most revealing for me is to listen to the backwards version first, and write down the words you hear. Then read the supposed ‘lyrics’. I was convinced the backwards ‘lyrics’ given were accurate, though they differed quite a bit from what I wrote down! If you like understanding things about yourself, try this!
The site is: http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking/index.html

“…for witches stand…”

The Elephant and Castle would have been the homophone of Infanta of Castile, Eleanor of Castile and Leon who married Edward I of England.

Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots spoke of the Eagles’ “Life in the Fast Lane” on a Chicago Radio Show. He said when the song said “life in the fast lane…” as a kid, he heard “Flys in the vasoline…” that later became lyrics in STP’s “Vasoline”. Cool…

In the Pledge of Allegiance some children say ” … to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for Richard Stands …” instead of “for which it stands.”

When taking medical histories, I’ve heard patients who claim to have had “Smilin’ Mighty Jesus” instead of Spinal Meningitis. Additionally, a number of women who claim to suffer from “Fireballs of the Eucharist,” instead of the more commonplace fibroids of the uterus.

lol this is funny!

for the longest time I love the band “Mario Speedwagon” only to find out they are called “R.E.O. Speedwagon”…..go figure!

“Hey Nineteen” by Steely Dan

INCORRECT:
That queer old goat?
That’s fine Cole Umbrian
Make tonight a wonderful Keema

CORRECT:
The Cuervo Gold
The fine Colombian
Make tonight a wonderful thing

My mother and I thought the some dude named Cole was preparing and serving an Indian dish of Mutton Keema. The idea it was about 2 people getting wasted together never occurred to us.

Even after reading the lyrics off the vinyl LP cover it didn’t make complete sense. I caught the reference to alcohol. She caught the reference to cocaine. We each had to explain part of it to the other.

When I was a kid, on our island, Bob Marley’s songs played alot and I’d sing along to the top of my voice. My favorite was “I don’t wanna wait in vain for your love”. I’d sing “I don’t wanna wedding ring for your love”. Yikes!

When I was little and sang in my church choir, we had to sing a song called “I Heard the Lord Call My Name.” The real lyrics were “I felt his love, from above, settle on me like a dove. Take HIs hand, we are glory bound”. For some reason our choir teacher thought it would be good enough if us kids listened to the adult choir and learned the song by ear. For the longest time all I sang was “I felt his love, from above, send salami like a dove. Take His hand, we are Glory Mom.”

@ Liz Brown

I never understood those words when my aunt sang them to me, and I always thought it was a nonsense song. I always heard, “Marsy-dotes and dozey-dotes and little lambzy-divey, I kiddley-divey too, wouldn’t you?”

@ betty

LOL! I heard the exact same thing! I always thought it was a nonsense song until I was a teenager and heard my aunt singing the song to my toddler cousin.

As for the Pledge of Allegiance, does anyone remember the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin is reciting, “I pledge allegiance to Queen Fragg, and to her mighty states of hysteria” ?

When I was a child, I though my friend’s older brother had, “sixty-five roses” instead of cystic fibrosis.

what about the song ‘cold cold hearts, hard done by you’. for 7 years i kept singing it as cocohaha… hudumba you….. how dumb was i?

“stand beside us, and guide us, through the night, with a light from a bulb.”

I think butterflies used to be called flutter-bys; which makes more sense.

Someone asked about “spoonerism” & “mondegreen.” No, they are not the same. A spoonerism is an error in production. No one who says “at the lop of your tongues” really believes this to be the “correct form” of “at the top of you lungs.” Likewise, we quickly realize that we should have said “baby sitter” when someone catches us saying “saby bitter.” Spoonerism are speech errors, often involving the swap of initial consonant sounds, but sometimes involving other kinds of sound swapping.

Mondegreens have nothing to do with production and everything to do with perception (though the misperceptions are sometimes reproduced later).

It seems people sometimes “fake” spoonerisms for fun. There was a comedy recording once based on the story of Cinderella (who was referred to as Rinder Cella) that was full of made up spoonerisms — like “a linding blash of flight” for “a blinding flash of light” and “sisty uglers” for “ugly sisters.” The second one is particularly interesting for what does (and does not) get swapped around.

I cracked up when a friend of mine started complaining when a certain Bananarama song came on the radio. “I hate this song,” he said. “What the hell does that even mean, ‘I’m your fetus’?”

I’m no better, though. My brother gave me a mix CD, and what I thought was a song about a robot (“One ton of metal. For he is one ton of metal. One ton of metal…” &c) turned out to not even be in English.

And finally, I really enjoy Dave Matthews Band, own all their studio albums and a number of their live recordings, and have even gone to a couple of their concerts. And yet, I don’t think there’s a single song of theirs that I know all the words to.

I don’t think this has been offered yet…

“Stop driving my… Stop driving my… Stop driving my CAR around!”

(Stop Dragging My Heart Around)
Tom Petty & Stevie Nicks

One more…

“Chopper Roll”

Actually it’s “China Grove” by the Doobie Bros.

I guess the Doobie had something to do with this one.

I used to think Madonna was singing “Cheerio” in “Material Girl.”

After listening to a sound recording of the musical ‘Fiddler on a Roof’ my son asked me if that guy Muttle was strong. When I told him he wasn’t my son then asked, “so how come they keep saying he is Muscle Tough?” …Mazel Tov.

“Last night I dreamt of some bagels” misheard from Madonna’s La Isla Bonita. “Last night I dreamt of San Pedro” is correct. This became a running joke with some friends in high school.

A friend of mine thought the expression was, “it’s a doggy dog world.” Weirdly, I recently saw this joke used in a movie, but my friend actually thought that for her entire childhood.

four candles (fork handles) – Two Ronnies

A friend of mine’s wife thought Madonna was singing,”Just like a person”. She also thought the song went,”last one off the bus” instead of another one bites the dust. Poor Otis Redding was,”sitting on the dog of the bay”, guess it was really poor dog!

When my daughter was small and we sang “when the roll is called up yonder”, she alwasys sang “when the rollies crawl up yonder:” She was referring to the little bugs that roll up into a ball.

Kenny Rogers Lucille

For a very long time, I couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t put some of the 400 children to work and where he got them.

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille
With 4 hungry children and a crop in the field

In Junior High, my teacher always talked about Donkey Ho Te, imagine my surprise when it was Don Quixote!

Black Sabbath “I tell you to end your life” is really “I tell you to enjoy life”.

When I was younger, I remember singing along to Mustang Sally by Los Lobos. My dad walked into the room and starting laughing as I sang, “Mustang Salad, / Guess you better slow your Mustang down. / Mustang Salad, my baby, / Guess you better slow your Mustang down. / You been a runnin’ all over the town now, / Guess I’ll have to put your flat feet on the ground. / All you wanna do is a ride around, Salad (RIDE SALAD RIDE) ”

Nevertheless, to this day, I still can’t hear the word Sally in that song. It’s always been Salad for me.

I still sing The Doors’ Riders on the Storm:
…like a dog without a bone, like an actor on the phone…
Actually, it works just as well as the original lyric.

there’s a line in – The Bangles – eternal flame – that goes…’life so lonely and then you come and ease the pain ‘ …i used to sing ‘ rice-o-roni’ instead of life so lonely

This is an old one from when I was a kid, my sister & I came up with this when we were around 8 & 12, respectively. The Madonna song ‘La Isla Bonita’ starts of with a line like ‘Last night I dreamt of San Pedro’ – we always thought it was ‘last night I ate me a bagel’. Still makes me laugh.

[...] The word “ampersand” came many years later when “&” was actually part of the English alphabet. In the early 1800s, school children reciting their ABCs concluded the alphabet with the &. It would have been confusing to say “X, Y, Z, and.” Rather, the students said, “and per se and.” “Per se” means “by itself,” so the students were essentially saying, “X, Y, Z, and by itself and.” Over time, “and per se and” was slurred together into the word we use today:ampersand. When a word comes about from a mistaken pronunciation, it’s called a mondegreen. Find out why here. [...]

Australian politicians (MPs Members of Parliament) in Parliament:

“Speaking as a country member,…”
(“Yeah, we remember…”)

There’s a song in Cinderella called ‘Sing, sweet nightingale’, that my 5-year old sang as “Sing, sweet night in jail.”

My oldest son, when he was about twelve, used to sing, “GMC trucks and fees for Cher’s “Gypsies, tramps and theives.” We still sing it that way–and so many others I recognize from the posts! His older sister sang “Red, red, white” for UB40’s “Red, red, wine.” My husband, though, is the reigning king of mondogreens– You name it and he’s misunderstood it!

Michael Jackson’s Ease on Down the Road, it says “Don’t you give up walking cause you gave up shoes,” and until RIGHT NOW when I looked it up, I thought it was “walking like a gay masseuse.” Oooops…

I saw it above, but my daughters interpretation of “Shot through the heart” by Bon Jovi was ‘Chocolate Heart’! She thought it was about Valentines Day!

I think is a little better an makes more sense “Just is” Than “Just us”

How about Celine Dion in the theme song from Titanic?
Since I first head it this way, I always now substitue “and the hot dogs go on” for “and the heard does go on”.

sorry, that was a typo: the hot dogs go on instead of the heart does go on.

in the song LIGHTERS (cover by Jason Chen, Matty B, et al.)

…is a scuffle of lighters

which is supposed to : is a sky full of lighters

My brother was at work and one of his coworkers said, “We have enough money, I think we can make it” my brother heard, “We have enough money, let’s get naked.” another time I was talking to my sister and said, “but still though!” my mom heard, “but d*ldo” yeah, my family has lots of those… lol and I remember when I was little and was watching “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” I would always sing the theme song as “Sh***y Sh***y bang bang”

Frank D Felker on August 12, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Not: “Mares-e-dotz and doz-e-dotz and little lams-e-divy, skiddle-e-divy doo, wouldn’t you?”
Is: “Mares eat oats and Does eat oats and little Lambs eat ivy, Kids will eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”

Uhm, so, thank you for pointing that out- I didn’t know. I’m feeling rather dumb at the moment, because I always thought it was:
“Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. Ah skiddle-e-divee doo, wood-ah-neuw.”

My niece once sang, instead of “i’m a little butterfly”, “ang galing kong pumatay.” This is a Filipino way of saying “I’m good at killing.” To think that mondegreens could also jump from one language to another is just amazing.

ABC’s 1987 song – ‘When Smoky sings, I here violins’
me ‘when smoke is sent, i hear violence.

LittleKuriboh, the man responsible for the creation of YuGiOh! Abridged, once wrote an extended mondegreen of the original YuGiOh opening and credits songs, with such immortal lines as “Come to Iowa” and “Jim Carrey’s from Canada! (Oh?)” and substituted them for the songs’ subtitles in “The Other Abridged Movie.”

we as muslims around the world can write lyrics out of languages mondegreen especially English through asorted media . I believe these days English people started to figure out them & it’s about to disappear slighty . You can hardly find it which reflects how amazing they are

The old joke about the child that thought the son of God’s name was Andy. When asked why he though so, he said it was in one of their hymns: And he walks with me and he talks with me…

I always thought in Linkin Park’s song Valentines Day it said “A black winter queue away” instead of “A black wind took you away”. I feel rather stupid right now.

I thought “can’t read my, can’t read my…” from Lady Gaga’s Poker Face was “carry my, carry my”

My niece used to sing The Vengboys – Going to Ibiza as, Hey, we’re going to eat pizza.
Me and a friend of mine used to belt out an Ash song as, ‘Eggnog with the cold wind blowing.’ Quelle suprise to find out it was ‘at night with the cold wind blowing’!!

There’re whole websites dedicated to english-spoken songs that cause mondegreens in spanish… Examples:

In Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean, the verse “BUT THE KID IS NOT MY SON” sounds a lot like “Tu quieres una manzana” (you want an apple)

In Earth Wind and Fire’s Devotion, the verse “FROM THE FRUIT OF EVIL” sounds almost like “Toma tu sopita” (take your little soup)

And on and on…

I used to think the B.J. Thomas lyrics were” even the bathtub was better than no love”, instead of “even the bad love was better than no love”.

In 1984, one of my rustic classmates was certain that Billy Idol wasn’t singing about “Eyes without a Face” but instead was pleading “How’s about a date?”.

Rick on August 13, 2011 at 6:57 am
“Honors fleises = ON HORSE FLYS IS
Income beezez,. = IN COMB BEES IS
Inches nobsis = ON CHEST KNOB IS
Inob keezez.” = IN KNOB KEYS IS

This is my phonetic transcription. I’m sure there’s a more accurate one somewhere. Anyone else remember this movie? GLAD YOU ASKED. ~~~~ TETO~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hotel California by the Eagles

There were horses wearing corduroy, thought I heard them neigh…

and it should be There were voices down the corridor, thought I heard them say

I thought that in Coldplay’s song Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall they said “And kids these days, or kids all night” I didn’t realize I was wrong until I looked up the lyrics online and realized it was “And all the kids they dance, all the kids all night”

I also thought in Muse’s song Hysteria it said “Its bugging near, crawling in, and twisting inside out” instead of its “its bugging me, grating me, and twisting me around”

I thought I was the only one who misheard lyrics, lol
I always thought the pussy cat dolls when I grow up wnegt like:
“I ain’t complaining
Who don’t wanna be famous

when in fact it is “We all wanna be famous”

Also the simple plan song “Can’t keep my hands off you”
I thought they said: Cuz honestly or under the covers…. Of course that didnt make sense, then I went to look up the lyrics and they say “Cuz on the street or under the covers…

My sons name is Chad and I still think in the Michael Jackson song it says “Chad is not my son.” Instead of what they tell me it says “the kid (or boy) is not my son”
Tell me they’re wrong and I’m right.

I used to think the line “one horse open sleigh” in “Jingle Bells” was “one or soap in sleigh”.

Also, in “I am a child of God” (LDS Primary song), the line is “lead me, guide me, walk beside me”. I thought it said “lead me, guide me, rock beside me”.

In the same song, I thought “and so my needs are great” was actually “and so my knees are great”.

More recently, in “As long as you’re mine” from “Wicked”, I thought Fiyero was saying “it somethin’ I felt”. Later I found out he was saying “it’s up that I fell”.

my niece whrn she was about 5 years old, whenever she wanted to go to “Burger King” she allways said “Apookining”

You know that song by System Of A Down? The one about sending only poor into the war… I think it’s called… Oh yea! It’s B.Y.O.B. I always through one part meant:
Pigs in the pickle trough oooooooo LALALALAAAAAAAAA (that deep voice for the lalalaaaaa)
Creepy, huh?

eye of the tiger by survivor, is it thrill of the fight or cream of he fight

“the Boony Earl O’Moray”? You surely mean “the bonnie Earl o’ Moray”!

sjx, I hope you were joking, but it’s the first one.

The Adolescents song “Amoeba” has the word “amoeba” repeated by a group of voices, and it sounds like they are repeating “Tony Hawk”.

my son thought Boney M’s “Run, run Rasputin..” was “Run, run rescue team”!

I for the longest time though the first line in Grateful Dead’s song Bertha was “I had a hard on” when in actuality it is “I had a hard run”

Hello there, I discovered your website via Google at the same time as searching for a related topic, your website got here up, it seems good. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.

Eric Clapton, Cocaine. “She don’t like, she don’t like, she don’t like – cooking”

“It’s not my style…” from a Rooster song I forget now…but I remember a friend thinking it was “It’s not nostalgia.”

Manfred Mann and the Earth Band, too! But I heard:
“Blinded by the light
wrapped up like a douce…”
and never understood what that was supposed to mean, until seeing the actual lyrics:
[Blinded by the light
revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night}

sorry,
“wrapped up like a douche”…

I thought that song “Dirty Deeds” by AC/DC went
“Dirty deeds and a dander cheep.”
I had to ask I was so confused.
Apparently it is “Dirty deeds and they’re damn dirt cheap.”
Pff, close enough.

OK, with my hearing defects, and not quite understanding lyrics, I have made some ‘Al Yankovich’ type re dos of some songs.

One my ex husband used to laugh silly over was when I told him what one line in a song sounded like to ME…

the line in the late Jeff Healey song ‘King of Wishful Thinking’ that goes…

…I’ll get over you I know I will
I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking
Hmmm….well that last came across to my hearing as
‘I’ll pretend my $#i!$ not stinking’

Sorry, just my wonky-since-childhood hearing, and add my wonky sense of humor~!

I notice when I’m listening to a song I’ve heard since childhood that all of a sudden I hear the right words I’ve been saying wrong the whole time.
For example I never knew why “Vince you’re a highway” from the America song “Ventura Highway” when their talking about a guy named Joe.

Or the argument my family had over “Chuckies in love” or “Chuck E.’s in love”

My 6 year old son sang “she’s a fax machine” instead of “she’s a fast machine” in the AC/DC song “Shook me all night long.”

in foster the people’s pumped up kicks
I thought it was ” all the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
you better run better run out run my girl,
all the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
you better run better run faster then my brother”
but really its:
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Reminds me of those two songs I thought they said the F word in when I was in elementary. One I just heard today. XD “Play the funky music”
I used to think he said, “Play the f-ing music!”
There was another one, but I forgot how it went. Something about a parking lot.

in the song eye of the tiger “i love the tiger”

I used to think Lady Gaga was singing “Pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump up the bass,” and only after I figured out the title “poker Face” did I understand the lyrics… But most songs have the bass pumped up, no treble anymore!

SnmnC:

I love that song its so cool!! I saw somewhere that the song was inspired by a shooting on mall property a long time ago or something but when i tried to look it up i couldn’t find the origin on the song but the shooter’s name was Robert so thats why the song says “Robert’s got a quick hand, he’s looking ’round the room won’t tell you his plan he’s got a rolled cigarette…hanging out his mouth he’s a cowboy kid” I thought that first verse was pretty good for Foster the People

another one for “our lips are sealed”– “olives are peeled”! That’s what my mom used to think.
also, back when my little brother was young and innocent (ha) he thought that “when you’re going through hell” by rodney atkins was “when you’re going through hail” and he couldn’t understand why you couldn’t just bring an umbrella or why the devil would care if you’re there, anyway.

So what would you consider an modegreen that was done intentional? I see the one above was called a “pseudo-mondegreen” but what about something like what Lil Wayne does, for example

“For 8 1/2 months I gave Ms. Cita Pain”
-This is meant to be interpreted two ways, one, he gave his mom (Ms. Cita) pain during her pregnancy with him and two, he gave his “seat” to Pain as in T-Pain, since T-Pain was the popular Hip Hop artist prior to Lil Wayne’s album release for about 8 1/2 months.
-Also there’s “Flow (floor) so nice you ain’t gotta put a rug on her.” and “All about my dough (door) but I don’t even check the peephole.” I wouldn’t call those double entendre’s because it’s an intentional mispronunciation of a word so that it is the colloquial version of one word, and the slang version of another, dough meaning money, and flow meaning cadence and/or rhyming technique.

Btw with the the mondegreen in the first quote is From “Misunderstood” by Lil Wayne:

“For 8 1/2 months I gave Ms. Cita (my seat to) Pain.”

In the song “Take It Easy,” written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey and made famous as performed by the Eagles:

“It’s a girl, my Lord,
In a flat-bed, bored,
slowin’ down to take a look at me…”

No… it’s “a flat-bed FORD, slowin’ down to take a look at me.”

It made sense to me that she would slow down, suddenly interested to see one of the Eagles standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. (The Eagles seemed more like Chevy folks–like Don McLean, I guess. And, hey, how many mondegreens did we hear in “American Pie”?)

I just learned correct lyrics to “Take It Easy” THIS YEAR after nearly forty years; it was issued in 1972.

I have so many… I have two intentional ones: instead of singing Queen’s song “Under Pressure”, I sing “Under Prussia”, and my brother and I like to sing “you spin me right ’round, baby right ’round, like an oyster”. I’m not sure how we came up with that.

As for my mistakes, I still think “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles sounds like “It’s Puppy-Love”. And I was extremely embarrassed when I discovered that the line from Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” is “promise me I’m never gonna find you begging” and not “promise me I’m never gonna find you’re bacon.”

Er, “your bacon”. Sorry.

I was unfortunate enough to hear Mark Lowry’s spoof “My Face in this World.” Before I heard the other (Um… famous Christian singer whose name escapes me) “My Place in this World.” I’m physically (or mentally?) incapable of hearing the proper lyrics now.

I also went through kindergarden wondering why there were two ‘M’s in the alphabet.

Picture or pitcher it sounds the same.

ok this was probably already posted but the Killers song Human

I always believed it was
“Are we human? Or are we denser?”
It makes more sense as that as in are we denser than human? As in are we something more?

But it can also be
“Are we human? Or are we dancer?”
It makes sense as well but not grammatically. It could be asking if we are following the steps set out for us like a dancer. Mindlessly doing what we are told.

Another one is the Disturbed song Fear.
Sounds like
“Hero naked”
is really
“Fear awakened”

Also at the end of all the “I don’t wanna be” it sounds like “I don’t wanna be in this, you know”
is really
“I don’t wanna be innocent”

When I was little, if never understood that I was blessing someone. Whenever someonen sneezed, I would say “pless you”

@ onecheer:
Thank you for telling me that! I never could figure what that line from “Across the Universe” was (thought it was something along the lines of “you may glimpse undying love”)

Anybody know what all they lyrics to that song are? Especially the part that sounds like “jai guru deva om” or “shai curu deva om”. I know that part isn’t English, because I’ve read the lyrics somewhere before, but I can’t remember what they are…

WHAT IZ EVERY ONE THING TO DO ?

There are so many (that I can’t think of at the moment)!

Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”:
Mine: “skips time for a little while”
Actually: “escape this town for a little while”
(a lame one, not as funny as some people’s)

Also, there’s this song called “Chicarron, Macarron” (I think–don’t know who it’s by) it’s really funny! look it up! the only 2 distinguishable words are chicarron, macarron–the rest is just a bunch of mumbling!

I always thought the song, “Another one bites the dust”, was, “another one rides the bus”. I don’t know if the song’s actually called that LOL! My mom always thought “Fat Bottom Girls” was “black bottom girls,”. Unfortunately, it’s EXTREMELY racist…;P

Even in church, I was confused… “Christ is risen” oops, I thought it was “Christ’s in prison!” Yeah…goofy children, huh? And I thought that the lyrics, “a light(maybe lamp) unto my path(maybe bed)” was “and a bozz unto my bed
Wow, it is ridiculous
Oh, and I’ve got a twitter account, so, follow me!
is my profile page

:0, can’t stop laughing seeing comments top to down. Since English is not my mother language, any lyrics are misinterpreted ’till I heard it thousand times…

lol

even when i read through this article, I sing…. shout to the heart..’ how embarrassing

@dame…i love that song i sing that in the shower and my mom tell me to shut the frunt door if you know what i mean r we alod to cuse on here ?:)

In Melissa Etheridge’s ‘I Want to Come Over,’ when she says ‘I want to come over- to hell with the consequence’ I always thought it was to hell with the CONCERT PLANS-’ like the were in a fight and she just wanted to come over and be together instead of going to the concert like they had planned…

I thought the Bee Gees were singing “Bald headed woman to me, bald headed woman..” instead of “more than a woman to me, more than a woman.” Seriously the next time you hear this song you are going to hear bald headed woman! LOL..

How about Mariah Carey’s “I Can’t Live”???…Instead of “I can’t live, if living is without you…”, a Hungarian Idol auditioner sung “Ken Lee, tulivodivo doucho…”…Search the keyword “ken lee” on youtube…Great page anyways…Big UP!!!…

This might sound weird, but in the song “Operation Ground and Pound” by Dragonforce, it really sounds like: “Victory” and not the real “Live Tonight”. It seems impossible to get these two phrases messed up, but if you listen to the song you’ll understand.

In “Still Alive,” the song at the end of Portal, “anyway this cake is great” sounds like “many wages came too late” or “many wages came to great.”

Remember “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown?” My dear wife wondered until recently why he stored dried fruit in his loafers, having always heard the line “…he got a .32 gun in his pocket for fun / he got a razor in his shoe…” as saying, “…he got a raisin in his shoe…”

The song “Mr. Mom” by some person (whose name has escaped me for some reason) always sounded like “Mr. Mong” when I was little. I had no idea what the song was about (about a stay at home dad…not some random asian man…”

In the well known Australian song Waltzing Matilda
the swagman’s name is Andy.
“Andy (and he) sang, Andy he watched, Andy
waited ’til his Billy boiled”

There is a railway station in Sydney in rhe
suburb of Tempe.
It is mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer.
“Deliver us not into Tempe station

Gods name is Howard.
Our father wh art in heaven
Howard be thy name…

Our parents are country music fans, so my sister and I had some interesting versions of old country songs: First it was Glen Campbell’s “Round Stout Cowboy,” also known as “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Then there was “Johnny make my Brown Eyes Blue” (Don’t it Make my Brown Eyes Blue,” and my personal favorite, from Kenny Rogers “Lucille”: “You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille; four hundred children and a cop in the field!” (four hungry children and a crop in the field.) Our step-mom always says that she would have left 396 kids ago.

when i listen to sonngs i dont always understand the words and just sing what i hear, this is a great word to know!!

When I was in elementary school reciting the Pledge of Allegence, I always thought it was: ‘…and to the republic, for witches stand…’

lol.

My dad always teased me about being musically challenged. So, when we would sing Jesus loves me, ‘this I know,’ I just figured that ‘thisino’ was one of those complicated music terms I didn’t understand.

These are all so funny. I have had tears running down my face laughing so hard at some of these. Especially the Beatles song “Michelle”. I almost fell off my chair laughing so hard!!!

My brother’s name is Jeff and since we were children, at Christmas, I always sang “Jeff’s nuts roasting on an open fire” instead of “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”. There were issues between us as children as you can well imagine. Nowadays “Jeff’s Nuts” is a Christmas standard for all of us.

Another Christmas song mondegreen is Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer “he’ll go down in his story” instead of “he’ll go down in history”.

One of my friends in high school (almost 40 years ago) used to sing the dance song “Do the Hustle” as “Eat a Hotdog”. We didnt see it, but she was sure she was right until we proved it to her.

And back to the Christmas theme, this past holiday season there was a cell phone commercial that used “Walking in a 4G Wonderland” as its song, which is a play on “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”. The first time we saw/heard the commercial we thought they were saying “walking in an orgy wonderland”!!!

There’s a song I used to hear on a rock radio station a lot that I thought went “oh hey the low can I…(da da da da)-ify…take my heart oh oh oh”

Still don’t know what that song was or what the words really are. Sounds kind of creepy, actually.

I thought the star spangled banner went like:
oh say can you sea
by the donserly light
what so proudly we mailed
by the twilight’s last gleaning
whose broad stripes and bright stars
through the pair on us flight
over the ram parts we watched
were so gull and lee screaming
and the rockets red blair
the bombs bursting in air
gave poof to the knight
that our flag was still there
oh say does that star spangle
banner yet weave
over the land of the free
and the home of the brave

yes, that is “donserly”. I thought it was a description.

My friend thought Phil Collins sang “Stranger’s lightening” instead of “strangers like me” from Tarzan.

When I was fifteen, song by the Hollies the lyrics were -All I need is the air that I breathe, yes to love you. I dated a guy named Pierre.
My mother heard me singing the song one day and thought I was saying, “All I need is Pierre that breathe yes I love you.
Needless to say, she was not happy with what she thought I was saying.

In one episode of Casey Jones, some bad guys captured the train and decared that they’d got “ready-made hostages on board”. I was young, and got quite jeaous that they’d got ready-made sausages…

Ha, this one was my favorite when I was in middle school: “This Guy is falling! This Guy is falling!”

I thought “God shed his grace on me” was “God shed his brains on me” for a very long time… I kid you not. :/

Another hymn: My brother and I always thought “bringing in the sheaves” was “bringing in the sheep.” But Betty’s “Mairzy Doats” lyrics above, that’s a classic; I bet that’s one of the most common modegreens there is. It’s certainly what I thought I heard

I hope this isn’t a repeat; I read as many of the above as I could to try to be sure it isn’t, but couldn’t read them all. I think this is the most interesting mondegreen I’ve ever heard about (it was explained on NPR some years ago at Christmas time):

Originally the first day of Christmas was sung

“. . . my true love gave to me a partridge une perdrix.”

The last two words, French for “a partridge,” are (more or less) pronounced “oona pair-dree.”

My brother would always play Eiffel 65’s “Blue” on road trips.

What the song says: “I’m blue da ba dee da ba di”

What I heard: “I’m blue, if I were green I would die.”

In a Beverly Cleary novel, young Ramona Quimby believes the sStar Spangled Banner proclaims, “Jose can you see, by the Dawnzerly lights.” I find that quite amusing!

I used to wonder what a “donzer” was, in the Star-Spangled Banner. (“Oh, say can you see, by the donzer-ly light. . .”)

Not a song lyrics, but a friend was visiting my Lutheran Church for the first time and mistook the chanted response:

“May the peace of the Lord be with you!”

as

“May the Pizza DeLorian bewitch you!”

-Jesse

I still chuckle about my friend thinking “White Punks on Dope” by the Tubes, was “White Pumps Don’t Go”!

When I lived in the Washington DC area it sounded to me that one of the regular announcements on the DC Metro was ‘George Clooney’. It was really ‘Doors closing’

I used to teach 6th grade in a Catholic school. They were learning about the Protestant Reformation in history–but when they read it out loud, they invariably said “the Prostitute Reformation”–as the word prostitute was in the Bible, and they had never heard the word Protestant.
Also once, when my daughter was 3 or 4, she said, I love Cheez-Its.” My dad turned to me and said, “I am so glad you are teaching her about Jesus.” (Didn’t have the heart to correct him.)

My brother used to think that Huey Lewis and the News were singing that “the heart of rock and roll is Topeka”. Made sense to him, since the song mentions many other cities where “the heart of rock and roll is still beating”.

This is not exactly a mondegreen so much as it is a parody. It isn’t something I thought of; I read it in a comic strip: Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes.”
—”I pledge allegiance to Queen Fragg and her mighty state of hysteria…”—
The comic strip goes on to show Calvin, the main character, being escorted/dragged towards the principal’s office by his teacher.

I thought Jimi Hendrix’ line (in Voodoo Child) “he took me past the outskirts of infinity” was “he took me past the downstairs of infinity.” Same difference.

Song titled “Washington Bullets” by The (International) Noise Conspiracy on the album Causes 1

They say “Washington Bullets” over and over again during the song, and it sounds to me like “washed-down pole dance”

stupid classmate of mine from highschool was singing “let go” instead of “get low” by lil jon

I always thought that Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It” said..what’s love gotta do, gotta do with it, what’s love than a SECOND HAND IN MOTION…instead of second hand emotion.!

“do the funky (or f#$!&*^) lady” instead of “dude looks like a lady”
“climb every woman” instead of “i’m every woman”
“pikachu’s a virgin” instead of “packaging subversion”(“psychosocial” by slipknot)

lest we forget the infamous elemenopee (L M N O P)

[...] a malapropism is misuse of a single word, a mondegreen is misinterpretation of a phrase or series of words that sounds like another phrase or series of [...]

Whenever The Romantics’ “Talking in Your Sleep” comes on the radio, my mom recounts the story of how when my uncle was young, he’d mistakenly replace the line “I hear the secrets that you keep” with “I hear the secret Apache chief.”

Moulin Rouge fans..

I was listening to Hindi Sad Diamonds on youtube and there was a comment that said I ONLY SPEAK TO TOAST and know I can’t imagine Toulouse singing anything else!

Dragostea Din Tei -by : O-Zone
That song has a lot of mondegreens unless you speak the language fluently or have the lyrics in hand.

A friend was singing Bush’s “Machine Head” as “I’ve got a Mushy Head”

in Johnny Cash and June Carter’s “Jackson” I thought the lyrics were “We got married in a beater” for the longest time. the correct lyrics are “we got married in a fever”

I remember hearding the song “Pumped Up Kicks” for the first time. I thought they said “Pupped ‘tup kisses”. Personally, I dislike that song.

In the song “Piano Man” by Billy Joel, I was convinced, as a child, that Billy sung “and the piano sounds like a carnivore.” As my father informed me, he was actually singing “and the piano sounds like a carnival.”

I also had no idea that Sara Lee’s slogan was “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” (Part of me still denies that it isn’t “Nobody does it like Sara Lee.”)

As has just about every other person who has heard the song “Blinded By the Light,” I misunderstood “revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.” I always heard him saying “repped up like a douche, another rudder in the night.”

For years, I thought “big ol’ jet air liner” was “big ol’ Jed at a lineup.”

Finally:
One day, while my mother and I were singing along with the car radio, Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” started playing. When we got to the chorus of the song, I realized that my mother was singing “gimme the Beach Boys” instead of “gimme the beat, boys.” I gently corrected her error.

Well, most cetainly my preferable mondegreen was issued from my nana

Lady Ga Ga’s ‘poker face’ was heard to her to be: “cherry pie, cherry pie, my poker face”

most remarkable and highly amusing, it puts you in mind of slapstick comdey.

I have a wonderful nana, truly I do.

Actual:
I love the way you move
Mondegreen:
I am a whale

Here’s a bilingual one — when my brother was learning the first few lines of the Torah for his Bar Mitzvah, he would chant “V’ha’aretz hay’tah tohu v’vohu” — but I heard “tofu v’vohu.” To this day, I insist that before God created light, it was made up of darkness and tofu.

I always thought the line in Blinded by the Light was “wrapped up like a douch, another rumor in the night”. I still don’t think it sounds like “deuce”.
And in the Taylor Swift song Ours, I thought the line was “People throw rocks, it’ll be just fine” instead of “… at things that shine”. Although, I think “it’ll be just fine” sounds better.
Also, in Heartach Tonight I always thought it said “There’s goona be a party tonight…” Needless to say I didn’t know the name of the song. lol

Oh! I almost forgot. In the song they teach kids to help them learn the continents, whenever my cousin used to get to the part about “don’t forget Australia”, she always said “don’t forget I’ll strangle ya…” I now say it her way every time I sing it. Makes me laugh every time.

Just realized while reading these comments that I’ve been hearing Stayin’ Alive by the BeeGees wrong. I always thought it was “You can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a wanted man, no time to talk” instead of “woman’s man”. Oops.

I was in drama one time and one of the characters in out scene was named Marissa and our teacher kept telling us to pronounce it better because her name wasn’t MRSA. lol

When he was about 4 years old, my little brother would walk around the house doing a Pigmeat Markham imitation. He would sing: “Order in the court, Order in the court, Keep my Daddy in the order of the court.” Still cracks me up, after 50 years.

I think my most famous one as a child, was caught singing along in the car to Pink Floyd when I loudly declared “Hey! Creature!, Leave them kids a bone” instead of obviously “Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!”

Our father’s God to thee,
Author of liberty of thee I sing.
Lord let this land be bright
With freedoms Holy Light,
Protect us by thy might
Great God Our King.

My version:

Protect our spy by night
Great God Our King
Great God Our King

The best one I can think of, aside from Bruce Springsteen’s lyric, “…wrapped out like a deuce, another runner in the night.” and most Bob Dylan songs, was in fact “mondegreened” by Bob himself…

In the Beatles’ song, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”, there is a line that says, “…I can’t hide…”. Bob Dylan misinterpreted this to be, “I get high”, and the story from there is that Bob went to visit the Beatles and ended up introducing them to Mrs. Cannabis Sativa and Mrs. Cannabis Sense”. They pretty much took off from there, arriving in San Fran for the Summer of Drugs…er, Love…where Paul thought it would be a great idea to drop a few stamps from Uncle Syd…they didn’t like it so much. But, we do have the song, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”…on one hand, John maintained that it was named after a drawing he made when he was four, with the same title. And there are also influences from Through The Looking Glass. Hmmm…coincidence that 1. The nouns in a song title are capitalized…”LSD” 2. Through The Looking Glass was an inspiration for some other songs, referencing things around drugs, most notably “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.
Okay, perhaps one more—the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever, where a faint line played in slow speed by John can be heard; the line has been misinterpreted by many as being, “I buried Paul”. John maintains that it is “Cranberry Sauce”…coincidence that Paul seems to have had done something that either embarrassed John pubicly, or something that apparently (if this is what actually happened) caused John to seek vindication…so, something there happened to Paul, and John supposedly applied icing to the cake by the boastful, “I buried Paul”. Something to that extent…

Just about a year ago, my brother was playing a video game and with the classic nasally voice of a horse race announcer, I heard him say: “Paul’s bein’ a ham!” I turned from the computer to ask him, “Did you just say, ‘Paul’s bein’ a ham’?” He laughed and replied, “No! I said, ‘Full speed ahead’!”

We might have almost killed ourselves laughing so hard. But now, we openly joke and say, “Paul’s bein’ a ham!” just for the fun of it. XD

In 27 dresses when they sing “Bennie and the Jets” and get every word of the song wrong.
Wrong: “She’s got electric boobs, below her shoes,”
Right: “She’s got electric shoes, a mohair suit,”

this happens all the time

Pussycat Dolls:
“When I grow up I wanna have boobies.”

For years I thought Joni Mitchell was singing about those big fuzzy dice that high school boys used to hang from the rear view mirrors in their cars. I heard:

Wrong: Big pair o’ dice. Put up a parking lot.”

Right: “Pave paradise; put up a parking lot.”

Joni’s lyrics make sense. We need a place to park before we can get out and enjoy paradise. LOL
 

When we were very young, our missionary parents had us sing at the missionary services. One song was names “Dusky Hands” and part of the lyrics were:
Dusky hands are reaching for the bread of life

The chorus was
Send the gospel tidings over land and over sea
Til the power of Jesus sets the captives free

My little sister was singing
Send the gospel pirates over land and over sea
Till the pow of Jesus sets the Baptists free

And, no, she still has not lived this down

When I was very young, I thought it went like this:

“Mares eat oats and do-si-dos and little lambsy dive-y. A kidly dive-y too, wouldn’t you?”

I apperently thought that female horses ate square dancers.

Until about two years ago (shamefully), I interpreted the line in Billy Joel’s song “Only the Good Die Young” as “when you were counting on your ovary” instead of “when you were counting on your rosary”.

A lot of kids have problems with the Australian National Anthem, so here it is:

Australians all are Ostriges,
for we are one, two, three.
With golden foil and silver foil,
Our home dirt by sea
vs
Australians all let us rejoice
for we are young and free.
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil
Our home is girt by sea.

Only until a few months ago I thought the lyrics to Sade Smooth operator was Sue got it better, or Sue does it better.

As a child I always sang the song verse “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” as “Like a Rose Upon the Shore.”

Super Smash Bros. Brawl theme song: “Call Me Papa!” or “Haheeyahah!–though it’s Latin, something like “A iliad.”
Better part of the song: “This is for people speaking Mormon–WHO CARES! This is for history.”
True story.

My father told me about how as a young child he heard someone talk about how they were going to fly a “Paper Cup”. My Pops told me about all the different things he would imagine when he thought of someone flying a “paper cup”. Then One day, many years later when he was in his preteens he was in the back of the family car while my grandfather drove, there in the airfield next to them was park a single-prop Piper J-3 Cub and suddenly it became clear: Not a “paper cup” a “Piper Cub”! Myself, I couldn’t figure out the “knock-knock” joke: “knock, knock” “Who’s there?” “Centipede” “Centipede who?” “Centipede on a Christmas Tree…”. I literally pictured a centipede on a Christmas tree (“Centipede” apparently was “Santa peed”) though my father told it to me until I was about 15 before I asked him to explain it to me. After which I literally laughed ’til it hurt!

omg in “Dynamite” i thought it said “lighz eez ohz” instead of “light it up”

they should really sing clearer.

The transformers theme song, i always thought they said instead of
“Robots In The Sky”
i thought
“Ho Bot In Your Eye”
I couldnt help but laugh and wonder if that was even appropriate

I pledge alligance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for Richard Stans(which it stands) lol

When hearing the song:

After midnight .. we’re going to let it all hang out….

for years I was hearing:

Captain Midnight .. we’re going to let it all hang out.

After days of reading, I finally hit bottom. A lot of repetition here. A lot seems staged. Some songs were parodies by Weird Al and Bob Rivers. I can’t believe how many credited songs to the wrong people!

This is the day of the internet… which doesn’t always get things right either. I usually check more than one source. I’ve seen plenty of pages that credit Mrs. Robinson to the Beatles!

Anyway, I didn’t see this listed. When singing My Country Tis of Thee, I used to sing “sweet land of liberty, of the Hi-C.” Hi-C was big back then…

My daughter thought the 12 days of Christmas said “and a par tra-gennapear tree” so when she saw a gilded pear ornament one holiday season she exclaimed with much delight, “Look! Mom! A gennapear!”

Foreign languages are great for Mondegreens !

This Dutchman got an unexpected surprise from an american au pair girl for introducing himself.

Shaking hands with the sixteen year old, I said “Stef Kok” .

(Stef being short for Stephen, while Kok is dutch for Cook)

A loud slap in my face was her answer.

It took me years of learning English to find out what her naughty ears heard.

Got something to do with a male chicken standing up.

Stevie Wonder’s lyric “massed her braided hair” used to confuse me as a kid. How could hair play with itself?

Our family has at least three.
1. My youngest daughter thought the chorus on Gloria by Laura Branigan was
Gloria (Gloria), I think they got your number/
{I think they got Elliot’s}
I think they got the alias/that you’ve been living under
2. My oldest, as a two-year-old thought in Beauty and the Beast that Belle
was not singing about a “provincial” life but an “elemential” life.
3. I thought Floor Filler by A-Teens was “Go, Miller!”

When I was younger I thought the line “He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich” from the Men at Work song “Land Down Under” was “He just smiled and gave me a piece of his sandwich”…. Being American I had never heard of vegemite; It wasn’t until I moved to Australia ( where I still live ) that I finally realized what was being said…I still like to sing my original version

Rocket Man (Elton John):
“burning out his fuse out here alone” sounded like “burning out the duodecagon”.

Another One Bites The Dust (Queen):
“Steve walks warily down the street” sounded like “Stink bug’s family down the street”.

My Country ‘Tis Of Thee:
“of thee I sing” sounded like “of the icing”. Made me salivate when we sang it as kids.

My brother thought it was “thirty thieves in a thunder jeep” instead of “dirty deeds done dirt cheap”

Another one in reverse is the old song from the 1920s:
Maresy dotes, and Doesy -dotes and Little Lambsy Divey/a Kidle tivey too wouldn’t you?
Oh it may sound queer, and funny to your ear: a little bit jumbled and jivey, but mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy

These are songs I misunderstood until I saw the lyrics
“Heaven … On Earth” – Belinda Carlisle
Real – “And you lift me up
In a wave of love”
Mine – “And you lift me up
In a web of love”
- Favorite song-artist
“Leave a Light On” – Belinda Carlisle
Real – “Cause when the world takes me away
You are still the air that I breathe”
Mine – “Could swear the world takes me away
You are still the edge that I need”
Real – “Baby that’s your heart
Baby that’s your heart
Baby that’s your heart”
Mine – “Baby is that so hard
Baby is that so hard
Baby is that so hard”
-Favorite artist
“Heartache Tonight” – The Eagles
Real – “There’s gonna be a heartache tonight”
Mine – There’s gonna be a whoring tonight”
- Always thought virgin prostitute
“Oh Sherry” – Steve Perry
Real – “Oh Sherry Our love”
Mine – “Our cherry boat’s rough”
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Elvis
This is a song my teacher misunderstood
“House of the Rising Sun” – Bob Dylan
Real – “My mother was a tailor
She sold these new blue jeans”
Hers – “My mother was a traitor
She stole my blue jeans”

Correction.
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Elvis
Real – “Take a backseat hitch-hike”
Mine – “Take a taxi hitch-hike”
“Sweet Emotion” – Aerosmith
Real – “Sweet Emotion”
Mine – “Feel the ocean”

Any of the notice of Red Hot Pepper Chillies!

A former girlfriend once told me hysterically about hearing her middle son absent-mindedly singing the Barry Manilow tune “Looks Like We Made It” in the car as she was driving him to football. His lyrics were, “Looks like tomatoes!”

Many people now write “should of” rather than “should’ve,” because they’ve heard it pronounced that way often and never took the time to look it up (they really shouldn’t have to… it’s ridiculous). But I suppose that would be an example of a mondegreen, right?

No one confused Europe’s “The Final Countdown” with “A fire downtown”? Seriously?

Depeche Mode “Everything counts”

Everything counts in large amounts. My version for years was “Everything counts by Roger Maus”

Iron Maiden’s “Before I Forget”

Original proper lyrics: “I was a creature before I could stand”
My misheard mondegreen: “I was a creature before I could sin”

I think that was vastly improved.

Sorry, Slipknot’s song, not Iron Maiden’s. My apologies.

I spent most of my life (over 60 years) saying “for all intensive purposes” until one day when I was reading a novel and saw in print “for all intents and purposes” but I still trip over the phrase when I’m in a casual conversation!

In the Lord’s Prayer, in addition to “Harold be Thy name” one of my young students would ask “deliver us from eagles” and in the Creed thought Jesus “suffered under Qantas pilot”.

Song by Calvin Harris: Sounds like he is saying “You used the whole beef” in the chorus of his song “You used to hold me”

check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzujNk-yYrE
especially at 0:50

Paul Young – “Everytime you go away, you take a piece of meat with you”.

What is the word for a word like “Mondegreen” that is an example of itself? We know that a “Mondegreen” is a misheard line or lyric, as has been fully explored in the 900 comments before mine, but “Mondegreen” itself is a “Mondegreen”. Is there a word for its recursive quality?

Answering my own question: “Mondegreen” is an “autologous” or “homologous” word. Interestingly, “autologous” is autologous, too, along with common words like “common” (it is common) and “short” (it is short). Ironically, “long” is not long, so it’s the opposite of autologous, it’s heterological — it does not describe itself.

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

And “wake me up to pour your cocoa” instead of before you go-go, in the Wham! song

The Bee Gees “Bald Headed Woman”, turned out to my surprise to actually be “More than a woman”.

In Jingle Bells thought the lyric was “In a one horse soapin’ sleigh”

The song Cupid by Sam Cooke,
Until I was 12 I thought he was singing “Hubert”.
When my friend heard me singing this to the car stereo, he couldn’t help but break out into roaring laugh.

How to Save a Life by The Fray

“And I pray to god he hears you”
becomes
“And I paid a guy to kiss you”
if you listen to the song it sounds so much like the latter

I always thought the song “Tell Me Why” by Taylor Swift said: ‘you might think I’m full of poop but I’m not!’ Instead of ‘you might think I’m bulletproof but I’m not!’ makes so much more sense haha

Elton John’s Rocket Man
What it really is:
And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no, no, no, I’m a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

What I heard: And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time
Til touchdown brings me what I’ve yet to find
A ma ma minakick I ever known,
No whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m a rocket man
Rocket man, burnin’ all the shoes off farranon

(Wrong to the point of being ridiculous, but it was great fun
to sing! )

” The Dog Say Goodnight” should be ” The dark sacred night” from ” What A Wonderful World” ( Louis Armstrong )

And I always thought it was “Blinded by the light, ramped up a fiduciary rofer in the night.”

Hey, there wuz some WEIRD business deals in those days.

OR HOW ABOUT Smells Like Teen Spirit?

“With the lights out, it’s the stages!”

When it’s really “it’s less dangerous!”

That’s my mondegreen.

I think mondegreen is a fantastic result because a male represents penetration of nature, thus nature being female of equal essential.

So really… I mean if they slain that man and “Lady Mondegreen” that logically may signify Lady Mondegreen is of personal acquaintance of the man who was slain.

“Laying him on the green” can be the same thing as “and Lady Mondegreen”, especially since NAMES are WORDS. They both can mean the same in the sense that when he died, she died, too. Don’t think I am wrong. It’s only because of Christianity or whatever nonsense going on today that really makes you displease in a male. We’rE ALL in the same pot, when talking about which gender is guilty. But if you want to go back in time, I say this child’s interpretation is poetically correct… even JUST CORRECT!

I honestly feel Sylvia Wright is half right there. I mean TRUE: The child’s misinterpretation weren’t the original lyrics, but essentially works the same.

Here’s a more obscure one:

There’s a song by an old death metal band called Hypocrisy, which is about seeing UFOs. At one point, the lyric is: “I must debate it, because when I walked out they were all gone.”

I’ve always heard it as: “I masturbated, because when I walked out, they were all gone.”

Oh man, I am staying up late reading all these comments:

My daughter was 2 or 3 and we caught her singing the line in Deck the Halls as “follow me and be very careful” instead of “follow me in merry measure” (that on melted our hearts)

My sister thought Neil Diamond was singing ” For Reverend Blue Jeans ” instead of “Forever in Blue Jeans”

A friend at work was singing “Rock the cashbox” instead of “Rock the Casba”

I’m a particular fan of the BBC Radio 4 programme Crossing Continents.

… which *always* sounds, when announced like Cross Incontinence – I rather different programme.

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me
A Mercedes Benz.
My friends all drive porches
I must make amends.

Don’t you know that I’m
Hurtin’ through the grapevine!
Oh, I’m hurtin’ through the grapevine!
Just about, just about, just about
To lose my mind.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Takes care of C-P-T!!!

I’m blue da ba dee da ba dah

=

I’m blue i’m in need of a guy

Frankie Valli had a song called, “My Eyes Adored Ya,” but I misheard it as “My Satorja.” I remember thinking that it was the most stupid song ever because there was no such name as ‘Satorja’.

I always thought Kim Mitchell’s song was about an Irish woman named Patty O’Lanterns.

Marsey dotes and dozy dotes and little lamsie divey
A kiddly divey too, wouldn’t you?

i don’t know what you guys are talking about. can’t hear you over the beach boys singing that old fave, ‘little loose tooth’.

When we were in middle school, my friend thought the line from Roxanne’s It Must’ve Been Love was “Lay a WHISKER on my pillow” instead of whisper.

Here we come a-waffling among the greasy trees… (instead of Here we come a-wassailing among the trees so green).

Animal Collective sampled a Grateful Dead lyric “whoa I walk sky” and called their new song “What Would I Want Sky”

infanso instead of infant so in silent night.

“Strummin guitar love” instead of “Come and get your love”.
Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks are, to me, two of the worst annunciators in the music business. And they did a duet together. “nothing better to do . . . than make a meal of some bright eyed kid” came through to me as “. . . than make some innocent bright eyed kid” which I took as careless conception.

“And all this longing, and the sheeps all left to rust,” from What the Water Gave Me by Florence and the Machine. I sang it like that for months, not having a clue what sheep had to do with the song and wondering why Florence said “sheeps” anyway, until a friend pointed out that it’s “the SHIELDS all left to rust.”

After singing the children’s folk song, “Hop, hop a little horse, Hop, hop again, sir” then 5-year-old Chris asked, “What’s a ghinzer?” Now, in my family’s lexicon a ‘ghinzer’ is code for any misheard word or phase. We apparently created a mondegreen for mondegreen, if I’m understanding the term correctly.

After hearing the kindergarten rule, “No running on the black top,” Elizabeth reported to us that there was to be “No running on the lap top.” A rule we would use sardonically for many a MicroSoft product.

When I was a small child, my parents had a Christmas album by the Mormon Barnacle Choir. I guess they came from Salt Lake.

“A pink Paradise” and put up a parking lot…should be “Paved Paradise” and put up a parking lot. I swore that song was called pink paradise.

Jermaine Stewart, “We don’t have to take our clothes off”
# I’m not a piece of meat and you lick my brain”

Stereophonics “Have a nice day”
#Lie around all day, Have a drink of cheese”

“I’m shaving!” instead of Garth Brooks “I’m shameless!”
“stepped on a pop-tart” instead of Jimmy Buffet’s “stepped on a pop-top”

In Don Henley’s “End of the Innocence” I thought he said “tired old man with the electric grin”, when it was actually “that we elected king”. I liked my version, since the song was talking about Reagan, and sometimes he could come across like we needed to plug him in before he would function.

My great aunt told me that when she was a child, she thought the hymn “when the roll is called up yonder” was “when the roll is called a p-yonder”… She was raised on a ranch and they had a piece of machinery referred to as ” the roll.” she thought someday it would be renamed, and she’d be there.

In the article it should be “The bonny … ” (not “The boony … “)
Also, James Stewart was “the Earl of Moray”, and the “of” becomes “o’”; it isn’t like O’Brien: there should be a space before “Moray”.

Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands,
Oh where have you been?
They have slain the Earl o’ Moray
And layd him on the green.

There’s a line in the song “Hook” by Blues Traveler that says something about “hip three-minute ditties”. It’s sung very quickly so it kind of all mashes together, and the first few times I heard it, I swore it said “hit them in the ti**ies”.

“Santa Claus” is actually a mondegreen derived from “Saint Nicholas”! I heard something about how children in a different country couldn’t pronounce Saint Nicholas correctly in their language…? So the mondegreen became popular and spread!

My father told me that when he was very young, his friends from church would practice baptizing each other. They would stand in the bathtub, shut the drain, and then say, “I now baptize you in the Father, The Son, (open the drain), and in the hole he goes”!!! It was supposed to go, “I now baptize you in the Father, The Son, and in the Holy Ghost.”

i used to think “L M N O P”
was “Elmo had no pee”

in Finding Nemo, the little baby octopus, seahorse, and fish say butt instead of boat
so when
Nemo touches the boat they say “Look! He’s touching the butt!”
we watched Nemo in class
our class cracked up when we saw that

LOL

i used to think “ruffle” was “waffle”
so when i heard “ruffled your hair” i thought someone would put waffles in your hair

i also mixed up s and t
so the alphabet was Q R T, SUV
i thought Q, R, & T had an SUV

[...] When a word comes about from a mistaken pronunciation, it’s called a mondegreen. Find out [...]

The Beatles’ song “Here There And Everywhere”:
“I want her everywhere and if she’s beside me
I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere
Knowing that love is to share”
*******
I sang along as a teen but I sang “.. and if she’s besides me I know I need medicare”!
The debate in the news at that time was about medicare. (Those who spoke of the slippery slope of Leviathan, were astute.)

Another Beatles mondegreen:

To my surprise, their song “Dead Irene” is actually supposed to be “Dear Diary!” [My version fits better with the music, since it's in a minor key, as are almost all laments.]

I blame the simply cr@ptastic radios [& speakers] in the cars & clock radios of my youth, since that’s about the only way/place I listened to music at the time…