Login HereOne of my best friends in the entire world -- my best pal from kindergarten forward, all the way through school -- pulled a funny one morning when we were in junior high. Except, she wasn't trying to be funny. She was serious.
Because it's Friday, and it's been a long, hard slog through the week for everyone with all the waiting, I want to share this story with you. In the hopes that it will encourage you to share your stories of the lyrics that could have been.
You see my friend -- let's call her "G" to protect her current integrity as a grown-up person of respect -- loved the music of The Police, as I did. Because, let's face it, in the early 80s for a junior high girl who was into rock music with a hint of jazz, The Police were pretty awesome. (Okay, and Sting was and is still very hot. Ahem.)
Every morning, our bus got into school very early -- and we would tra la down the hall to our respective lockers to get out some textbook or other to go back over homework assignments or study for a test or something. The vice principal happened to be a man of eclectic music taste, but in deference to the rest of the teaching staff he would keep the radio tuned to the local Top 40 station instead of blasting old Hank Williams records (most days, anyway) -- and the music would crank out over the announcement speakers.
This particular morning, we were headed down the hall to our lockers and The Police were blaring out in that great jumble of guitar, bass and drums. And then I heard this from ahead of me, echoing out of the locker that my friend G was digging into for her textbook:
Ah...spar.a.gus. In my, my cer-e-al bowl. Ah...spar.a.gus. In my, my cer-e-al bowl.
Ah...spar.a.gus. In my, my cer-e-al boooooooooooowl.
And I fell over laughing. Hands down, this is the funniest mistaken lyric that I have EVER heard come out of anyone's mouth. But I know there have to be more. (Hell, the first time I heard "Like a Virgin," I thought Madonna was singing "Like a virgin...HEY...fucked for the very first time." and could not believe our local radio station was actually playing the song! It's actually "touched," but I digress...)
Any hilarious misheard lyrics in your past? Do share.
Share This 
Spotlight
Hehe Apereragus…
Fitz!
Hi Ed* Please don’t stand so close to me.. hehe
Not hilarious, but I used to hear a line from Elvis Costello’s “Beyond Belief” as “you know she has no sins for all your jealousy;” whereas the line is “you know she has no sense of all your jealousy” which makes the meaning of the song quite different.
It would be a much shorter list for me to name the songs that I’ve heard the lyrics RIGHT! Maybe that’s why I listened to instrumental jazz so much.
OT, but fun - Spazeboy and I interviewed Ned Lamont today; we asked him about running for office in ‘08…here’s what he said:
http://ctbob.blogspot.com/2007.....oment.html
Is there a gene that keeps one from remembering lyrics? Or jokes? If there is, I’ve got that gene. I can memorize music far faster than I can memorize words. And I’m PFD (pretty f*cking deaf), so I mishear lyrics and conversations and questions all the time.
707 @ the asparagus.
I got my Police tix, though…
I used to think “My Shirona” was a song about Rice-a-Roni.
Back in the 80s, my mom was quite the Huey Lewis fan, but she thought the song was “I want a new Truck” not “I want a new Drug”! And my little brother thought the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” was “Rocks and Asphalt”!?! I suppose perhaps that I must have bogarted the q-tips to clean my ears…leaving Mom and Bro’s ears quite vulerable?
LOL!!!
“Ah-sparagus…in my my cereal bowl!” Hell, I’ll be humming that one all night! Hee hee!
Elspeth
Da do do do do Da da da da
That’s all I have to say to you
YouTube Music Video - A Young Sting
I had a friend that thought the early ’80s Motels song lyrics were “only the lonely get laid” until we pointed out that it made no sense.
I could never get the start of Help Me Rhonda until Dave Barry (I think) reported it as (IIRC)
“Well since she put me down I’ve got owls pooping in my hair”
I’ve never been able to listen to it without laughing since then
can’t figure out what song that is-spirits in the material world?
I used to always butcher Elton John songs-goodbye yellow brick road comes to mind.
Ow a brick— house
she’s my tomato…
OK, after emberassing myself, I have to go. My personal lyric malfunction was the Rolling Stones song ‘Angie’.
All I ever could make of it for years was
‘Ah In Jail, AHHH In Jail’.
To this day I cannot make out the lyrics to most songs,too much hearing damage from air tools, heavy equipment, and of course, Heavy Metal turned up to 11 and the neighbors calling the cops.
People often misinterpret lyrics when there are things stuck up their noses.
;>)
As to music, I’m a dinosaur. Beatles, Stones, the Airplane, Santana, Grateful Dead, It’s a Beautiful Day, The Doors, Led Zepp, and the like. But I love Leonard Cohen and Brian Setzer and a bunch of others.
When I was little I misunderstood the lyrics of a Christmas Carol:
Holy imbecile tender and mild
sleep in heavenly beast
darkblack @ 16
You went uptown riding in your limousine
In your fine park avenue clothes
You had the dom perignon in your hand
And the spoon up your nose
And when you wake up in the morning
With your head on fire
And your eyes too bloody to see
Go on and cry in your coffee
But dont come bitchin to me
Because you had to be a big shot, didnt you…
Not a misheard lyric, but I used to sing Amazing Grace a good bit when buzzing around the house doing chores. One day my granddaughter said, “Grandma, who’s Grace?”
No, not a song lyric, BUT on tonight’s episode of PBS’ “Inside Washington,” Mark Shields got off the BEST line in years, “While the House was impeaching Bill Clinton, Newt Gringrich was BANGING more than just his gavel.” HAHAHAHAHA!
My mom thought “if you like pina colada” was “if you like beans and enchiladas”
And apparently Mike McCready (or a different member) of Pearl Jam thought that Kiss was singing “I, want to rock and roll all night, …and part of every day.”
That little gem is on their Live at Benaroya Hall album.
I once kept mishearing Prince’s “party over” lyric as “body odor.” Got stuck in my head.
BTW- my take today on getting RIF’d yesterday.
.
There’s a small paperback my guy used to have (wish I could think what became of it) of mis-heard rock lyrics. Two favorites:
‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy- Jimi Hendrix
Looking at a parallelogram- Depech Mode
@ 16 - In the video link posted, tantric sex Gordon Summers takes his shirt off and exhibits his young and virile chest in all its glory”
Here’s another one “Walking on the
BroomMoon.” YouTube LinkConnecticut Bob @
5
Never leave your pizza burnin’
Never never never never never be!
Marie Roget @ 24
Drat, trying to pry myself outta here, the first one is reportedly attributed to Ozzie.
She’s gotta tick in her eye
And she don’t care!!
ben @
4
Well, it’s a terrific song either way, one of my all time favorites.
I’ve always had a lyric hearing block, but can’t think of anything appropriately amusing right now …
I’d like to laugh but I just read over at Kos’s place that GIve ‘em Hell Harry invited JoeLIE to do the DEMOCRATIC response tomorrow regarding Walter Reed!!!!!!
I’ think I’m going to lose my dinner.
I remember briefly thinking Voices Carry by Til Tuesday was Voices Scary (or maybe it was voice is scary although it doesn’t make much sense either way - I thought they were being oblique LOL) Talk about over analyzing…
Oh, RevDeb, that sounds like a bad joke.
brownandserve @ 11
Oh, that has me laughing too! Had to go check BB on YouTube here
RevDeb @ 31
EWW! Puke alert, RevDeb!
RevDeb, that is exgusting! (as my friend’s son used to say when he was three years old.
Reverse Barometer @ 33
I truly wish it was.
My story isn’t so much about misheard songs as delayed understanding. My husband has been a huge Frank Zappa fan since pubehood, but he didn’t speak English until a couple of years after he came to the USA (20 yrs ago now). So I will still occasionally come downstairs and find him laughing his ass off at the lyrics to old Zappa albums that he is “getting” for the first time.
Can you remember the first time you heard “Watch out where the huskies go. Don’t you eat that yellow snow”?
Twisted Martini @ 19
‘There’s a bathroom on the right’
;>)
Bobby G, sorry about your RIF. Been there twice and they are no fun. Thanks for the Bono joke though, it was great.
ack, someone already posted this one… (tick in her eye).
I remember hearing kids say “Pajamas” to Marley’s “We’re jammin’” — too cute
A couple years ago, my husband was listening to a Barenaked Ladies cd, and he suddenly said, “I don’t get this song at all. And when did Brian Wilson die?”
“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked. “He’s still alive, I think.”
Then, I realized how he heard the lyrics…
‘Lie in bed, just like Brian Wilson, dead.’
I always hear that song that way now.
Marie Roget @
24
No edit button this eve…Depeche w/an e.
Depeche lyric is actually “Staring down the barrel of a gun.”
rxbusa, for my hubby English was a second language, too. Took me a while to realize he meant “dish” when he said about a certain very hot woman “she’s a real platter.”
Oklahoma Kiddo @17: Hey, fellow dinosaur. Love that you have It’s A Beautiful Day on your list. I’ve gotten so many blank stares over the years when I mention that group.
rxbusa, oh, you bring back memories. Just me and the pygmy pony over by the dental floss bush.
My father tells a joke about the kid in a Catholic elementary school asked to illustrate a scene from the story of the passion of Christ who drew a burly furry creature with a funny gaze and, when the teacher asked him what it represented, said it was “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.”
When my now-29-year-old daughter was little, she thought the words from the song from Flashdance were “take your pants off” instead of “take your passion.”
– oh, yes, the “bathroom on the right” song!
my daughter just brought me a get well card…aren’t kids awesome?
Twisted Martini @ 40
Thanks. Actually, I was sittin’ in my exit interview and my cell phone rang. It was a vendor we’ve been working with, wanting to know whether I’d be interested in working for them, LOL!
I’m leaving for Florida Tuesday to go deal with me Ma and Pa. So, gig stuff can wait.
.
LindaR @ 46
That’s one of my favorite songs! I used to play it for my daughter. It’s one of the few Zappa songs you can play for your kids.
rxbusa - LOL!
Oh, speaking of Sting, I remember seeing an interview of him years ago when he talked about how a lot of people did not understand the meaning behind the words in songs. He said that often he gets people who come up to him and say how much they love “Wrapped Around Your Finger” and tell him that it was the song they had their first dance at during their wedding… he doesn’t have the heart to tell them to listen to the lyrics closer and realize it’s a song about a psycho stalker. Instead, he just says, “uh, well, good luck with your marriage.”
Bustednuckles @ 28
Jimi’s Purple Haze- ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky. I wasn’t much for Ozzie even in the old days :)
My wife thought that the lyrics to Irene Cara’s
Song: Flashdance…What a Feeling said:
“Take your pants down and make it happen.”
(instead of “Take your passion, and make it happen”).
I had a cousin who swore that the Eagles “Life in the Fast Lane” was saying “Life in the Vaseline”. I’m serious.
Interested Observer @ 55
LOL — check out my post at 48. This will make my daughter feel so much better!
Riesz Fischer @ 27
Took me a minute to figure out its to the Stones’ “Beast O’Bierne”
;)
Jose’ can you see
by the donzerly light
Celtic Music @ 45
I saw these guys in a small club in San Francisco many ago, called the ‘Family Dog’. “White Bird” was popular then. Doesn’t get any better than “Hot Summer Day”.;0)
There’s a song called “Lunatic Fringe” by a group called Red Rider. I thought they were singing “Lunatic French, I know you’re out there”.
Since I’m part French I didn’t particularly like being called a lunatic, even if there was some truth to it.
Hell, I was thirty before I realized that the title of a certain Creedence Clearwater Revival song was not “Sweet Anjahaika”.
lagunatic @
11
What? They’re not!
My inescapable misheard lyric is from Dire Straits:
Here I am again in this mean old town
Get your sofa away from me
And where are you when the sun goes down
Get your sofa away from me
Sofa away from me
That sofa, I just cant see it
Sofa away from me
Get your sofa away from me
I was pretty active in the forums at Peter Gabriel’s website, when he came out with UP, his 02 album. Growing Up is a fine song from this album, I’d always heard “My goats like to travel”. When I wrote this to my fellow forum posters, well, let’s just say it was read around the world…
My english still nedds oodles of work, please be kind to this francophone.
My brother in law spent years of his childhood mishearing the Hail Mary- Full of Grapes the Lord is a Tree.
LindaR @ 29
To the Beatles “Ticket to Ride”? My sister and I used to sing that in the car.
Down on the corner / Out in the street / Willie & the Poorboys are playin’ / Bein’ a Negro can’t be beat
[And the word is ‘mondegreen.’]
mayor z dotes and little lambs e divy…
Tramps Like Us
Baby We Were Born to Run
came out of the radio, but in my ears I heard
Trans fly Gus
Baby We Were Born to Run
I bought the lp and read the lyrics and had a nice chuckle about it. I haven’t given that a thought in a very long time.
These aren’t mis-heard, but they are the lyrics that my friend and I sang in high school choir during the Christmas concert. The choir director even had us sing it for a recording, and my friend and I tipped our heads back and sang directly up at the overhanging microphones, to make sure our version got on the tape:
Oh Battlestar Galactica
How smooth we see the fly
Above the deep and endless space
The Cylon ships go by.
Yet in thy quadrant fighting
The laser-blasting foes
The tinted hair of Lorne Greene
Shines through your perilous woes…
We had lyrics for the whole song…
Late to the party here, but one of my favorites was Phoebe on “Friends” who thought the lyrics to the old Elton John song were:
“Hold me closer, Tony Danza”
I’ve heard it said that math is the universal language. And I certainly love fiddlin’ with numbers and variables. Buy I think music is THE universal language.
Marc: You beat me to the punch…a misheard lyric is indeed a “mondegreen.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
Riesz Fischer @
8
Cheech Marin thought it was ‘My Scrotum’.
Okay, now I can say this.
When I read Peterr’s post about George the Third and George the Forty-third, my mind kept hearing George the turd and George the farty turd.
Albatross @ 63
Ha! Get your money for nothin and your checks for free ; )
“Pay no mind to what they say/if they just can’t s’il vous plait– hey ay ay! Our lips are seals!”
Also not a misheard lyric, but I had a college buddy who was very erratic in class attendance. When he asked about Doctor Zagoon, it took us a while to figure out that he was referring to Darkness at Noon.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 59
I bought the first “It’s a Beautful Day” album because the cover art was by the same artist who did Quicksilver Messenger Service and I hoped it would be similar. Boy was I disappointed.
OK, it’s not actually one that I misheard, but I read this in a book of misheard lyrics and it always cracks me up.
I got shoes
They’re made of plywood
And I’m losing the bows
(”You’re The One That I Want”, from Grease)
Or was it: “Our lips have healed” ?
Marie Roget @
24
Alright. Found the book on Amazon. Sample mis-heard lyrics in the sell teaser:
“The ants are my friends/They’re blowin’ in the wind” (”The answer my friend/Is blowing’ in the wind”-Bob Dylan)
“Sweet dreams are made of cheese” (”Sweet dreams are made of this”-Eurythmics)
“The girl with colitis goes by” (”The girl with kaleidoscope eyes”-The Beatles)
“Whether it’s Eddie Vedder singing about “forty-five versions of a pelican” or Bruce Springsteen proclaiming “everybody’s got a hungry horse,” ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy is sure to make you want to get your hearing checked.”
Dru @
65
[gasp!!!]
You know, it’s really important to check with kids occasionally on what they think they’re hearing.
I hesitate to place one of my little mishearings in the shadow of such greatness, but once upon a time I did have a hard time with
“Life will be ecstasy!
You and me and Leslie
Groovin’ “
(I’m going to be spazzing on those grapes for the rest of the evening at least, I fear.)
the web site is here for all your misheard needs (and then some)
http://www.kissthisguy.com/
Almost right. It’s “This is Scary” and still makes perfect sense to me.
brownandserve @ 32
Yeah, there is a website something like “scuse me while I kiss this guy.com” with all kinds of goodies. Been a while since I checked it.
I have two - one is my sister’s, the other my daughter’s.
When we were little, my sister would sing “You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, four hundred children and a crock full of beer.“
My daughter’s is funnier. We were driving along once and heard the Martina McBride song, “This One’s for the Girls.” My daughter heard the 3rd verse as “This is for all you girls about 42, throwing panties into the fountain of youth.
brownandserve @ 79
My first date with my first husband was at the Filmore in San Francisco, 1969 - It’s a Beautiful Day and Ike and Tina Turner.
paul @ 84
Thanks, paul!
“Life will be ecstasy!
You and me and Leslie
Groovin’ “
I too thought it was so.
And I am sure The Nefarious Leslie will agree!
I distinctly heard
“where the deer, and the antel O’Play”
CTBob and Spazeboy: Wow, great video there guys! I would love to see Ned be a candidate again and would gladly work for him again!
see
http://www.kissthisguy.com/
brownandserve @ 79
Dino Valenti!
I loved It’s a Beautiful Day! I had a high school girlfriend who came back from her dad’s in SF with that disc and we listened to it over an over and over.
It was years until I found out the correct lyrics, instead of “there’s a bathroom on the right” were really, “there’s a bad moon on the rise”.
My first true love used to put earphones on me and make mad passionate love to me while I listened to “White Bird” and WAR’s “All Day Music” — woo hoo!!
A small boy whom I love very very much and who has a fetish for large sun umbrellas has a favorite song I sing to him very often, but I have to sing what he first heard and with a straight face and I don’t know if I can ever sing it the way it should go, ever:
The pale moon was rising above the green mountains,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea; When I strayed with my love by the clear crystal fountain
That stands in the beautiful vale of Broll-ee.
My mom thought the line from Elton John’s “Yellow Brick Road” went “Someone shaved my wife tonight, Sugar Bear.” And from then on she didn’t like his music because she thought he wrote crap.
Yes, well, when you’ve just got in from Illinois you are looking more for a bathroom on the right than a bad moon on the rise.
LindaR @ 100
CCR!
My latest and greatest is from Counting Crows “Sullivan Street.”
“I’m almost drowning in her seed…”
Which, of course, is:
“I’m almost drowning in her SEA…”
paul @
84
I was actually a little excited that I’d scrolled through 80 comments and no one had mentioned that yet. That was going to be my contribution. Phooey.
Somewhere I have a book by that same name, “Scuse me while I kiss this guy”. The pictures are *hilarious*.
My best friend Susie spent the night at my house in 7th grade, and we listened to the tiny transistor radio almost all night.
That morning we heard what sounded like the beginning bars of “(I can’t get no) Satisfaction” and were really abashed to find out…
it was my dad’s electric razor from the next room.
My father had a rough depression upbringing on the Southern Oregon Coast. The Baptist minister who lovingly fostered him and his sister had to break it to him that in “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” — it wasn’t
“God damned sinners reconciled.”
That’s right up there with the little boy who explained the roly poly fellow in his nativity drawing — That’s Round John Virgin.
When my son first learned the ABCs, he would end it like this, “Now I know my ABCs, next time, no more ABCs.”
A gay pair of guys, put up a parkin’ lot
Olive, the other reindeer.
-GSD
OT, but I just watched the video link put up by CTBob. Ned Lamont. This is such a sweet sweet view of the man. I say that in the best way.
Misunderstood lyrics? Try “Donkey Serenade”. Or Spike Jones. Or “Begin the Beguine”.
Might as well face, your dick is a glove.
-GSD
Oklahoma Kiddo and Everhopeful: I’m offically jealous. Y’all caught It’s A Beautiful Day live. Back in the day. OK…agree with you on Hot Summer Day. Also, have always liked Time Is. And, of course, White Bird. I introduced a friend of mine to that album some time in the early ’90s. He’ll still break out singing “White Bird” once in a while.
LindaR @
90
See?! See?!
I must say, that moment of sudden resolution—that Escher moment? that Homerifying clarity? Other ideas?—almost makes the accompanying mortification worthwhile.
Valley Girl @ 109
And I am still smarting about the treatment Mr. Lamont got from Senator Clinton during the campaign.
I’ve always wanted a place to share this. Smashing Pumpkins, Disarm. The actual lyric is “Inside of me and such a part of you… “
what I STILL hear is “sodomy is such a part of you”
startles me every time.
This is a great thread, I’m dying laughing at most of these!
my sister would completely butcher lyrics and was tone deaf–too many to name, but mostly bob seger songs–and would be singing full force on every song on the radio when we would be cruisin around in my 68 ford falcon in late 1970’s……what a riot…….she now listens to country music and finally gets the lyrics right…..she finally started reading the liner notes…….and teaches 9th grade english…she just visited and we were cracking up about it…used to drive my precise-self crazy when she did it…..she would argue that she was right, and oh how not right she was…..i am cracking up remembering it……..
friend had a daily calendar of mis-heard lyrics, many of them are still up on their refrigerator…..
and-
ok kiddo, i left you a compliment on last thread at 190.
I haven’t read all the ones above this one, so this may be common…but for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why Credence was singing “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
ROTFLMAO!
vincula @ 115
Oh the humiliation - until this minute, I thought that’s what the lyric was. No wonder my kids always looked at me funny…
My mom thought that Kiss’s “Ladies Room” was “three feet in the baby pool”. But then she also watched a vasectomy on one of the science/health channels for five minutes before she realized what she was looking at: “That looks familiar . . . is that a dog?”