Misheard lyrics

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (535 of them)
"take me down to a very nice city" - g'n'r - paradise city

also an ex-gf thought that brand new heavies - you are the universe was "you are my unicorn".

michael wells (michael w.), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 14:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

"But if you go carrying pictures of Germans now,
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."

Truer words were never misheard.

Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 15:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

two months pass...
I just realized that this one Fred Neil song isn't "I've Got a Seabreeze..."

hstencil, Tuesday, 1 April 2003 19:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

I was fucked up on acid once a long long time ago and listening to Workingman's Dead - I thought the words were "I was having a HARD time living the good life," which I thought was the most beautiful lyrics ever, then I found out it was "having a HIGH time" - not nearly as good. Bummer, maaaan.

roger adultery (roger adultery), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 21:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

four months pass...
to all of my ladies and my mens
and all my peoples in Depends

gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 1 August 2003 02:06 (twenty years ago) link

Knee Deep in Doughnuts for "Lady Madonna" go ahead, listen to it...

Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Friday, 1 August 2003 02:31 (twenty years ago) link

Eddy Money Two tickets to Paradise "I've got two chickens to paralyze"

Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Friday, 1 August 2003 02:33 (twenty years ago) link

Cher, If I Could Turn Back Time: I heard "words are like weapons, they wound sometimes" as "words are like whale bones, they move sometimes."

Prude (Prude), Friday, 1 August 2003 03:05 (twenty years ago) link

three months pass...
Slowdive, slowdive, you're taking me over.

man, Thursday, 27 November 2003 05:10 (twenty years ago) link

"Like your Chick Corea depended on this ..." - Red House Painters, "Mistress" (should have been 'cheap career')

"You are everything to me/You are Wayne's World" - Containe, "You" (should have been 'you always were')

moral to the story: never assume a proper noun is the correct lyric.

doug (doug), Thursday, 27 November 2003 09:48 (twenty years ago) link

R Kelly's Remix To Ignition: "I'm like so what, I'm drunk" - "I'm like Bill Ward on drums".

Philip Alderman (Phil A), Thursday, 27 November 2003 12:05 (twenty years ago) link

"Anything you want, kid..."

Michael Jackson: "Smooth Criminal"


(In reality it goes: "Annie are you okay?")

Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 27 November 2003 12:36 (twenty years ago) link

"I fell in love with some Dago"

Madonna: La Isla Bonita

The Spotlight Kid (kid), Thursday, 27 November 2003 13:20 (twenty years ago) link

A bunch of U2 ones from a dear friend:

"Where the sheep have no name" instead of "where the streets have no name" (Where The Streets Have No Name)
"I have pierced holy lips" isntead of "I have kissed honey lips" (Where The Streets Have No Name)
"Hell, damnation" instead of "Elevation" (Elevation)
"Gonna take a walk with your sister Lorraine" instead of "Johnny take a walk with your sister the rain" (Mysterious Ways)

Miggie (Miggie), Thursday, 27 November 2003 13:39 (twenty years ago) link

"No it's not like any other love / this one is different because it sucks"


"You can go your own way / You can call it thunder and 'oh-nee-baaaay" (i know that one falls apart but when I was a wee lad that's how my sister and I sang it in the car)


"Living on a Cheerio pole" - male background vox on Material Girl - sang more as a joke, in retrospect - another Kerry-and-James-back-of- the-car-on-family-vacation classic


and another from that same era: Rick Astley's "Never gonna Give you Up" sang as "Then I'm gonna give you up, then I'm gonna let you down / then Im gonna run around and dessert you"


We'd also do this weird thing with our hands along with the opening descending keyboard riff in "Carribean Queen" that made it look like we were casting a spell and it never failed to make us giggle uncontrollably. Man, my parents were into some shitty music.

roger adultery, Friday, 28 November 2003 04:30 (twenty years ago) link

"Carribbean Queen" shitty? You take that back!

Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 28 November 2003 05:52 (twenty years ago) link

And I'm not having any of this love on the run, either. No more!

Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 28 November 2003 05:54 (twenty years ago) link

one month passes...
I SWEAR I just heard Mr. Neil Young sing: "Love is a nose / you'd beter not pick it."

Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 16 January 2004 12:30 (twenty years ago) link

heh. good timing.

"Have a nose...what kind of fool am I?"

from Robert Plant's "Heaven Knows." my aunt used to babysit me when i was little, you see. she played guitar, and was avidly into Led Zep and Pat Benatar and Heart, amongst other things. she was more amused by this than i think i was, and one night we stayed up rewriting all the lyrics to the song, starting with what i'd heard. i don't remember them all, although "the finesse of the old grey goose" was involved somewhere...

janni (janni), Friday, 16 January 2004 16:08 (twenty years ago) link

Cutting Crew - "I just died in your arms tonight. . .it must have been something I ate"

Kiss - "I want to rock and roll all night. . .and part of every day"

rainman (rainman), Friday, 16 January 2004 16:51 (twenty years ago) link

three weeks pass...
for years i thought sm said "skull and bones on the island of chrome" on frontwards

angel duster, Thursday, 12 February 2004 00:30 (twenty years ago) link

Wait, I thought it really was something about a douche, until just now. I feel a little better about the song now.

Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 12 February 2004 00:31 (twenty years ago) link

I guess everyone knows by now that "I am the son and heir of nothing in particular" is more or less out of Middlemarch. I happened to be reading it in college either right before or right after I heard "How Soon Is Now?" for the first time, so that made an impression on me.

Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 12 February 2004 00:36 (twenty years ago) link

(I never finished the book though.)

Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 12 February 2004 00:36 (twenty years ago) link

I thought "Hold me closer tiny dancer" was "On the close up, tiny dancer" (describing her being photgraphed or filmed or something).

Also, I think I've said before that I thought "Smoke on the water" was "Slow comin' home girl."

Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 12 February 2004 00:38 (twenty years ago) link

I was very sad to discover that the Red House Painters lyric is not "New Jersey ate the whole world."

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 15 February 2004 03:38 (twenty years ago) link

I had a girlfriend once who thought the song 'Heartless' was actually 'Hog Legs'.

webcrack (music=crack), Sunday, 15 February 2004 18:09 (twenty years ago) link

"shut the light, shut the shade
you don't have to pee, afraid
i'll be your baby tonight"

t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Monday, 16 February 2004 23:37 (twenty years ago) link

Doobie Brothers, "Long Train Running": I misheard the refrain of "Without love/Where would you be now?" as "Well now, look/We're the Doobies now!" - thought it was kind of a "Hey Hey, We're The Monkees"-type theme song.

Myonga Von Bontee, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 00:23 (twenty years ago) link

I misheard Ian Curtis' "Day in, day out, day in, day out &c" as "The in, the out, the in, the out" for years. I always thought it was about sexual frustration; imagine my disappointment.

roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 01:33 (twenty years ago) link

A friend of mine once showed me a Sebadoh lyrics page that transcribed "Together or Alone" thusly:

"It was never my intention
To blindly feed the boy cocaine"

*loses shit*

Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 02:03 (twenty years ago) link

Ooh, made me think of my own Sebadoh one:

"volunteer your fear of the blue sky"

roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 02:04 (twenty years ago) link

Both of those are DISTINCT improvements!

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 02:48 (twenty years ago) link

1) It's my life
Don't you forget
Covered in crap
It never ends

I didn't realize it was "Caught in the crowd" until I heard the No Doubt version. I like mine better. Angst/depression/etc.


2) I thought that when the Doobie Brothers sang "Take me in your arms/Love me, love me a little while," it was "Take me in your arms/Lovely lovely Louelle." At the time, I had never heard of a woman named Louelle, but I was like 7, so I figured what did I know? More than 25 years later, I heard it in the car and said, "You know, I've heard of exactly one person, ever, who was named Louelle. Maybe they're saying something else." Once I empowered myself, it didn't take long to detect the lyric. I'd still like to actually meet a woman named Louelle, though.


Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 16:08 (twenty years ago) link

"don't go out tonight/it's bound to take your life/there's a bathroom on the right." CCR, er, "Bad Moon Rising." Those books of misheard lyrics were assembled by a distinguished journalist who asked all his friends to supply him w/examples, and then compiled 'em and collected a check. Definitely a pre-internet approach to "writing" a book.

soniclifer, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:54 (twenty years ago) link

I'm Tom Waits for every dame
We are--Jack, the King of All

Look at me--
"Her Monty Knee"
It makes up for the shortcomings of being poor

When you're 15, you want a rapport
You do unto others, and run like a mother
I don't want a rapport anymore
No, I don't want a rapport anymore

otto, Wednesday, 25 February 2004 16:46 (twenty years ago) link

God save Mrs. Mopp
and good old notoriety

roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 23:13 (twenty years ago) link

two weeks pass...
My sister just confessed to me that she always thought the Kinks were saying "God save Donald Duck FOR THE BILL AND VARIETY," as if those were the two things worth saving about him -- his goddamned duck bill and varied repertoire of...duck sounds? Who knows, she's insane.

Oh, and Blur - "This is Hullo"

roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 11 March 2004 06:49 (twenty years ago) link

"Come on little bitch and do the twist"

Sym (shmuel), Thursday, 11 March 2004 08:15 (twenty years ago) link

Not so much misheard but misinterpretated - English not being my native language: the song Stoned by Canadian rockers Sword. It's chorus contains the line 'goddamn I'm stoned again'. It deals with smokking pot of course, but young little me had just seen the Monty Phyton movie The Life of Brian - in which someone gets stoned to dead - and read the lyric just a little different...
Strange song, really strange ;-)

Roger in Mokum (Roger T), Thursday, 11 March 2004 08:33 (twenty years ago) link

the line in "Gossip Folks" that I'm convinced says "I ain't got an HP" probably doesn't

Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Thursday, 11 March 2004 14:37 (twenty years ago) link

Suede - "Sleeping Pills"

"I'm a water slide
You're an air slide"

Water slide = wet pussy, air slide = stiff, "inflated" penis
Made sense at the time

LC, Friday, 19 March 2004 11:21 (twenty years ago) link

For some reason that line in Televison's "Marquee Moon":

"Life in the hive puckered up my night"

Always sounds to me in my head, like:

"Life in the hamburgers of my night"

Neither of them make much sense.

Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 19 March 2004 13:32 (twenty years ago) link

one month passes...
I have forest data, twisted forest data.

big asshat, Saturday, 1 May 2004 09:16 (nineteen years ago) link

"Sodomy, it's such a part of you..."

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 1 May 2004 14:45 (nineteen years ago) link

When I was about ten, a friend of mine insisted that the chorus in "Boogie Nights" by Heatwave is "Dance with the boogie guitar." I told him it was "Dance with the boogie/Get down," but he said that didn't make any sense. He didn't know about the expression "Get down!"

Tim Ellison, Saturday, 1 May 2004 18:53 (nineteen years ago) link

"sumo holes hurts more and more
means that our love will always be..."

"'seulement entre toi et moi'
means that our love will always be..."

April Wine

Joe (Joe), Saturday, 1 May 2004 22:46 (nineteen years ago) link

Tom Petty's "Refugee" I thought he was saying "rolling like a breakfast bean".

bimble (bimble), Saturday, 1 May 2004 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link

Creedence Clearwater Revival: "Down on the corner/out in the street/ where the pope boys are playing/singing yip yup happy beat" I found this a mystery because I couldn't imagine what a "pope" was.

bimble (bimble), Sunday, 2 May 2004 00:04 (nineteen years ago) link


In Master P's "I Got the Hook Up"
I thought he was saying, "I got the hook up, so how can you hear me?"

I later learned he was saying "I got the hook up, holla if you hear me"

My confusion was based on the premise that, if Master p had the hook up, then their should have been no difficulty in hearing him. I articulated this confusion to a group of self described "rap heads" and was promptly laughed at.

theodore fogelsanger, Sunday, 2 May 2004 01:15 (nineteen years ago) link

I had always heard it as chintz, but had no idea what that meant until looking it up just now. I knew that the adjective "chintzy" usually means cheap/lousy. Actually refers to woodblock-printed cotton originating in India. It's one of those things where I'm scrolling through GIS results like, "ohhhhh, so that's what that's called."

https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2015HN5366_jpg_l_93a4c450a85b16fe802d93e616d43963.jpg

peace, man, Monday, 21 August 2023 22:57 (seven months ago) link

two months pass...

Bob Marley - Jammin'

Jah seated in Mount Zion
And rules all creation
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/26/58/78/26587861afe4afbd77f92ff00f99eff5.jpg

(yeah, we're...)

peace, man, Monday, 23 October 2023 15:16 (five months ago) link

from green earrings by steely dan

"the rings of randy's eyes"

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Sunday, June 8, 2014 8:11 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Came here to post this, glad I ctrl+F'd first. Though I hear "Randy's eye" singular lol

J. Sam, Friday, 27 October 2023 22:33 (five months ago) link

four months pass...

I always thought the line in The Pet Shop Boys "Being Boring"--"We dressed up and fought and thought 'make amends'"--was "We dressed up in thoughts and thoughts make amends". I was wrong, but I still think mine is better.
― The Illiterate (moriarty), Sunday, 14 January 2007 03:34 (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I also thought it was "we dressed up in thoughts and thoughts make amends" for the last however many decades I've been listening to this song for, and it was always one of my favourite PSB lyrics, but their official website says "dressed up and fought and thought 'make amends'", so I guess that must be what Neil is actually singing

soref, Friday, 15 March 2024 19:20 (one month ago) link

I was part of a hip hop channel on mIRC (DALnet) once and the 'summary' for the room that loaded up when you entered was this quote from a member of the channel from like a year or two earlier, where they had thought the lyric to The Real Slim Shady was

I'm Slim Shady
Yes, I'm the real Shady
All you other Slim Shadys
are justin my teddy

and were still being clowned for it years later

CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Friday, 15 March 2024 19:34 (one month ago) link

Justin, my teddy
I love it

kinder, Saturday, 16 March 2024 17:13 (one month ago) link

Neil Young sings to his car:

When you're old enough to repaint
But young enough to sell

Brad C., Saturday, 16 March 2024 17:22 (one month ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.