Misheard lyrics

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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 swear I was at a friend's earlier today and heard the new Britney Spears song on TV. As hard as we listened, she seemed to be saying "Your toxic cum dripping down my face" or something similar.

This isn't true, is it?

And if she keeps walking like that she will need a new spine soon.

Sasha (sgh), Sunday, 2 May 2004 07:27 (nineteen years ago) link

my friend karly was classic for this. she heard "brimful of asha on the 45" as "i'm a real fruit pasher and i'm 45". and in "end of a century" by blur she thought "we kiss with dry lips when we say goodnight" was "we kiss vaginas when we say goodnight".

The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Sunday, 2 May 2004 08:07 (nineteen years ago) link

I just died in your ass tonight

uh, Monday, 3 May 2004 03:50 (nineteen years ago) link

nine months pass...
Like a virgin +"[{€0 for the very +irst time

Maradonna, Saturday, 19 February 2005 23:42 (nineteen years ago) link

"The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind" - my friend Trish reinterprets Bob Dylan at the age of 5.

For most of my childhood I thought Sade was singing "Ooooooh Bopper Ator"

VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 20 February 2005 00:05 (nineteen years ago) link

..and "Oh Sherry, I'm outta love, Hose gone, Hose gone"

VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 20 February 2005 00:10 (nineteen years ago) link

I posted these around here somewhere before:

I thought the backup singers were singing "Lot's wages" on "Showbiz Kids."

I thought Huey Lewis was singing "Now the oboe may be better tweeting, but the heart of rock and roll, the heart of rock and roll is still beating."

Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 20 February 2005 00:57 (nineteen years ago) link

Clinic, in the song "Welcome" seem to sing "Now you're welcome, now you're welcome with a smore." Damn, nobody's ever welcomed me with a smore. (It's actually "with us more")

nickn (nickn), Sunday, 20 February 2005 01:01 (nineteen years ago) link

My sister thought that Hey Ya contained the lyric "shake it like a polaroid pizza" and she still sings it now

When i was younger for some bizarre reason i though that smoke on the water was soap on a rope

poopsiekeepsie, Sunday, 20 February 2005 22:17 (nineteen years ago) link

"Oh Sherry, I'm outta love, Hose gone, Hose gone"

haha. I might use this for comic relief sometime.

Aaron A., Sunday, 20 February 2005 22:32 (nineteen years ago) link

I seriously had NO idea what the crap he was saying until I looked up the lyrics. But I like my version way better.

Also: "Charleeeene don't like it / Rock the Casbah, Rock the Casbah"

VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 20 February 2005 23:43 (nineteen years ago) link

xxpost:
A friend in high school thought the Rolling Stones song on Miss You went "I'll never leave your pizza burning."

A certain WFMU DJ and myself thought Lowell Fulson was singing about having a "fatback roll" in his pocket in "Tramp."

Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 28 February 2005 22:36 (nineteen years ago) link

four months pass...
I feel pretty dumb about this one, but in "Lay Lady Lay" I thought the line was "stay with your many wiles" , through hundreds of listens to Nashville Skyline, live shows, bootlegs, etc. An unusual phrase, I always thought, but it doesn't really stand out compared to a great deal of his other lyrics.

It wasn't until I heard a crappy cover of it this weekend during some equally crappy tv show or something that I realized it's actually "stay with your man awhile."

*hangs head in shame*

jedidiah (jedidiah), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:05 (eighteen years ago) link

nine months pass...
I was driving around San Fran with my girlfriend and Too Short's "Blow the Whistle" came on -- somehow she misheard it as "Platypus"

For the rest of our drive we couldn't stop going "Platypus...Platypus...Platypus..."

Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 20:31 (eighteen years ago) link

"Norman, take me in your arms and rock me baby."

Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link

"Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, put your hands all over my body."
Erotica by Madonna.

dr lulu (dr lulu), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 21:50 (eighteen years ago) link

three weeks pass...
I definitely thought it was

'caught up like a duce another runner in the night'

DUCE referring to :: a leader or commander; a chief.

that makes sense right?

Reality Check, Tuesday, 16 May 2006 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, take out T-C-P"

Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 23:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Flock of Seagulls - "I Ran":

"I'm fighting in a demon fight with you;
A demon fight with you."

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 29 May 2006 14:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Sham 69 'You're a Better Man Than I' - "can you tell a wise man by the way he stinks and smells"

dave q (listerine), Monday, 29 May 2006 16:59 (seventeen years ago) link

"The night we met I know I needed to sew"

and from the same song:

"Be my little baby, don juan, and only"

That's what you get for letting kids listen to music, I guess.

musically (musically), Monday, 29 May 2006 19:54 (seventeen years ago) link

I think my cousin has the one that cracks me up the most, and again it's for Deep Purple's classic. Instead of

Smoke on the water / And fire in the sky

he thought it was:

Slow-motion Walter / That fire-engine guy

And then the character Phoebe on "Friends" mistook Elton John's (well, Bernie Taupin's) chorus in Tiny Dancer as:

"Hold me closer Tony Danza"

:)

shorty (shorty), Monday, 29 May 2006 20:15 (seventeen years ago) link

As a teen one of my friends had "Dreadlock Holiday" (you know, the one that goes "I don't like reggae / I love it") on tape, and after we'd listened to it about a kazillion times, another friend said, "You know, this is a great tune, but why does the singer say he doesn't like cricket?". Holy god did we laugh!

Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 29 May 2006 20:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Wha'?
that's right isn't it? what should it be?

P-Dog (p-dog), Monday, 29 May 2006 20:38 (seventeen years ago) link

two weeks pass...
If it's not love, then it's the bum, the bum, the bum, the bum, the bum, the bum, the bum that will bring us together

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 13 June 2006 23:35 (seventeen years ago) link

I knew someone who loved Sufragette City by David Bowie because of the misheard lyric "The smell of my dick has put my spine out of place".

dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 14 June 2006 07:17 (seventeen years ago) link

three months pass...
HAHAHAHA I just searched this thread to say "THE SMELL OF FAT CHICKS JUST PUT MY SPINE OUT OF PLACE"

small world

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 01:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Huey Lewis pwns this thread for me.

1.) You'll say anything to a butterfly (If this is It)

2.) I wanna new drug, wetherwall made me sick

3.) They say the heart of rock and roll is forbidden

I guess I can make another Louie Louie reference today...

PappaWheelie has no answers to any question that requires actual thought (PappaW, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 02:04 (seventeen years ago) link

"I've been waiting for a guy to come and take me by the hand.
Cure these sensations, make me feel the pleasures of another man."

I wondered why you didn't hear more about Ian Curtis being gay.

Bumblepuppy (Horbgorbling Slubberdegullion), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 02:42 (seventeen years ago) link

i can't remember any specific lines, but 'la woman' by the doors is an easy one to mishear.

Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 09:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Bumblepuppy OTM. Only I thought it was "Could these sensations."

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:16 (seventeen years ago) link


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