Lyrics you got wrong - for a long time.

[Rob_Royale]

So, I'm now 56 years old, and just found out today that ELO's (Electric Light Orchestra) Evil Woman, isn't Medieval Woman.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've got a lot of these.

For the longest time, I couldn't make sense of the Procol Harum song, Wyatt Earp Shared His Pail.

Or Elton John, Hold me close and tie me down some.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Apparently Jimmy Hendrix WASN'T saying, "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Is there a bathroom on the right?

 

[ericalauren]

My friend and I were talking about how we thought Elton John's song "Tiny Dancer" went "hold me closer, tired of dancing". The world was a different place before the Internet, I tell you!

 

[Tio_Narratore]

from Wikipedia:

A mondegreen (/ˈmɒndɪˌɡriːn/ ⓘ) is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.[1] Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.[2][3] The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, recalling a childhood memory of her mother reading the Scottish ballad "The Bonnie Earl o' Moray", and mishearing the words "laid him on the green" as "Lady Mondegreen".

 

[Tio_Narratore]

 

[SimonDoom]

Van Morrison's song Brown Eyed Girl: "Gunned down the old man with a transistor radio."

 

[bumpercars]

I thought Panic! At The Disco was telling me to face these kinds of things with "a sense of poisoned rationality."

 

[lilshymynx]

I've got a lot of these.

For the longest time, I couldn't make sense of the Procol Harum song, Wyatt Earp Shared His Pail.

Or Elton John, Hold me close and tie me down some.

No, no, no....it's 'Hold me closer, Tony Danza'

also...

I'm looking for a lover with a red iPhone

 

[SimonDoom]

No, no, no....it's 'Hold me closer, Tony Danza'

also...

I'm looking for a lover with a red iPhone

It's a good one, but not for someone from my generation, because nobody had ever heard of Tony Danza when that song premiered.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I could never understand why Abba's Dancing Queen was at the Union dance, Union jive.

 

[lilshymynx]

It's a good one, but not for someone from my generation, because nobody had ever heard of Tony Danza when that song premiered.

Very true...just like the fact that the iPhone didn't exist when Def Leppard wrote 'Pour Some Sugar on Me', but it is what it is.

 

[alohadave]

For 30 years I had misheard the lyrics to Seal's Kiss From a Rose.

I always thought it was:

Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grave

When it's actually:

Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey

It blew my mind that I'd had it wrong all that time.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Is there a bathroom on the right?

When I was a boy it was a baboon on the right. I still sing it. It's more fun.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Van Morrison's song Brown Eyed Girl: "Gunned down the old man with a transistor radio."

In fairness, most songs from Van the Man sound basically like the deranged ravings of drunken if honey-voiced tramp.

The funniest one of these is the Manfred Mann's cover of Bruce Springsteen's Blinded by the Light. They either didn't know or didn't care that the line was Revved up like a Deuce - as this means nothing to Brits and went with 'Wrapped up like a douche'.

In 2005, Springsteen himself commented on this amusing mistake. “Deuce was like a Little Deuce Coupe, as in a 2-seater Hot Rod. Douche is a feminine hygienic procedure. But what can I say, the public spoke,” he joked.

 

[THBGato]

For the longest time, I couldn't make sense of the Procol Harum song, Wyatt Earp Shared His Pail.

That song doesn't make sense even when you do know the lyrics.

I used to think Paul Simon was singing "I don't wanna end up in Khartoum, in Khartoum graveyard". Which I thought was fair - I wouldn't want to go to Khartoum either.

 

[ericalauren]

I thought Panic! At The Disco was telling me to face these kinds of things with "a sense of poisoned rationality."

I thought that, too!

 

[HordHolm]

Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard...

And Stevie Wonder was singing about some girl called Marchad Eeyemore (?)...

 

[YDB95]

The funniest one of these is the Manfred Mann's cover of Bruce Springsteen's Blinded by the Light. They either didn't know or didn't care that the line was Revved up like a Deuce - as this means nothing to Brits and went with 'Wrapped up like a douche'.

Mann at least claimed to have really said "deuce" and blamed the sound on a recording glitch. He also said they tried to redo the vocal but never got a decent sounding replacement.

 

[StillStunned]

"You've gone too far this time, and I'm dancing on the Ballantine's"

 

[Rob_Royale]

Oh heck yes. I've been a fan since the 80's and heaven knows how many lyrics I've butchered singing their songs. Considering how abstract their lyrics are, it's no wonder, though.

"You've gone too far this time, and I'm dancing on the Ballantine's"

 

[StillStunned]

Oh heck yes. I've been a fan since the 80's and heaven knows how many lyrics I've butchered singing their songs. Considering how abstract their lyrics are, it's no wonder, though.

It also doesn't help that back in the 80s I mostly heard their songs on cassette, often taped from the radio. As illustrated by this commercial from back in the day:

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

I always heard this line:
"coming back from some mill in Wisconsin."

as:
"coming back from Somillin, Wisconsin."

and even went to google maps to try to find where it was ...

 

[lilshymynx]

I can't claim these as my own mishearings, but ones that were foisted off on me by one of my english teachers in high school. She used to torment us with cursed lyrics to songs when she'd had enough of our shit. Best (and worst) teacher ever. I can't remember most of them unless the song pops up someplace, but a couple I remember were:

The Bee Gees - "Bald-headed woman, she's a bald-headed woman to meeee"
Scorpions - "Here I am, raunchy like a hurricane"