In any case, this all came about because Jared and I were reminiscing about songs and bands we both liked in high school (we wish we'd met back then, when we had similar tastes in tunes)(except that would have been bad because I would NEVER have dated a junior high baby when I was in high school. eewww!). Anyway, we found a ring tone online for Depeche Mode's "Blasphemous Rumors," and I related a story about when I was fifteen, spending the summer in Germany, and I translated the lyrics for a german girl. I honestly thought ol' Dave Gahan was saying "I think that God's got a sixth sense of humor/and when I die/I expect to find Him laughing." To me, this was a very optimistic and happy song, the point being that life is happy, and humorous, and when we die, we will find that all things are not only happy, but also joyful and funny and we and God will laugh about it all together.
I still prefer this interpretation.
Nevertheless, I am aware now, in my jaded and cynical grown-up state that Dave Gahan meant no such thing. And it reminded me of how many times I've wanted to make a list of all the songs I and others misheard the lyrics to. I can't remember very many at the moment, but I can remember some of my favorite examples from childhood:
- Mary Had a Little Lamb: "whose fleas were white as snow" (cute little snowy white fleas, they were)
- The Pledge of Allegiance: "and to the republic, for witches' stands, one nation, under God...." (I'm imaging a bunch of witches in pointy hats at their stands selling witchery, not unlike lemonade, or advice from Lucy in Peanuts)
- Angels We Have Heard on High: "Gloria! In egg shells is day! Oh! Gloria...." (makes sense, right? I mean, we associate religious holidays with eggs, so why shouldn't we be singing about the day dawning out of an egg? It would tie the whole mystery together.)(I can't take credit for this one. It was my sister Kyrstyn who was shocked to learn that in excelsis deo is a real latin term meaning some thing or other)
- Love One Another (the children's Sunday School Song): "By this shalmeno/ye are my disciples" (What's a shalmeno? I often wondered. I figured it was some thing you got when you were older if you were one of Jesus' disciples, and you showed it to people as proof.)
13 comments:
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!! too funny! laughing out loud!!!!!!!!
Here's one:
"Ohoooooh, Sheeerrrrrie, I'm in Love! Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone." My brother used to always sing that, and I was so annoyed cause i knew it wasn't the right lyric, but I didn't know the right ones to correct him.
You're really funny Skye. I love that you take the time to write about these little life pleasures.
OOoh, oooh, here's another:
"Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba (circa 1997):
I get knocked down
but *I'm an elephant*
you're never gonna keep me down
etc
and
He drinks a whiskey drink
he drinks a vodka drink
he drinks *another* drink
he drinks a cider drink
I always knew the elephant line was wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be ("but I get up again"), and appparently don't drink enough "lager drinks" to hear that one properly.
Phil Collins sings:
"She used to have invisible touches" in the early nineties. I thought he was singing a bad word and I couldn't believe it was on the radio.
("She used to have invisible tough sh-").
James often gazes lovingly at me and sings, "Hold me close, young Tony Danza..."
Hmmmm. What song is that? What is it? What is it? I can't think of it!
NEW RULE: When posting your song, tell us what the song was, or the real lyrics or something. I still can't figure out Lumina's either. Am I just a nerd? Probably everyone else knows immediately. ha ha.
Oh, "Hold me close, young Tony Danza" is "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John. Real lyrics of the chorus: "Hold me close, young tiny dancer! Count the headlights on the highway..."
Ben Folds also does a great version of that song.
Actually it's "Hold me closer tiny dancer, Count the headlights on the highway"
MY bad. ...my bad. It's "closer," not "young."
One commonly misheard lyric is in Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze":
Real lyric: "'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky"
Misheard: "'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy"
Not to say that I misheard it... just that some people do...
I'll steal these from the hit TV series "Dharma and Greg."
"I can see clearly now the rain is gone. I can see all the popsicles in my way."
and,
"I wanna rock and roll all night, and part of every day."
I don't think anyone (except for the fictional television character) ever actually made those mistakes though.
I cant think of which Enya song it was, but there is one that still seems to be singing about "underwear"
I used to have one of those calendars at work where you would rip off a square of paper every day. It had songs and their misquotes and was called, "'Scuze Me While I Kiss This Guy."
A good investment.
When I was a kid my brother told me these were the lyrics for a Def Leppard song:
"You've got the peaches,
I got the beets.
Sweet Potatoes
Sour Cream"
Poor naive little Tamara. I just believed everything my brother said!
I too heard many of those lyrics wrong in Primary. The one that stuck with me the longest was "shalmeno." It just made too much sense that a "shalmeno" must be a token behavior that people can see you do and it associates you with someone else. Anyhow, I was poking around aimlessly on Wikipedia today and found an interesting article about misheard lyrics. Apparently, there is a word for them! They are called mondegreens. Check out the article, it'll tickle you I'm sure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
I realize you wrote this post about three years ago, but I see you posted as late as 2008, so I hope you haven't abandoned this blog. Happy new year!
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