When you were a kid and listened to a song, what did you get totally wrong about it?

You and Howard Stern both. Thanks to Howard, I can't unhear Billy Joel's "A n***er can't drive with a broken back!" (in Movin' Out).

 

"Groovin'' - The Young Rascals.
"Life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessly" became "Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie".

 

I thought the Beatles' "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" was about not being allowed to cross the street. I was four.

 

Never knew the instrumental passage at the end of Layla was part of the same song. I thought radio stations (everywhere I went) were always playing these "two" songs back-to-back every time. It was starting to weird me out.

 

What IS it about?

 

I thought The Ventures were machines.
My older brother had 2 of their LP's, "Mashed Potatoes" & "Telstar"; neither LP jacket depicted any band members.
So I assumed the music was mechanically generated, ala a player piano.

A couple years later, I and many others in my second grade class thought Donovan was singing "We screwed on the beach at sunset.." in Sunshine Superman.

 

That could work. She was a very specific writer!

 

I could imagine Karen Carpenter singing Human Nature.

 

well the first record I got as a kid was Neil Diamond's "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" which I thought was "Brother Love is Traveling Salvation Shore" until I got the record. Also we had the single of the Beatles doing "Yesterday" backed with "Act Naturally" which I though contained the line "like Wynne deMasca you can never tell". I thought Wynne was just some star who was discovered at a soda counter or something.

 

"Mothers Little Helper"

I thought that was me...

 

To paraphrase the venerable Pete Townshend: "it's a song about wanking."

 

I didn't understand, or "get" any of the album The Who By Numbers until I was in my 30s and able to relate to the lyrics Townshend was writing at that time (hand me my checkbook and I'll crawl off to die). Entwistle's Success Story is the only song I really understood as a teen. It wasn't about getting older like the other songs. So Townshend's lyrics didn't mean anything to me (I didn't even think about them) until I was the age he was when he wrote them.

 

James' "Laid": "But she only comes when she's on top".

I thought "on top" was a British colloquialism for "being on the ups". That she simply came over for sex when she was having a good day.

 

I guess the main thing is that I poorly understood the social and political context of music. My implicit assumption was that if I liked the song, then its values were consonant with mine.

When I was in Jr. High, I liked Lynyrd Skynyrd and was only so-so on Neil Young, so I more or less assumed that I was on Ronnie Van Zant's side on the whole Sweet Home Alabama vs Southern Man dispute.

Once I understood the context, I realized that I had been naive, and that I needed to listen to Neil Young much more closely.

 

Badge by Cream:
I told you not to wander 'round in the dark.
I told you 'bout the swans, that they live in the park.
Then I told you 'bout our kid, now he's not a tomato.

Freaked me out when I discovered it was "married to Mabel"

 

Strange that with all these "mis-hearings" we call ourselves "audiophiles", huh?

 

At least he can polish the fenders!

 

Big old Jed and Delilah

 

Surely it's the drive for equipment upgrades.

 

The genius that is....

 

Been listening to the The Beatles for 50 years and never realized, until last year, that Paul sings the second ".. any time at all .." in every chorus of the song.

 

Puff the Magic Dragon and its mention of "ceiling wax" (sic) used to puzzle me as a child - why did ceilings need waxing?

I always heard a certain hymn at school as "I Am The Lord of the Dance Settee", as if Jesus was hosting some celestial couch dancing party.

 

"In My Time Of Dying" By Led Zeppelin was my favorite song when i was young, and i never understood the lyrics until I re listened with a less naive ear. Wow.

Same with The Lemon Song, and i sang along to that at age 5

 

I for some reason thought the song was Maisy Doats and Dozey Doats and Little Lambsy Divey, a Fiddley Divey Do Wouldn't Do.