How about some misheard lyrics?

I'm sure there's already a few of these threads in the archives but it's been a while since I've seen one so I figured let's start a new one!

For me, here's the ultimate:

NEIL DIAMOND - "Cherry, Cherry"
When I was five years old, I could've sworn he was singing "...got the way to move me, JARED!". Almost twelve years later, I still hear it that way.

EAGLES - "Lyin' Eyes"
I used to hear it as "you can't hide Hawaiin eyes."

 

On LTD's "(Everytime I Turn Around) Back In Love", it sounds like he's singng
Everytime I turn around, when I look at MEN...
when he's really saying "when I look, I MEND. At the time I thought it was a very bold move for gay lyrics in R&B!

 

From Crocodile Rock....

But Suzie was dressed in tights

When it should have been

When Suzie wore her dresses tight

Took me a long time to figure out I had them wrong.

Sadie

 

Alanis Morissette
the lyric - "you've already won me over"
what I thought when I was 5 - "you already run me over"

 

Barbara Ann Beach Boys

We had a girl at our high school named Barb Horan. That Beach Boys song seemed to be written for her. "Barb, Barb, Barb .... Barb Barb Horan."

Melody Rolling Stones

It wasn't until the Internet that I ever did understand what the Stones were singing in "Melody."

It was a sacred night
It was our second night
It was a sacred knife

It was her second name ... Whatever.

 

The bridge in the Moody Blues' "Bless the Wings (That Bring You Back)" starts out:

"In a far-off wonderland, that flashes past my eyes"...

I heard, "In a far-off wonderland, the Fascists passed my eyes"...

In the Beatles' "I'll Follow the Sun", I heard

"One day you'll look, to see I've gone" as

"One day you'll look, to see a gun". Alters the meaning of the lyric, rather.


Cheers
Bruce

 

For YEARS, I always thought that Johnny Cash sang "In the park I saw Daddy, with a laughing little girl that he was swingin'" in "Sunday Mornin' Coming Down". Only within the last year or so, after hearing Mark Lindsay sing the song on one of his LP's, did I learn the line was "In the park I saw A daddy, with a laughin' little girl that he was swingin'".

I was always under the impression (from the misquoted line) that the singer was simply walking around town totally bummed out, and that he saw HIS dad, perhaps just an old man himself walking around town, playing with a young girl in the park. Times were different back then, ya know. Nothing bad was even thought of. In that context, it was always more moodier to me for some reason which I can't quite put into words.

Either way, the song is still perhaps in my top three faves list of all time.

It's funny how you hear something all your life one way, only to have it shattered in the blink of an eye after hearing it the CORRECT way.

 

Riders Of The Storm: "Like a dog without a bone and a cat without a moan"
Lay Down Sally "Way Down South"
Smoke On The Water "Slow Running Water"
Who wrote the book of love? "Who let the moo cow out?" (Don't laugh!)

 

In "Drift Away" I thought he was singing: "Give me the BEACH BOYS"

and, for some reason, for the longest time I thought Paul Simon was singing something about Aquavelva/Brüt instead of acapella groups in "Late In the Evening"

 

Gypsies, Trampanzees...we'd here from the people in the town they'd call us.....

 

Given the popularity of this style of music among ethnic groups in my hometown, the first time I heard "Lookin' Out My Back Door" I thought it was "tamburitzan elephants are playin' in the band"!

 

Speaking of which . . . I thought one of the lines was "Dinosaurs a-trollin' . . . "

From Big Brother and the Holding Company's "Piece of My Heart": "Didn't I make ya feel / Like you wanna own-a me . . . "

From The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar": "I thought your mama was a treasured queen . . . "

From The Animals' "The House of the Rising Sun": "Spend your life in sheer misery . . . "

And who out there thought, listening to the way The Searchers sang the title of "Needles and Pins," that they were making an off-hand reference to Ezio Pinza?

And of course, one oft-misheard line, from Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean": "The chair is not my son . . . "

 

Don't even get me started on Fogerty lyrics:
Proud Mary - "Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis... HUMPED a lot BRAINS out in New Orleans..."

Lookin' Out My Back Door - I don't even know what the real lyrics are but I doubt what I can make out are the actual lyrics:
"Paula troubles' Illinois, locked a front door, old boy. Got to sit down, take a wrench on the porch. Follow me tomorrow, my pay I'll have hoe sorrows. doop doot doo, Looking out my back door."
Perhaps I should google the correct lyrics? haha

 

She's a muscular boy, a complete impossibility ...

 

Not nearly as bad as my mishearing of this one.

For some time I thought Eric sang "And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy...Thank God, I know I'm one." Of course, in the context of the song that makes no sense whatsoever, but I didn't reason that out as a 12-year-old lad!

 

Isn't the "mystery trend" line from "Like A Rolling Stone" the most famous one?

 

Herb Albert singing something about "The sky's in love with you.."

Huh? What the H--- does that mean?

Oh - "THIS GUY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU."

 

Me too. And to this day it's hard for me not to hear and think "Beach Boys" even though I know better.

 

a classic is Elvis in Hound dog - "you ain't never bought a record, you ain't no friend of mine"

the whole thing of misheard lyrics is how meaningless words are to some of us, at some times.

I often find that I never really listened to the words of songs that I thought I had liked. Now, my ear is more attuned, and I'm realizing that I can now hear meanings in old songs that never came close to consciousness a couple of decades ago.

 

Alanis again, "and the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me..."

 

Me, I thought the last line of that was "In God, I know I've won."

 

I just cracked up when my daughter was 7yrs old and singing along to Neil Young's "Heart Of Gold" and instead of the words "Heart Of Gold" she was singing the word "Particle"!!!!
If you listen closely, It really does sound like he's singing that word!!!!
Kids will amaze you!!!

 

Then there's Hendrix:

"Scuse me while I kiss this guy..."

 

See also: Cases of "oh, NOW I get it" lyrics.

 

I speak English as a second language, so my comprehension of English lyrics certainly improved as I learned the language. But I still remember some misheard lyrics from my teens:

Kiss: "God of Thunder" - I always misheard "god of thunder" as "California".
"She's Gone" (cover version, I think the Four Tops recorded it) - "What went wrong" sounded like "rock and roll" to me!
Paul Anka: "Flashback" "love song" sounded like "lonesome" to me.

More recent ones:

Beach Boys: "Do it Again" - "It's automatic when I..." For a long time I thought he sang "It's all Americana..."
Toto: "I bless the rains down in Africa" sounded like "I guess it rains down in Africa".
Bee Gees: "Massachussetts" - "And the lights all went down..." sounded like "And their lives all went down..."