Magic Carpet Ride, I always thought he sang "a lousy camel is all I found." And for the life of me, I could not figure out how that camel would help him.
Elton John's "Island Girls". "I like girls" "What you wanted in this wise man's world". "He wants to take you from your record boss".
Bob Dylan-Workingman's Blues #2 "Well, they burned my barn, and they stole my horse I can't save a dime" I always heard "I can't say goodbye", which I prefer.
The Monkees - "She": "She devoured all my Sweet 'n' Low..." Yeah, they claim it's actually "sweet love", but Micky was really singing about his missing sugar substitute.
Johnny Winter: Memory Pain Serve me right to suffer, for some reason I always heard as serve me right to supper.
And I thought he was singing "He wants to take you from the record bars." I thought record bars were where they didn't have live music but only played records. Come to think of it, there used to be a chain of mall stores called Record Bar.
Okay, this is from only one of the most popular albums of all time, but it took me years to decypher the lyrics. In Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" I thought Stevie Nicks was singing "When the rain wall sheers you clean you'll know." Oh that Stevie, I thought, being weirdly poetic again.
One of the funniest bits David Letterman did was a take on this song where they pondered the Bille Jean lyric "the chair is not my son." Can't find video of that. But here is another take on it.
Penny Lane: Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout A pretty nurse is selling puppies from a tray
"Rave on Patsy Cline" Carl Perkins 'Dixie Fried' It's actually "Rave On, cats he cried" I'm told - but I still hear it as the former and like it that way much better.
Damn ! I've thought it was "I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada and trigger mix, and his hair was purple"
"Wrong" lyrics that you feel are more fitting? I think the Airplane missed a trick here..... Saturday afternoon Yellow clouds rising in the noon Acid incense and balloons Saturday afternoon People dancing everywhere OWSLEY shouting I don't care... Well that's how I heard it....and still do
Air Supply- Lost in Love "You know you can't fool me, I've been loving you too long/It started so easy/ You're one to carry on..." Of course it's "You want to carry on" I swear I like "You're one to carry on..." better.
I always used to think that Paul Simon was "Slip Slidin' Away" to an eerie destination. It gives the song a whole different effect & meaning, which I prefer. I always thought The Monkees sang "Take a Giant Step" outside, you're mine. I still prefer it that way, as I think "mind" is dumb & dated. Some others, like Kim Carnes "Bette Davis Eyes" are much better with the original lyrics than my misheard "better days aside."
Resurrecting the thread to post one I just remembered mishearing as a kid, from "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin: Actual lyric: "Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan, got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home." What I heard: "Mean old lady told me to weed that lawn, got what it takes to make a monkey man leave his home." So much better!
A new one: so I'm listening to the new LCD Soundsystem album, and half-way through "How Can You Sleep?" I hear James Murphy start chanting "Biz Markie, Biz Markie, Biz Markie..." The actual lyric is "There's more for you, There's more for you, There's more for you..." The vocal is relatively low in the mix, so I'm gonna blame that.
Always heard it as "gave my little Bessie head" in Cripple Creek. My band mate corrected me but I continue to sing the harmony vocal part that way cause I am stubborn and have an odd sense of humor. Leveled with him after doing that for three years and he had no idea I had kept doing it.
Strawberry Fields Forever - "No one I think is in my tree". I like my version better: "No more laughing kids in my tree". Pretenders "Talk Of The Town" - "And passed like a cloud". Maybe funnier, but not better: "And pissed like a cloud". ELO - "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" - the printed lyrics say "Walking on a wave's chicane", but "Walking on a wave she came" works better, and actually rhymes with "name".
No amount of lyric switching is going to save this song, arguably the most annoying of all time (sorry, couldn't help myself there ) Back to the fun. I always thought that changing deliberate mispronunciations of lyrics would ruin songs. Example: imagining Michael Jackson singing his many "shamon" 's or whatever it is he says is still better than "come on."
My wife was always baffled by one particular line in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Almost Cut My Hair: Increases my paranoia Like looking in my mirror and seeing a Polish guy Totally changes the meaning. It was Crosby's unusual pronunciation of "PO-lice car" that threw her.
