A Lyric You Misheard ( Not The Usual Suspects , Please )

Rod Stewart, Motown Song.

"We'll go up on the roof and listen to The Miracles echo through the eiderdown below".

EG.

 

Well it's not really a lyric misheard by me, but rather an error by the transcriber of the lyrics to Hotel California for the Japanese pressing of Eagles Live. I caught one line that was kinda funny:

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted,
She got the Mercedes bends . . .

 

I think that is the intended lyric. A play on Benz/Bends (the condition suffered by divers when they surface too fast).

 

First line of Johnny Winter's Second Winter, Memory Pain..."Serves me right to suffer..."

For years I had it in my head he was saying, "serve me right to supper."

 

In "Supper's Ready" by Geneis I always heard:

"(They're going to change you into a human being!)"

as

"What a potential for a human being!"

 

I guess that is a misheard lyric for me after all these years. Twisted, bends, Tiffany and Mercedes. Makes sense. Huh. Well there you go.

 

Gonna use my arms
Gonna use my legs
Gonna use my style
Gonna use my sausage

The real lyrics to Brass in Pocket by the Pretenders don't make any more sense really, so I am quite happy to mishear what Chrissie is singing.

 

Doors:

"Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen/warm my mind near your gen-i-tals"

 

Well I just discovered I had AC/DC's opening line in Shake A Leg wrong now for over 35 years -
I thought it was "I been trippin' out on the street, on the street" - now I read it's "idle juvenile" that makes sense (also)

 

Today as I was listening to Yes’s Fragile I was reminded of this:
On We Have Heaven for many years I thought it was “Tell the moon don’t tell the marcher”, until I found out it’s “Tell the moondog tell the March Hare”.

 

I've always understood the song as being about a delusional schlub with dreams of making it as a jazz musician who wants to give himself a nickname like Duke Ellington or Count Basie.

 

For about 25 years I thought Macca was singing the following in Coming Up

I’ve got a better can of peaches
One that everyone can share

instead of

a better kinda future
One that everyone can share

 

Some great ones here

 

We Five - You Were On My Mind, I always heard:

I got worries, whoa, oh
I got wounds to bind

So I went to Dakota
Just to ease my pain

Correct is to "the corner", not to "Dakota". I listened to the song today and realized I wasn't hearing the lyric correctly, I looked it up. Of course Dakota doesn't make any sense unless Dakota is a happy place for the songwriter. I can't see how to the corner makes any sense regardless. I wonder if I will sing along with Dakota next time I listen.

 

Spencer Davis Group - Gimme Some Lovin'

So glad, tomatoes
So glad, tomatoes

You have to pronounce it like tuh-may-tuhs.

 

What is the actual lyric ?

 

5th Dimension, "Together Let's Find Love"

Correct line, "Let's not miss a thing, girl if you know what I mean"

I've always heard "Let's not miss a finger, if you know what I mean"

Kind of changes the meaning a bit

 

Just heard Bicycle Race by Queen a few minutes ago and it reminded me that for years, when Freddie is listing the things he doesn't want to do, and he sings "I don't want to be a candidate, for Vietnam or Watergate" I always thought he was singing:

"I don't want to be a candidate, or be at number one again" which I just thought was a great lyric saying he wanted to give up being a star so he could ride his bike instead!

 

I think it's actually "split up on the docks at night". Anyway, the frequently misheard "dark sad night" is probably better.


Can I nominate Van Morrison's entire career output? I always thought he was just grunting in some Celtic proto-language, and then thirty years later I realized he was actually singing English words.

 

What the heck is "eiderdown"?

 

My bestie and I used to play one of Billy's early-80s records on cassette -- this in about 1984, when we were 8 -- and we thought his song/chorus was "Flush for fantasy".

We were like, "Cool! He's got a song about being on the toilet!"

Made sense when you were 8.

 

Ob La Di Ob La Da - "Happy as a Rasta in the marketplace, Desmond lets the children lend a hand..."

 

It's used in bedding/mattresses etc. So I thought they'd put a makeshift bed up on the roof, and the music was coming up from the house beneath them!

EG.

 

I always thought it was "put it up on the docks at night", as in he left his car there (comes right after "We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out west...")

 

Tangled Up In Blue | The Official Bob Dylan Site