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

Ah that puts that one to an end. First time I heard it that way

 

Back in the 80s, Whenever I heard Paul Young’s “Every Time You Go Away”,

“Every time you go away, You take a piece of meat with you...”

 

That would work if the singer or songwriter ran a butcher shop.

 

Good point, probably what he’s doing today just kidding heh heh

 

For one, I thought Rocketman was burning all the shoes he'd ever owned.

 

When I was a kid, I Always pictured Bobby 'Don't Worry Be Happy' McFerrin as a slick man in a 3-piece suit and short cut hair. More like 60's motown.

 

It's not really a misheard lyric, but 9-year-old me always thought ELO's "Livin' Thing" had something to do with Patty Hearst...

 

I thought “Angel” by Shaggy was about a dog.

I always heard the first line,

“Girl, you’re my angel, you’re my darling angel”

as “Girl, you’re my angel, you’re my dog named Angel”

And those “uh” sounds he makes - I thought those were supposed to sound like a dog barking.

Besides, with a name like “Shaggy”, of course he writes songs about dogs!

 

Herman’s Hermits, “Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter”

The refrain

Walkin' about, even in a crowd, well
You'll pick her out...

I always heard it as “You’ll kick her out...”
Never could figure out what he meant by that

 

When I first started listening to FM Rock radio I got a couple songs wrong, thought Gary Wright was singing Eugene Weaver instead of Dream Weaver and the chorus to The Cars song was “I like the night light baby” and thought that’s cool, I like the night light too

 

Blue Öyster Cult "(Don't Fear) The Reaper"
As a kid I heard:
"Come on baby, come feel the reverb"

 

Space Oddity - I thought his name was Major Tong

 

The Rolling Stones - Paint It Black. I thought the line was "I have to turn my head until my doctor scolds".

 

Great song, for sure, but lyric-wise it has always felt incomplete to me...

White boy falls in love with black girl... his parents disapprove.... and then??

It just sort of ends with no resolution or anything... a bit ironic considering the name of the band.

 

Any song with
Make love
Shaking all over
Or
Till the morning comes

 

Hey, maybe they were fans of short stories.

But I guess the resolution could be seen in the chorus - "Louie Louie you're gonna cry."
Things just ain't going to work out for Louie.

 

Close

 

And she won't give it up because she's 17.

Everyone should hold onto those night lights until at least 25.

 

What has shocked me more is not mixed up lyrics but finally understanding the lyrics as an adult. A lot of times the hook is so catchy that you really don't hear everything else. Realizing Rupert Holmes' Escape (Pina Coloda Song) or Human League's "Human" songs were about attempted affairs or already having had the affair just blew me away! I can remember being like HEY, W..A..I..T A MINUTE.....

 

Another one. It took to my mid-twenties until I 'heard' the correct lyrics.

This is what I heard:

"I believe in alcohol. Where you from? you sexy thing…."

That premise gave me a complete different interpretation of the song.

 

That was always 'I believe in Malcolm' to me.

'Papa Don't Preach' = 'Poppadom Bridge'. Pretty sure I knew this wasn't actually the case but I couldn't get rid of it. A friend also thought the 'tropical, the island breeze' part of 'La Isla Bonita' was actually 'chopping all the ivory'.

 

Oh, and when I was 13 years old, I had a friend who wasn’t into alternative music yet. He was also a bit of a gearhead, messing around with mowners and motorcycles. That was his habitat.

For more than a year, he always talked about the band ‘Race Against The Machine’, even when corrected.

He genuinally didn’t understand the mindset of the real name. In his eyes and ears it had to be’Race’. According to him ‘rage’ didn’t make any sense at all.

 

Good title for a political thread. On a different forum.

 

I pronounced 'moog' so that it rhymed with 'fugue'. A lot of people did at first. Nothing particularly embarrassing there.

But then I read in a magazine that it was pronounced like 'vogue'.

And for a long time thereafter, I pronounced it like that--with a 'v'. Yep, I went around saying that I wanted a 'mini-vogue', etc.

So convinced by my misreading of that article, I even argued with other people, saying they were mispronouncing it and that most people do.

*sigh*

 

I also thought Cream's Sunshine was sung completely by Jack Bruce...in terms of misunderstanding songs, one main one for me was Salt of the Earth by The Stones...I used to think it was some sort of phony reverence towards the middle class till I learned from fellow poster, Exile on My Street only a few years ago, that it's a cynical, yet empathetic commentary on middle class trappings. This made me appreciate the song more. Thanks Chris!