This is weird, my family and I were talking about this tonight.

When I was little I swore that the Rolling Stones were saying "I'll never leave your pizza burnin'" instead of "I'll never be your beast of burden"

ozzz, I should've mentioned, vis-a-vis "Blinded By the Light", that everyone was certain that the "wrapped up like a deuce" line was in fact "dressed up like a douche"... which, considering the times, we probably WERE!

I have a feeling I've said these somwhere before:

In the Elton John song, Tiny Dancer, I always thought he was saying "hold me closer, Tony Danza...." .

In the Beatles Happiness is a Warm Gun, I always thought he was saying "Back to the b*tch that I left uptown", rather than "back to the bits that I left up town. I was never a big Yoko fan, but I always thought that was a bit harsh!

My little brother is the best for them. He thought Holiday was "Marmalade", "Finally" was "Violins" and the line in Brimful of Asher (which was in fact "Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow") was "Everybody needs a Muslim for a pillow"...

...has anybody brought up Summer of '69 yet?

PS - Coolupway, I also had a problem with Our Lips are Sealed , but I thought it was "Alex the Seal"!

I don't think we dare bring up Summer of 69, Tanzen At least I don't....... Fear of things getting X rated, I guess.

Ok, I just remembered a few more:

in Stairway to Heaven, I always thought the line "and as we wind on down the road" was "And there's a wino down the road"...

...more recently, there's a line in Hootie & The Blowfish's Let Her Cry which I still don't know. All I know is it's not "She says 'There's the one I love the most', and slaps my firm behind..."

Ahhh I always enjoy taking a good laugh at myself when I find out I've been singing the wrong lyrics to a well known song.

There is one song that comes to mind. I've always called it "Blinded by the Light"(but maybe it has a different title) but darn it all if I can't think of the band. Maybe someone else will know.

The misheard lyric is: Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a douche, another owner in the night.

The actual lyric is: Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.

Another pretty well known misheard lyric is from "Stairway to Heaven"

Misheard: And there's a wino down the road. I should have stolen Oreos.

I'm afraid I don't know the real words to that line. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Re Stairway, how did the lady in fact know that "a lip of hers is gold"?

Another one I overheard someone singing that cracked me up was Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me". He was singing it as "...down the basement, lock the cellar door, and baby, don't do it to me.." instead of "...and baby, talk dirty to me....."

Amazing (or perhaps indicative that I'm the oldest guy on the site!) that no one has mentioned the "pompetous" furor. Steve Miller inserted this non-word into "Space Cowboy" in '74 or so, and no one could figure out what the heck it was.
I guess in retrospect it is a non-mondegreen that was "passing".

Re: "The Joker" by Stever Miller. That one is just full of misheard lyrics. Steve making up his own words didn't help much.

My favorite misheard lyric is from "Glorified G" by Pearl Jam.

Original: Glorified version of a pellet gun.
misheard: 45 versions of a pelican.

Oh, here's another Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry"

origianl: And we will cook oatmeal poridge
misheard: And we will cook Maury Povich

My cousin heard a line in "Venus" a bit wrong. Her version went:
"I'm your Venus, I'm your fire. Jump in the fire."

Of course, it's really:
"I'm your Venus, I'm your fire. What's your desire?"

does anyone know what that lady in this song is REALLY saying? I can never figure it out:

Well it's a (??real Blue natural my forty-five??)

Another line from the song, just because I don't remember what it is called, goes "Everybody needs a busom for a pillow"

If you're asking about "Brim full of Asha", the lyric is
"Brim Full of Asha on the '45"
Ok, so that lyric doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
It's sung by Cornershop. The song was written for Asha Bosley an Indian actress.

A DOUBLE MONDEGREEN song from the 70's... Stephen Bishop's "On and On".

At first I thought the song was about basketball, beginning as it appeared to as follows:

"Down in Jamaica Laker lotsa pretty women..."

I mean, we all knew about Wilt Chamberlain, right?

But the more devastating one was further into the song:

...takes a ladder/steals the stars from the sky/ puts on
SOME LOUD TRACK and starts to cry...

It was "Sinatra", of course, but I missed it and some of my equally clueless friends did too.

Bishop has redeemed himself, of course. He is as far as I know the only man to have appeared in BOTH "Kentucky Fried Movie" and "Animal House". (In the latter he is the grating folk-singer whose guitar Belushi smashes against the wall.)

My sister thought that the lyrics to 'Please Don't Go' were Freeze The Boat! Don't ask!!!
And the new song from the cheesy popstars girl band sounds like Piece of Crumpet on my stereo, I think it's meant to be Beats Are Pumping on my Stereo!

Would you believe a hit 60's song came about because of a misheard lyric? When singer John Fred first heard the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", he thought it went "Lucy in Disguise". When he found out differently, he was disappointed, but it inspired his writing (with Andrew Bernard) the smash hit "Judy in Disguise (with Glasses)". tjoeb};>

Just remembered that, as a kid, I used to think
Keep the home fires burning, while your pants are yearning!!!!

When my friend Heather's little girl was 4, she absolutely loved "Grease" and would go around singing the songs. Instead of "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity, won't go to bed til I'm legally wed" she would sing "clousy with virgilidy" and "Eaglely wed".

Anyone remember Al Stewart, he of the world's most sibilant
"s", and a number of songs that dealt with history? In 1977 or thereabouts I first heard his excellent "Year of the Cat" while driving down I-95 to Miami from New York with a station wagon full of buddies. The first line of the song is "On a morning from a Bogart movie", but somehow it came across to us as "On a morning from a polecat movie."

I duuno. It was the 70's, remember.

In my family, THE most mis-understood song has to be Steve Miller's "Big Old Jet Airliner". Back when it was a Top Forty hit, I thought it said "You can't go down with the lights on" which made me, in my then-youthful virginity, almost drive off the side of the road. Years later, my baby brother's wife thought it said "Big ol' Jed left the lights on", and frankly, I can't decide which is funnier! (They now have a cat named Jed, in honor of her faux pas.)

But we've NEVER been able to ID the song that my mom thought said "Lord, I wanna be a boxcar".

Oh, and my favorite misunderstood Beatles lyric is from 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'---instead of "the girl with kalidescope eyes" it was rendered as "the girl with coliltise goes by".

I wish I could find the article on this, but I can't.

Several years back, a group in Ohio was trying to get "Wide Open Spaces" by the Dixie Chicks banned. They said the lyrics were offensive to the state of Ohio. Instead of hearing "She knows the highest stakes", they heard" She knows Ohio stinks"

I don't snort very often, but I did when I read that story.

I dunno. Ever driven through Akron or Youngstown??

I swear this is true.

We all know that 'Lola' by The Kinks was banned from the BBC for mentioning 'Coca Cola' in the words. However, the song was also banned in S.E.Qld.
The line toward the end which goes 'I'm glad I'm a man and so's Lola' was misheard by the radio censors of the time. They heard it as 'in bed I'm a man and so's Lola', and banned the thing!

I don't know, maybe it's me, but I've listened to the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" a number of times and try as I might I just can't make out anything at all about carving a swastika into your forehead, killing an actress, or trying to assassinate Gerald Ford.

It's right at the end, Coolupway. When Paul's screaming by himself...

"Helter Skelter, carve a symbol in your head!!.....
......Yes it is, yes it is...."