Today I heard "We're an American Band", a Grand Funk Railroad song which came out in the early 70's. I realized I had never ascertained the actual song lyrics, and when I got back home I googled them and found a MONDEGREEN MINE FIELD!!

The line which many people were certain was "Focus here sang" turns out to be "Poker's his thing." [Focus was a Dutch group of the early 70's, led by a guitar wizard named Jan Akkerman.. they had a well-known hit, "Hocus Pocus", which had excellent yodeling (!)] I guess it was theoretically possible that Focus had opened for Grand Funk at some odd venue...

"Now these fine ladies, they had a plan/they was out to meet the boys in the band" is the actual lyric. As I recall, no one could understand the first part, and everyone came away from the second line believing that there was a "committee of the boys in the band."

Oddly, the line "Four young chiquitas in Omaha" turns out to be CORRECT AS HEARD!

Alright, alright. No one remembers Grand Funk Railroad.. It was the 70's and... I guess you had to be there

Just remembered a fairly recent one. "Scar Tissue" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, has the line which I swear sounds like 'With the birds in the shed it's a lonely view'.
I still haven't quite worked out what the proper words are.

I was reminded of another one today, possibly familiar to the Aussie contingent.
The great Aussie group, Zoot, had a song in 1968 called "1x2x3x4", and there is a line in it that goes, 'I won't do it again'. Trouble is, the way Darryl Cotton sings it, I was convinced for years that he was actually singing, 'I want to wet again'.
I had a sad childhood!

I was in traffic today and I thought, "Hey, what about a thread on misheard lyrics! That would be great!" Ya ever notice how somebody else always has the good idea first?

My mother asked my sister,"What's that song about the baldheaded woman that you keep playing?"
It was the BeeGees "More Than A Woman"

For years I thought "Old Fashioned Love Song" was "Old Russian Love Song"

Savage Gardens "Animal" song was misheard by a couple of people who frequent the forums as Cannonball and Cannibal.
Which led to "I wanna run like a Cannonball/Cannibal careless and free"

By the way, where does the term "mondegreens" come from?

Shakira
Underneath your nose there's a big ole bogey......

my quote not coolcats.

sorry Coolcat90,

Oh, yeah, what about the song "Boom Sha La La Lo"?
There is one line that my daughter swears is "and warm my fat behind" and that's what it sounds like to me too. I've searched for the lyrics with google to no avail. If anyone knows what those lyrics are please let us know so I can die happy.

cheers
Maynooth

I'm pretty sure it's 'so War might pass behind', but don't quote me.
Hans Poulsen was Danish, and his accent shone throughat times.

Dalgleish
You are my hero! Now I will be able to sleep nights.

Thanks so much.
cheers
Maynooth

Dagleish - the lyrics to scar tissue are "with the birds i'll share this lonely view"

Yeah, makes sense.
But then again, have you ever been in the shed with the birds? It can get lonely too, y'know!

The one song I always remember mishearing is by KD Lang.
I heard "Can't stand gravy" when in fact the original was "Constant craving"!!!

Hmm. Always a topic for discussion. As I'm Danish and haven't always spoken English I used to get some weeeird stuff out of English-languaged songs.

Worst one recently, though, is this one. It's from Hair (the musical) in the song Abie Baby, one line goes like this:

'It's free now, thanks to yo', Massa Lincoln, emancipator of the slaves' etc.etc., which i always heard as 'the masturbator of the year'. Oh well, not an obvious resemblance but the song's normally being sung rather messy and then stuff happens.




/khassandra

From Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell

Cilla Black fan on a bike instead of Silverblack phantom bike. whoops makes more sense now

In Boney M's Rasputin I always thought he was the lover of the Russian team as opposed to the Russian queen - as a child I just assumed Rasputin was a serious football fan!!

I over heard one of my work mates singing along with "we're caught in a trap, I can't walk out" but he was singing, "They call me trash, they can't walk out"

cheers
Maynooth

an ex of mine thought Trent Reznor, in "Down In It," said "Eyes of a bullet" when he actually says "I was up above it."
I heard somewhere that someone thought Marilyn Manson said "The beautiful meatball" not "The beautiful people."

khassandra, don't be to embarrased by your misheard lyrics. I mean, considering some of the other lyrics in other songs in Hair, it's not unlikely that they'd say something like that!

I have another one. I have no idea what the right words are, but I'm pretty sure this aint it . Anyway, in California Dreaming , I always thought (and still do) that they said "You know the Preacher likes the Doors". What a cool priest!

Tanzen,

Being a native "prune picker" the song has made me homesick more than once.

It's:
You know the preacher liked the cold He knows I'm gonna stay California dreamin' .....

cheers
Maynooth <--what people do when I sing.

Thanks Maynooth! Much appreciated!

I suppose the Preacher is still cool (quite literally, if he has his way ), just not as funky as I had imagined....

Amen to what the maynooth said from a fellow prune picker...I already get the chills when I play the Cd, but "California Dreaming" is one that I personally cannot bear without getting misty!
We need Tim in here, Tim, where are you?
I didn't do a mondegreen on that one though, as I have the lyrics in a piano book...

I'm reminded of the old Hendix song which was touted as possibly the most mis-heard lyric of all time. It was in "Purple Haze" and went "scuze me while I kiss the sky". Most people heard it as "scuze me while I kiss this guy". The story has it that even Hendrix himself started lampooning the lyric and intentionally saying "kiss this guy" while leaning over to smooch the bass player during concerts lol. I think this lyric even prompted a web site of mis-heard lyrics. Oh well. Back to my corner.

Ah yes. I thought I remembered that site.

www.kissthisguy.com

I remember when we were younger my brother and I thought that "Don't it make my brown eyes bue" was "Don't admake my brownies blue."

Whenever I heard "Puff the Magic Dragon" it always left me thinking 'why would anyone want to wax their ceiling?'
(He brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff)

From the song "We Belong" my mother and I always fought over one line it went "Whatever we deny or embrace for worse of for better" my mother thought it was on rephrased, I thought it was on refrains.

The song "Babylon" always confused me I thought he was singing "Victoria, ah, Victoria, hey" when in reality he is saying "Let go of your heart, let go of your head"

Those are all extremely funny and considering I am at work I probably shouldn't be howling too loudly!!

I have been on a misheard lyrics sites before and saw the best one about Bryan Adam's Summer of 69 which goes a little something like this...

'Standing on your mother's corpse
You told me that you'd wait forever
And with a hammer in my hand
I knew it was now or never'

whereas of course the actual lyrics are:

'Standing on your mother's porch
You told me that you'd wait forever
Oh and when you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never'

Tee Hee

The most recent one misheard by me and a couple of other people are the lyrics to Shakira's song Wherever, Whenever

We thought it was:

'Even though my breasts are small and humble
Something about confusing them with muffins'

Ahem...But when I just looked up the actual lyrics they are still bizarre:

'Lucky that my breasts are small and humble
So you don't confuse them with mountains!'

????

Thanks, Moonchild. I'd completely forgotten about this thread. I was reminded of another lyric that was misunderstood by me, and almost everyone I know.

From The Smiths' 'How Soon Is Now?':

'I am the sun and the air...
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.'

The actual lyrics, of course, are:

'I am the son and the heir...'

It wasn't until I heard my grandfather greeting my older brother with 'well, if it isn't the son and heir' that I finally clued in. He's gone now , but I'll always be grateful to him for that.

These are great! The other day I was trying to figure out this one song by the Monkees "Oklahoma Backroom Dancer" (it's one of their later songs, so not many people have heard of it). I don't think I got one whole line in that song right... . Here are some of the better misheard lyrics for it...

Right Lyric: "You want to go and see her, when you're feelin' down..."
Wrong Lyric: "You want to go and see her, but you're teeth look brown..."

Right Lyric: "She's more fun than Colorado, more far out than Maine..."
Wrong Lyric: "She's more fun than my barber, And more far out than lame..."

I thought John Lennon was singing about "monkey river" instead of "Mind Games"! There was another song out at the time that was about monkeys (by Stealer's Wheel) and that
only prolonged my confusion.

Wes Cunningham's "So It Goes" from a few years back sounded like "Sarah" when he sings the title. Or at least to me it did- the radio at work plays softly over conveyor noise, so it's easy to mishear lyrics.