Misheard lyrics

* "Microphone Fiend:" I thought Rakim was describing his love of rapping as "sort of an addiction/magnetized like Nixon." Hmm, I thought, clever allusion to Watergate. It turns out he was saying "magnified by the mixing." Honestly, I prefer the former.

* "Whip It:" "Go forward! Move ahead! Run to the taxi! It's not too late!" That one isn't mine, but I like it all the same.

* "Goodbye Stranger:" "to Rabbi Josen/every day." It was actually "is the life I've chosen/every day."

* The Cars' "Bye Bye Love:" "Substitution asked Confucius, 'What's inside your head?'" It was actually "Substitution, mass confusion, clouds inside your head."

* speaking of The Cars: "Let's Go" takes on a more sinister tone when you think Ric Ocasek's singing "she never liked the Jews." (Again, not mine, but I've never heard it the same way!)

La Isla Bonita

I believe that was Maxell tapes (before they got Pete Murphy looking windswept).

"I like juice and that's the truth!!"

anyone, my all-timer -- when i was a little kid, i used to think that the buggles' "video killed the radio star" was "vinnie, don't kill the radio star" (and listening to the song, it never made sense why "vinnie" wanted to kill the radio star)

and i used to think that the line from "le freak" by chic that goes "le freak, c'est chic" was "bo-beep, go sheep!"

'He met Marmalade down in old New Orleans/Struttin' her stuff for Mister Heath'

Also googled as:
"Wrapped up like a deuce"
"revved up like a deuce" (Seems to be the consensus on the Manfred Mann version.)

Wrapped up like a goose in the middle of the night
Held up by a ...deuce... another ruler in the night
...douche...
..."dooshent"...
Slapped up by a dude...
Knocked up by...

..From "The Straight Dope" :
"Bruce's lyrics were no paragon of clarity, but at least you could understand the words: "Cut loose like a deuce another runner in the night." Some claim the "deuce" being referred to is the 1932 Ford Coupe beloved of hotrodders (cf. the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe"). Maybe, but when you're talking about a song whose opening line goes on about madman drummers, bummers, and Indians in the summer, I'm not making any definite claims.

The Manfred Mann's Earth Band ("Quinn the Eskimo") did a cover version of the tune in 1976. It became a hit, no doubt because the band made the lyrics even more opaque than they already were. They changed the line in question to "wrapped up like a deuce."

What's it mean? I'm barely on speaking terms with my own subconscious. Don't ask me to explain someone else's."

Everlast, watching the Discovery Channel.

(NERD - Provider)

also an ex-gf thought that brand new heavies - you are the universe was "you are my unicorn".

Truer words were never misheard.

"You are everything to me/You are Wayne's World" - Containe, "You" (should have been 'you always were')

moral to the story: never assume a proper noun is the correct lyric.

Michael Jackson: "Smooth Criminal"

(In reality it goes: "Annie are you okay?")

Madonna: La Isla Bonita

"Where the sheep have no name" instead of "where the streets have no name" (Where The Streets Have No Name)
"I have pierced holy lips" isntead of "I have kissed honey lips" (Where The Streets Have No Name)
"Hell, damnation" instead of "Elevation" (Elevation)
"Gonna take a walk with your sister Lorraine" instead of "Johnny take a walk with your sister the rain" (Mysterious Ways)

"You can go your own way / You can call it thunder and 'oh-nee-baaaay" (i know that one falls apart but when I was a wee lad that's how my sister and I sang it in the car)

"Living on a Cheerio pole" - male background vox on Material Girl - sang more as a joke, in retrospect - another Kerry-and-James-back-of- the-car-on-family-vacation classic

and another from that same era: Rick Astley's "Never gonna Give you Up" sang as "Then I'm gonna give you up, then I'm gonna let you down / then Im gonna run around and dessert you"

We'd also do this weird thing with our hands along with the opening descending keyboard riff in "Carribean Queen" that made it look like we were casting a spell and it never failed to make us giggle uncontrollably. Man, my parents were into some shitty music.

"Have a nose...what kind of fool am I?"

from Robert Plant's "Heaven Knows." my aunt used to babysit me when i was little, you see. she played guitar, and was avidly into Led Zep and Pat Benatar and Heart, amongst other things. she was more amused by this than i think i was, and one night we stayed up rewriting all the lyrics to the song, starting with what i'd heard. i don't remember them all, although "the finesse of the old grey goose" was involved somewhere...

Kiss - "I want to rock and roll all night. . .and part of every day"

Also, I think I've said before that I thought "Smoke on the water" was "Slow comin' home girl."

Neil Young sings to his car:

When you're old enough to repaint
But young enough to sell

Prong - Prove You Wrong

Heard: Dependence on no one, I just trust animals
Actual: Dependence on no one, I distrust and oppose

lol yours is better!

At a music festival last year my friend heard

We'd be lucky to survive, wrapped up in a dream
as
Women are here to survive not to penetrate

Brandy, you're a fine girl
what a good wife you would be
but my life, my lover, my lady
is deceased

doo doo doo
doo doot doo
doo doot doo

As I write this, I do not know if in ETBG's "Each and Every One", Tracey Thorn is being offered:
- the same thing in a different guise
- the same thing in different guys
- or maybe something else entirely?

I always thought the line in The Pet Shop Boys "Being Boring"--"We dressed up and fought and thought 'make amends'"--was "We dressed up in thoughts and thoughts make amends". I was wrong, but I still think mine is better.
― The Illiterate (moriarty), Sunday, 14 January 2007 03:34 (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I also thought it was "we dressed up in thoughts and thoughts make amends" for the last however many decades I've been listening to this song for, and it was always one of my favourite PSB lyrics, but their official website says "dressed up and fought and thought 'make amends'", so I guess that must be what Neil is actually singing

― soref, Friday, March 15, 2024 7:20 PM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Me too! This is astonishing to learn.

Just maddening to think about. You feel like urgently alerting Neil - "Do you realise you could significantly improve one of your very best songs with no effort on your part just by making a minor edit to your offical website?"

“Lido……oh oh whoa………Lido”

Surely the argument against that Pet Shop Boys interpretation is that thoughts, by themselves, can't make amends with other people?

Thought the chorus of Jet Boy by New York Dolls was “Lockheed was my baby”. It makes sense with the metaphor!

Boyz II Men - It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

Heard: The good times that made us laugh, I wait 'em back (whatever that could mean. I also thought it might be an egregious pronunciation of "I want 'em back")
Actual: The good times that made us laugh outweigh the bad

Realized my mistake upon hearing the original by G.C. Cameron.

Maybe posted this before, but for many decades my Dad sang "I believe in Malcolm" along to the Hot Chocolate smash hit, as he thought it was about Malcolm X. When we pointed out that the next line was "Where you from, you sexy thing", he admitted that he hadn't quite thought it through.

In my younger years, I used to think the song in Grease was 'Bode Easkal Drabba', some kind of Latin motto for Rydell High. It was only many years later that I reliased the song is called Beauty School Drop-out.

I blame a poor quality VHS recording.

Bode Easkal Drabba!
Where you from, you sexy thing

xp lol Griff, that's amazing

For decades, I thought that the chorus to Peter Gabriel's "Animal Magic" included the lines

Look, I wave my wand
Watch the magic disappear

Just this week I learned that the line is "Watch the rabbit disappear." Ah well.

Seeing the fifth post on this thread reminds me that the first few times I heard "I'm Every Woman" (in the background, not really paying too much attention to it) I thought the lyric was "climb every mountain..."

How I Wrote Plastic Man?

Accidental British misinterpretation of Big Star's "O My Soul"

Sadly turns out Alex is singing "Go ahead and shake if you want", not "Come and have tea if you want".

But listen: they sound remarkably similar!

Alex was a refined Southerner he might well have been singing about tea.

This is one I figured out a long time ago, but

Buddy Holly - That'll Be The Day

Heard: Well, you give me all your lovin', and your dirty lovin'
Actual: Well, you give me all your lovin', and your turtle dovin'

Brandy, you're a fine girl
what a good wife you would be
but my life, my lover, my lady
is deceased

This one from Lee 626 a couple years ago made me just laugh out loud

Black Grape, Kelly's Heroes.

I originally heard it as: "Don't talk to me about heroes / most of these men sing like Suggs.", wondering whatever poor Graham McPherson did wrong & imagining Superman singing Baggy Trousers.

Then, for ages, I thought the correct lyrics were: "Don't talk to me about heroes / most of these men sink like subs." - which I thought was fairly intruiging & worked alright.

Only now I found out that the real thing apparently is: "Don't talk to me about heroes / most of these men sing like surfs."

woah, I always heard it as “seem like sods”

M.I.A., "Fire Fire"

Actual: Growin' up, brewin' Up / Guerilla gettin' trained up / Look out, look out, from over the rooftop
Heard: Worry not, worry not/ Boy you're gettin' chain-chomped / Look out, look out, from over the rooftop

https://31.media.tumblr.com/89c9a590e3f97d8ba9fa1642da540d4e/tumblr_mkcsgo7M8X1qk26dzo1_500.gif

loool

Jimmy Eat World, "Bleed American":

Salt, sweat, sugar, honey, asphalt
Our hearts, glitter in the topsoil
Sign up for the Biedermeier Chair Parade
Our lives are cold

woah, I always heard it as “seem like sods”

that was me too