Show Us Your Mondegreens!

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WileEDiver

WileEDiver

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Does everyone lnow what a Mondegreen is?

It's a misheard lyric to a song that can usually make you laugh or scratch your head. Some of the more popular ones include:

"Gladly, the cross-eyed bear" ("Gladly The Cross I'd Bear").

"There's a bathroom on the right," a mishearing of "There's a bad moon on the rise" from Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising."

"Excuse me while I kiss this guy," actually "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" from the Jimi Hendrix song "Purple Haze." Hendrix was himself aware that he had been Mondegreened, and would occasionally, in performance, actually kiss a guy after saying that line.

"Round John Virgin", that guy from "Silent Night."

The word Mondegreen, meaning a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric, was coined by the writer Sylvia Wright. As a child she had heard the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl of Murray" and thought that one stanza went as follows:

Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
They hae slay the Earl of Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.

Poor Lady Mondegreen, thought Sylvia Wright. A tragic heroine dying with her liege; how poetic. When it turned out, some years later, that what they had actually done was slay the Earl of Murray and lay him on the green, Wright was so distraught by the sudden disappearance of her heroine that she memorialized her with a neologism.

Anyway, let's have some fun with this. Anyone want to own up to their own personal Mondegreens?
 
I'll start.

The first time I heard Linda Ronstadt sing "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", I misheard the second half of the line "I don't want your lonely mansion with a tear in every room", as "with a TV in every room".
 
Walked into my office one morning and my senior electronic inspector, a 30's something young fellow, was sitting at his desk and singing along with the Beach Boys old classic, "Little Deuce Coupe" . . . but he had changed the wording somewhat and was singing . . .

"It's my little loose goose, you don't know what I got ...."


I asked him if he was referring to the goose's sexual mores or its bowel condition.
 
was singing this line from Boat Drinks wrong for years until my wife corrected me just the other day.

My Version: "Lately, newspaper man chi chi bearface" ( i have no idea where i came up with this. i guess i thought it had something to do with the boston bruins or something)


Original Line: "Lately, newspaper mentioned cheap air fare"
 
Huey Lewis and the News have a lot of followers that thought he was singing about his transportation with "I wanna new Truck"

As a child I had a friend that swore that Cat Stevens was singing about a guitar "Right on the B-String"

Those are the only two that immediately come to mind.


Wristshot
 
ok, my daddy's. there's a line in a song from bambi, 'drip drip drip little april showers, beating a tune as they fall to the ground.' for some ungodly reason, he heard it as 'drip drip drip little april showers, beast of the honky of the big bassoon.' we still sing that to him when he gets too uppity.

a friend of my ex's - gosh, he was the world's worst. you know that song 'one headlight'? that was the title and the chorus and how it was introduced on radio. but did phil think that's what jacob dylan was singing? heck, no! that song was about driving with 'warning lights'.

and that line in the dave matthews band song that goes 'in a boy's dream'? ooh, it made phil so mad! that was so sick! a grown man 'dreaming about little boys'!
 
One ton tomato, he ate a one ton tomato
One ton to-mayyyyyyyy-to, he ate a one ton tomato



...and we been bakin' carrot biscuits
ev'ry day
bakin' carrot biscuits
ev'ry way
bakin' carrot biscuits
it's allright



somebody calls you,
you answer quite slowly
a girl with colitis goes by
 
For a long time I thought Elton John sang "You are the sweetest guy, I've ever seen" instead of "Yours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen"....

I still have NO IDEA what the real words are for Manfred Mann Earth Band sings, so I sing "..wrapped up like a douche in the roller in the night"....which doesn't make any sense either....I'd like to KNOW what the real words are!
 
Otter:
For a long time I thought Elton John sang "You are the sweetest guy, I've ever seen" instead of "Yours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen"....

I still have NO IDEA what the real words are for Manfred Mann Earth Band sings, so I sing "..wrapped up like a douche in the roller in the night"....which doesn't make any sense either....I'd like to KNOW what the real words are!
Click to expand...
Actually it's

"Revved up like a deuce,
Another runner in the night"

from "Blinded by the Light"
 
Otter:
For a long time I thought Elton John sang "You are the sweetest guy, I've ever seen" instead of "Yours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen"....

I still have NO IDEA what the real words are for Manfred Mann Earth Band sings, so I sing "..wrapped up like a douche in the roller in the night"....which doesn't make any sense either....I'd like to KNOW what the real words are!
Click to expand...


The actual words are ""......she was blinded by the light, reved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.......""



JASON~~
 
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