Misheard Lyrics

nightshade

Your grandfather is a cat
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Black Thorn
What song lyrics have you misheard?

Pink's song Trustfall sounds like trust fund baby to me
 
"This ain't a scene, it's an arms race" refrain by Fall Out Boy
I hear something like "awful with the cats, awful with the cats" 😂
 
How many times has the singer sung poorly, making the last letter of a word become the first letter of the next word, to my mind Whitney Houston is a classic in The Bodyguard, 'An di-e-i Iove you-oo-oo' a good quality singer sings a word properly and effectively, singing should to pronouce the words properly and thereby not cause misheard lyrics.
 
Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”

“I beg and borrow and steal
At first sight, and it's real
I didn't know I would feel it
But it's in my way”

Is how it goes. But I misheard “at first sight, and” as

“And for Satan” 😵‍💫 I was so confused what Satan had to do with love lol
 
Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”

“I beg and borrow and steal
At first sight, and it's real
I didn't know I would feel it
But it's in my way”

Is how it goes. But I misheard “at first sight, and” as

“And for Satan” 😵‍💫 I was so confused what Satan had to do with love lol

You didn't mishear it. 🤘
 
I consider one of the greatest advances of the Internet to be that we can look up lyrics. How I hated when bands didn't include them with the record!

Misheard lyrics famously caused the "Louie Louie" controversy. This song became popular in 1963, and its incomprehensible faux-Jamaican patois led to widespread belief that the lyrics were (illegally) obscene. From Wikipedia:
In June 1965, the FBI laboratory obtained a copy of the Kingsmen recording and, after 31 months of investigation, concluded that it could not be interpreted, that it was unintelligible at any speed, and therefore the Bureau could not find that the recording was obscene.
Apparently, the FBI had nothing better to do then.🙄

Before the Internet, many of us had frustrating experiences like Whoopi Goldberg hilariously does here, searching the lyrics of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" for a secret code word:
 
For thirty years I thought Whitney Houston did a song called Queen of The Nile, when it turns out it was Queen of the Night.
 
Mine is Elvis Presley's Surrender...

"All the stars will tell the story
Of our love and all its glory"

It's very difficult for me to unhear "Of our love and Elvis glory." And I'm a pro at understanding Elvis through his accent, early stutter and mumbles, but that one still gets me.

And yes, nobody can understand Louie Louie. LMAO. Animal House famously turns it into a drunken sing-along where nobody knows the lyrics either.
 
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I consider one of the greatest advances of the Internet to be that we can look up lyrics. How I hated when bands didn't include them with the record!

Ugh, I hear you! Thank the lord the internet is around to help with that. I don’t know how I would ever figure out stuff like “my peanut butter chocolate cake with Kool-Aid” (Redbone by Childish Gambino) without a guide
 
A really memorable case of misheard lyrics is all through Joan Baez's cover of the Band's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. The story goes that she tried to learn the lyrics from what she heard on the record. There are so many lyric mistakes, such as not realizing that Robert E. Lee is the actual man and not a boat named after him with "the" in front of his name. There are other mistakes, too, such as "so much cavalry" in place of "Stoneman's cavalry", "blood" in place of "mud", etc...

Shame, because the vocal is better (IMO) and has arguably eclipsed the original in fame, but the lyrics are painful when you realize how far off they get.


Here are the lyrics, because following along to the Baez record gets pretty amusing with all the misheard lyrics:
Virgil Kane is the name
And I served on the Danville train
'Till Stoneman's cavalry came
And tore up the tracks again

In the winter of '65
We were hungry, just barely alive
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell
It's a time I remember, oh so well

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see,
There goes Robert E. Lee!"

Now, I don't mind chopping wood
And I don't care if the money's no good
You take what you need
And you leave the rest
But they should never
Have taken the very best

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

Like my father before me
I will work the land
And like my brother above me
Who took a rebel stand

He was just 18, proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Kane back up
When he's in defeat

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"
 
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Keep on boogie all the tiiiiiiiiiiiime....


No.

Its "deep down wishing you were miiiiiiiine"


Im glad no one hears me singing in the car.
 
The Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)". Yep, officially the word is "This". However, what she actually pronounces is "These". Not so much a misheard as a misspoken.
 
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