Back in the 60s the Beach Boys released a piece of fluff called “Surfin’ USA” – and my wife and I still are amused by the fact that a mondegreen in that works perfectly either way: “If everybody had an ocean” or “If everybody had a notion” both fit the context perfectly and, strangely, in that context result in approximately the same poiint being made.
Poly (who will now return to groovin’ with you and me and Leslie)
Of course there’s what I figure must be one of the all-time title holders for misheard lyrics - Steve Miller’s Big Ol’ Jetairliner.
I thought it was “We all go to Carolina” or something similar. My ex-husband thought it was “We all go down in a lineup” (typical train of thought for him.) And I’ve heard some odd version involving a “Bingo Jed and Lila”. I don’t think I’ve met many people who knew what the correct lyric was at first.
I used to think it was, “Big ol’ jet had a light on!”
:smack: Thank you, unknowing ignorance has been corrected.
In the Red Hot Chili Peppers song “Give it Away” there is the following:
Listen to the song. At the end of the second line I always think he is saying,"something, something **Esteban Loaiza ** " (Low-eye-za). If you don’t know he is a baseball player who is now pitching(poorly) for the Yankees.
Oh, dear. Really? It’s not, “She’s unFORtunate?”
Well, I guess that’s good news for the not unfortunate girl.
Bad news for me and my french teacher of six years… 
This thread is better suited for Cafe Society. I’ll move it for you.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
I just mentioned in another thread that for years I thought Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” was “Red Hot Love”. Hey, it makes sense!
My sister and I both had the same misheard lyrics for David Bowie’s “DJ”:
I am a D.J., I am what I play
I got the lemurs
Leaping on meeeeee!
The difference between me and my sister was that she was convinced that David Bowie actually sat down and penned these lyrics, while I was sure he couldn’t really be saying what it so clearly sounded like he was saying. I just had no idea what else the words could possibly be until I looked them up. Although in fairness to my sister, the above would be far from the weirdest thing Bowie ever wrote.
The Who’s “Athena” contains the line “She’s a bomb”, but to my knowledge no one in the world has ever heard this correctly without first being told what it was supposed to be. Interpretations vary from “She’s gone” to “She’s a boy”, but the most common one seems to be “She’s a whore”. :eek:
Threads like these always make me remember a friend and I mistranslating a line from Guns-N-Roses’ “Out Ta Get Me.” The line is “they break down the door and they rape my rights.” Not too hard, right? Well, I thought it was “They break down the door and they read my rights,” which, while the opposite of the intended meaning, still kinda works.
My friend thought the line was “They break down the door and they rape my wife.” When I heard her sing that, my eyes pretty much popped out of my head. This was, of course, pre-internet (as evidenced by the fact that it’s a GNR song, to begin with), and we had to call someone who didn’t have a dubbed copy of the album to find out if the words were in the liner notes. 
One my my faves has always been “Blinded By The Light.” One day, someone used the phrase at a family gathering, and my father said “yep, revved up like a deuce.” Three different people said “Is that what he says there???” I’m glad I’m not the only one who wondered why the hell the song appeared to be about feminine hygiene.
Donnie Iris - Ah Leah
I always thought the chorus was…“I’ll leave ya”.
My favorite version of this song was my Dad’s: “I got no job, but I’m an opera fan, and you’re never gonna keep the town.” Uh-HUH.
That’s so beautiful, I actually have tears in my eyes. lol
How bout AC/DC’s line in Highway to Hell- “Season ticket on a one way ride”.
I always thought it was- “Sees a nigger on a one way ride”. {{Bows head in shame}}
“Pinko Jed and the lineup”
My Ex thought that “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright, was actually “Train Weaver”.
WTF is a Train Weaver?!?!?!?!?!?
That was a VERY heated discussion. Then after a few songs the station announced the name of the song and then she continued to argue that the name of the song and the words within the song were different. ??
Thank you for clearing that up for me, as I also thought it was red hot love :smack:
One that I’ve been known for is Stevie Nick’s “Edge of Seventeen”, in which I hear:
Just like the one-winged dove
Sings a song, sounds like she’s singin
Appearantly it’s a white winged dove…
Also, I thought UB40’s “Baby I Love Your Way” was “Baby, I love you way”, as in ’ Baby, I love you way more than i did last week’ :smack: :wally :smack:
Not “goo goo gajoob”?
My favorite is my hubby’s interpretation of the line in My Girl . He used to hear “When its cold outside, I’ve got the muffins made .” I thinks it’s sweeter that way and that’s how I sing it now.
I remember being a wee lass when Black Water by The Doobie Brothers was released as a single. The line about “some funky Dixieland” was misinterpreted in my brain. I had to have been all of 8 or 9 at the time. Why I knew the bad word, I couldn’t tell you. I also couldn’t tell my mother when she asked where I learned that word after having laughed so much she had to pull the car over when I belted out my version while singing along with the radio.
Elfbabe once thought that this line from Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” was:
my love for you will still be strong stronger than poison, stronger than gum.
Real lyric:
my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have gone.
When I saw this title- I thought of this:
“Blinded by the light- wrapped up like a douche…”
When I was a lot younger and being forced to go to church on a regular basis, my little sister was sitting next to me once while we were singing “The Lord’s Prayer”. The congrgation used to sing it a lot, and we never used the book because everyone knew it. Or so I thought. I heard sis say something that didn’t quite sound right. After church, I asked her what she thought the words to the song were where it goes, “And lead us not into temptation”. She thought it was “You lead a snot into temptation”. I’ve never been able to hear the Lord’s Prayer without thinking about that.