This is probably only funny if your mind is as screwed up as mine, But I always heard the Simon and Garfunkel line
“Take my arms, that I might reach you” as
“Take my arms, then I’m ‘Angry Jew’”
Which I knew couldn’t be right, but I always got this mental image of a guy in a combination Superman costume-Hassidic clothing that said ‘AJ’, who was really pissed off because someone had stolen his arms.
My take on Blinded By The Light" (Manfred Mann version, not the original Springsteen) is, yes, the lyric sheet says “deuce,” but the vocalist does inded say “douche.”
Somewhere on Electric Ladyland (I don’t remember exactly where, it has been some time since I’ve listened to it) there is a bit of warped voices by Jimmy. I swear to God, at one point he says ‘Cuisenart’. Don’t ask me where or why, but that’s what it sounds like to me. I’ll pass a two-headed duck backwards if anyone has any idea of what I’m talking about.
Let’s see. My dad swore for years that Dire Strait’s “Walk of Life” was “Walk on By”. You should see the little strut he’d do to go along with the lyric.
My sister used to sing “Don’t It Make my Brown Eyes Blue” as “Don’t it make my manna…ooh.”
My other sister heard “If you don’t know me by now” as “If you don’t know me by night”.
Sir Rhosis said: “My take on ‘Blinded By The Light’ (Manfred Mann version, not the original Springsteen) is, yes, the lyric sheet says ‘deuce,’ but the vocalist does inded say ‘douche.’”
I second that! They just played the Manfred Mann version of “Blinded By the Light” on the radio (very vaguely creepy!), and the phrase in question is repeated over and over again. The singer CLEARLY says “douche”. The word ends in the SCH sound of “douche”, not the hiss-like S sound that it would if the singer were singing “deuce”.
The one I always get flak for is from “Brown-Eyed Girl”. It’s the sort of line that I knew was wrong, but sang it wrong anyways since I had no idea what was correct (like “I’m a pool-hall ace”[sup]*[/sup]) :
… Tuesdays and so slow
Gunnin’ down the old man with a
transistor radio
The original is “Goin’ down (to) the old mine” but I always hoped they might be some super-secret spies with special radio/gun combos. Maybe Enrico was the head of the operation …
I once saw a book of these, my favorites from it were “Every time you go – away, you take a piece of meat with you”, and “I wanna rock’n’roll all night, and part of every day”.
panama jack
[sup]*[/sup]an often-heard mondegreen for “how my poor heart aches”, from The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”
There was a song in the early '80s, I can’t remember the group, but they had English accents (important to the story here). The lyric went:
You spin me right round
Baby right round
Like a record baby
Right round round round
Sister Na and I always used to sing:
You spin my rat round
Baby rat round
Like a record baby
My dead rat drowned.
I knew this guy in uni who, to The Proclaimers “I’m Gonna Be” would always sing “and I wonder…wonder who” to the “da da da da” part. The funny thing is, he’d always sing it really loud as if to correct the rest of us.
Artist: K’s Choice
Song: “Not an Addict”
Real Lyric: “I’m not an addict”
My Mondegreen: “I’m automatic”
Artist: The Housemartins
Song: “Get Up Off Our Knees”
Real Lyric: “Get up off our knees”
My Mondegreen: “Get up off of me”
Artist: The Buzzcocks
Song: “Autonomy”
Real Lyric: “I want true autonomy”
My Mondegreen: “I want you on top of me”
Can you tell I didn’t read the album covers?
Artist: Weezer
Song: (not sure)
Real Lyric: “The workers are going home”
My Mondegreen: “The workers are going on.”
For this one, I actually asked my BF (big Weezer fan) where the workers were going on TO - duh!)
BTW, Suo Na - that was Dead or Alive who sang “You Spin me Round”