# Christmas songs you "misheard" as a kid
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 23, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324 "2009-12-23T15:26:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/1 "2009-12-23T15:26:12Z")
[This thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11905540#post11905540), and it’s mention of “Orien Tar” made me think of my own Christmas Carol mess-ups as a child. The most notable was how I butchered “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
I was a child growing up in Green Bay during the late 80s/early 90s, when Lindy Infante was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
I thought the words to the first line Latin version of “O Come All Ye Faithful” were not “Adeste fideles, **laeti triumphante** ” but “Adeste fideles, [LINDY INFANTE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Infante)!”
Although, that could describe a gathering of Packers fans in the late 80s/early 90s (O come all ye faithful, not joyful and triumphant, but coached my Lindy Infante), it wasn’t a version I should have been singing. My parents got a kick out of it.
What Christmas songs did you not understand? How did you sing them wrong?
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/2 "2009-12-23T15:48:08Z")
“God rests, ye merry gentlemen.” I think I had some idea that it was like a Sunday and God was taking the day off.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/3 "2009-12-23T15:50:52Z")
I always thought it was a “one horse soapin’ sleigh.” I imagined suds and stuff coming off the sleigh.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/4 "2009-12-23T15:59:00Z")
I thought it was “balls of holly”.
We giggled as kids about that one.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/5 "2009-12-23T16:30:01Z")
“…and a partree ginapear tree.”
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### Author:  [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/6 "2009-12-23T16:57:17Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> “God rests, ye merry gentlemen.” I think I had some idea that it was like a Sunday and God was taking the day off.
That song has a lot of weird archaic wording. One example that puzzled me as a kid was in the verse that goes:
_In Bethlehem, in Jewry this blessed babe was born
And laid within a manger all on this blessed morn
The which his mother Mary did nothing take in scorn…_
I heard that last line as “The witch, his mother Mary, did nothing take in scorn”. I was all like, “The Virgin Mary was a WITCH???”.
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### Author:  [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/7 "2009-12-23T17:11:07Z")
I thought Hark the Herald Angels Sing was about someone named Harold, and wondered if Harold was like Charlie, with his own set of angels, and why he got a song and Charlie didn’t.
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/8 "2009-12-23T17:12:32Z")
I always thought it was “round young virgin,” as in round-because-she’s-pregnant round, and young because, you know, she’s young.
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### Author:  [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/9 "2009-12-23T17:16:18Z")
> [@Katriona](#):
>
> I thought Hark the Herald Angels Sing was about someone named Harold, and wondered if Harold was like Charlie, with his own set of angels, and why he got a song and Charlie didn’t.
And I thought it was BARK the Herald Angels Sing … and that they were singing about trees.
(I have told this one before on the Dope) I was traumatized by “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” - in our family, we had a neighbor who would dress up as Santa for the little kids, and so I thought the joke of the song was that Mommy was having an affair with a neighbor. Indeed, what a laugh it will be Daddy sees THAT! It never occurred to me until I was an adult that in the song it’s Daddy who is dressed up.
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/10 "2009-12-23T17:32:56Z")
I always thought the name of the horse in Jingle Bells is “Bob” As in “Bells on Bob’s Tail ring.” I still not really convinced that it isn’t the correct lyric.
Every lyric I ever seen is “Bells on bob tails ring” How can there be more than one “tail” in a one horse open sleigh?
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### Author:  [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/11 "2009-12-23T17:34:39Z")
My Three Kings were from Oreintar. I’m not sure where on the map that is though.
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### Author:  [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/12 "2009-12-23T18:15:20Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#):
>
> Every lyric I ever seen is “Bells on bob tails ring” How can there be more than one “tail” in a one horse open sleigh?
I’ve always heard (and sung) “bells on bobtail ring.” “Bobtail” is sometimes given as the answer to the trivia question “What is the horse’s name in ‘Jingle Bells’,” but it really just refers to a horse with its tail cut short.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/13 "2009-12-23T18:57:12Z")
[quote=serenata67;11918256i was a child growing up in green bay during the late 80s/early 90s, when lindy infante was the head coach of the green bay packers.
I thought the words to the first line latin version of “o come all ye faithful” were not “adeste fideles, **laeti triumphante** ” but “adeste fideles, [lindy infante]
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lindy\_infante](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lindy_infante))!”
[/quote]
roflmao!
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### Author:  [@Indyellen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indyellen)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/14 "2009-12-23T19:00:02Z")
For me, it was _Winter Wonderland_. The mishearing makes lots of sense, though:
_Later on, we’ll **perspire** ,
As we dream, by the fire_
Seems logical enough, to perspire by a fire…
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### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/15 "2009-12-23T19:15:06Z")
Not technically Christmas but Christmas was the only time I ever heard it -------- I was positive that in the song “Bringing in the Sheaves” they were saying “Bringing in the Sheeps”
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### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/16 "2009-12-23T19:57:32Z")
Not “misheard” so much as “misread” -
I first heard and sang “Winter Wonderland” in elementary school (1970s), and never really understood the line:
In the meadow we can build a snowman
_And pretend that he is Parson Brown_
We would sing from lyrics displayed by an overhead transparency projector; the words were in all caps, and some (as it turns out) spacing issues resulted in the line being displayed as:
AND PRETEND THAT HE IS PARS ON BROWN
(I remember this so clearly because every year we had an all-school “Christmas Assembly” and we sang from the same transparency for all six years I was at this school.)
I wondered for a long time what “pars on brown” was. My confusion was caused by several factors:
1. I’d never heard the word “parson”, so didn’t know it was a synonym for “minister”, “pastor”, “reverend”, etc.
2. The all-caps rendering eliminated the possibility of recognizing “Parson Brown” as somebody’s title and name.
3. The group singing setting removed the ability to clearly hear the song leader singing it correctly.
And naturally, the following lines, “He’ll say ‘are you married?’, we’ll say ‘no, man, but you can do the job when you’re in town’” made no sense whatsoever without understanding the “Parson Brown” bit.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/17 "2009-12-23T20:00:25Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#):
>
> I always thought the name of the horse in Jingle Bells is “Bob” As in “Bells on Bob’s Tail ring.” I still not really convinced that it isn’t the correct lyric.
My brother also suffers from this interpretation.
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### Author:  [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/18 "2009-12-23T20:05:13Z")
I always thought the refrain of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” was about something called “bunniman joy.”
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/19 "2009-12-23T20:05:31Z")
This isn’t misheard but kind of in the same vein of things
In the song (and poem), _Twas The Night Before Christmas_ the line is:
And turned _with_ a jerk
Of course no kid under age 10 (and a few adults too :)) can resist changing it to
And turned _like_ a jerk
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### Author:  [@RhapsodyInBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RhapsodyInBlue)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-songs-you-misheard-as-a-kid/522324/20 "2009-12-23T23:58:14Z")
I used to think people were singing “Gloria in a Chelsea stable”.
It ticked me off a little that Manhattan scooped Jersey on that one. We had loads of horse farms around and could have handled it easily.
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