That’s what I thought it was, too (well, “Going down the Old Man with a transistor radio”), but it made perfect sense to me because I thought he meant the Oldman River, which is a river in Alberta, and I knew that Van Morrison had a Canadian connection with The Band. I thought it was a nice nod to some Canadian roots. Heh. 
Monstre, mis-hearing Stevie Nicks is no big feat. 
What, no nominations for Smells Like Teen Spirit yet? 
On a more personal note, back when my brother was on his System of a Down kick, I had a lot of problems figuring out the lyrics, especially their Legend of Zelda parody.
Little bro would never let me live down the fact that I misheard:
as
:o
Yeah, I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but this is coming from the same band whose song F** the System* has that nigh-incomprehensible initial riff that’s supposed to mean something.
In Jingle Bells: One Horse Soapin’ Sleigh.
I was looking for a song for years and just couldn’t find it. I didn’t remember the band, but I knew the title. Years later I heard it again, typed a lyric into Google and found out why I could never find the song.
It’s not called “Lucky Tenderness.” It’s “Lucky Denver Mint”.
This happened again over the weekend. I heard one of Live’s earlier songs on the radio and realized I never knew the lyrics. So I looked them up. Yep, I’ve been getting it wrong for thirteen years now:
What I Heard
Now we won’t see rain
Now we won’t see starlight
What They Said
Now we won’t be raped
Now we won’t be scarred like that
I, for the longest time, thought it was “Hey, you, get off of my spouse” instead of “Hey, you, get off of my cloud.” Seriously - listen. It still sounds like it!
I knew it wasn’t right, but I always heard this as: I had a dream I was a fisherman’s sidekick…
From Manfred Mann’s version of Springsteen’s Blinded by the Light.
heard
And little Early Birdy
Gave my anus curly-whirly
actual
And little Early-Pearly
came by in his curly-wurly
You know, that Zelda song that gets passed around with the System of a Down label isn’t actually by System of a Down, but by The Rabbit Joint. Cite.
When my son was 4 he would sing along with the radio at the top of his lungs. The song, I’m Your Venus was quite embarrassing…
Just yesterday at work, I was listening to the classic rock station at shift change. The girl replacing me is great, but young. The Foreigner song “Urgent” was playing. She asked me what they were saying before “Emergency.” I said, “Well, the song is called Urgent, right?” and she said "Ohhhhh! I thought they were saying “Virgin!”
Lots o laughs, from me and the customer in line. All night, I was singing “Virgin! Emergency!”
Joe
[culture nerd hijack] Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” to me, was a love song not just to a girl but to a whole era. It was 1984 and hippies were sliding gracelessly into yuppiedom. Henley encapsulated that aging and loss of idealism neatly with the image of a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, which was not only a nice line (especially coupled with the one after it), but something you literally saw in those days. On the other hand, I somehow doubt Kris Roe saw any Black Flag stickers on Caddies. [/hijack]
Plus, since I love Black Flag and detest the Ataris, it grates on me to hear the namedrop.
Since I didn’t really like the original “Baker Street,” and I do like Foo Fighters, their cover version is safe from my wrath.
Ha! My wife had the same mis-hear!
Joe
I’m so thrilled the poor bird was OK when I learned the line was NOT
“Just like a one-winged dove…”
I was corrected on that… last year. :o
I assumed that it was something other than “anus,” but until this moment, I had no idea exactly what the lyric was. WTF is a “Curly-Wurly?” Some kind of car?
Joe
Oh Canada!
Our homely Native Land…
FML
Yeah, sorry, I thought the mini text would give it away. As I said though, it wasn’t nearly as funny this morning. Unfortunately, I have so many misunderstood lyrics that any of the real ones just aren’t funny any more 
You know, you could do a whole thread about misunderstood Stevie Nicks lyrics. I had “just like the wild ranger” going instead of “the white-winged dove” for quite a while.
*Nah, heah y’gow agin
y’wan yeh fraay-dum
Wal, who’m ah t’kip ye down?
ISony riii tha y’shuh
Pla th’ way yuh’fee
Bu liss’n kahf’ly-y t’th sou-oun
Ah y’lo-li-ness
Li a hahbee rou’ ye bay
I th’ still niz ah th’mamaray ah whayaha-ah
Ah whayalaw-oss
Ah whayaHA-ah
Ooo, ah whayalaw-oss
Thunnah, on’y, hap-enz whenniz rayn’n…*
I was a big Elton John fan as a kid, but I never understood why Someone Saved My Life Tonight had the following lyrics:
“Someone saved my life tonight - Sugar Bear.”
Of course it’s:
“Someone saved my life tonight - should’ve they?”
And little Early Birdy
Gave my anus curly-whirly
And the next line is “And asked me if I needed ride”. You’d think that’s a little late after having already treated the anus to a curly whirly.
This thread also features someone with the “Gave my anus curly-whirly” mishear and someone who says:
<<“early” – tells us it’s morning and that the end of the narrator’s evening has overlapped with the beginning of someone else’s day.
“Pearly” shortened slang for “flashing his/her pearly whites” or smiling. Implies that the guy is in a good mood – perky, chipper.
“came by in his curly whirly” – I haven’t heard anyone use it since I was a kid, but “curly whirly” is/was slang for a curly hairstyle or a curly wig – I associate the term with old-lady hair and toupees in the style of a Brady Bunch fro. “In” is commonly used to mean “wearing,” (“She raised eyebrows by attending the formal function in jeans and a sweatshirt”) so I’ve always assumed this meant that the guy was wearing his curly toupee… in contrast to the narrator who is too young to need a toupee and whose hair (and whole self) is likely unkempt after a long night out. That he’s wearing a toupee tells us that this character is male and given that the characters in the song are carnies, we can safely assume it’s a very cheap toupee – a cheap curly toupee would probably seem even more ridiculous and annoying than usual to the narrator, at this particular moment in his time.
Note: I’m probably wrong. >>
I always hear it as “someone shaved my wife tonight.”
Erm, of course I always knew that wasn’t right.