# Favorite misheard song lyrics **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066 "2014-02-24T03:58:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/81 "2014-07-05T00:45:31Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > Another Elton John song: > > _Hold me closer, tiny dancer > Count the headlights on the highway > Baby darlin’ she’s so blendin’ > Ya had a busy day today_ > > I don’t how many years I heard it that way before someone told me it was: “Lay me down in sheets of linen.” > > In my defense, Elton hits some REALLY odd inflections in some of his songs. I always heard, “Count the head lice on the highway” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/82 "2014-07-05T01:07:09Z")
Remember that terrible song “I wanna Sex You Up”? I always heard it as “I’m Homosexual” Which explains why it’s such a clumsy attempt at seduction. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/83 "2014-07-05T01:57:18Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > “We’ve had it with your _discipline_.” Oh, of course. My mistake–I knew that! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/84 "2014-07-05T02:33:24Z")
For well over a decade I thought the Beatles tune **Paperback Writer** was **Take the back right turn**. ---
**Author:** ![Jaclofo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Jaclofo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaclofo)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/85 "2014-07-05T04:35:17Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > A lot of people hear it as “I’m not talkin’ bout the linen”. Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson even argue about it in **The Long Kiss Goodnight**. > > Oh, and from the same song: “The wind is blowing the stars around” vs. “The wind is blowing, the stars are out”. So what is the name of this song? Anyone know??? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/86 "2014-07-05T04:41:30Z")
> [@Jaclofo](#): > > So what is the name of this song? Anyone know??? Thanks! [“I’d Really Love to See You Tonight”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxdsk-cFX-k&feature=kp) by England Dan & John Ford Coley. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/87 "2014-07-05T04:43:42Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > For well over a decade I thought the Beatles tune **Paperback Writer** was **Take the back right turn**. The name of the song would have given it away for me. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cartesian\_Rationalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Cartesian\_Rationalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartesian_Rationalist)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/88 "2014-07-06T11:53:07Z")
I thought that in Oasis’ song “Champagne Supernova” the lyrics went: Where were you while we were getting high? Someday you will find me caught beneath the landslide in a champagne supernova in the sky…cause you and I will _never_ die… It actually went: “cause you and I will live and die” I prefer my mistaken lyrics a bit better 😃 ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/89 "2014-07-06T21:50:42Z")
La - a note to follow so Ti - a drink with German bread After a liftetime of wondering what German bread was made of, my 10-y.o. daughter got a part in the school play and sang this song a bazillion times. Hearing her was the first time I heard the correct words. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/90 "2014-07-06T23:16:32Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Mrs. J. just informed me that she once thought [a certain Creedence song](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/creedence+clearwater+revival/bad+moon+rising_20034328.html) went “There’s a bathroom on the right”. [Just for Mrs. J.](https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=uc_MpKn5qEI#t=1m45s) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/91 "2014-07-07T07:46:56Z")
In \*The Big Bang Theory \*theme song: For the longest time I couldn’t figure out “Neanderthals developed toes.” It finally occurred to me that they developed TOOLS. ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/92 "2014-07-08T07:40:49Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Whenever I hear “Life is a Highway”, my brain twists it to: > > Your Hershey highway, > I want to ride it all night long. I attempted to sing this song in the karaoke room of a con a few years ago. The screen with the lyrics showed the line “Tell 'em we’re survivors” as “tell them where’s the Bible.” ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/93 "2014-07-08T08:32:27Z")
I thought I had a mondegreen, but I’m not so sure now. My old dad used to sing a folk song, ‘Jimmy Crack Corn’, and fifty years later I still remember the words; but I remember them as ‘Gimme Crack Corn’. Thanks to Wikipedia I now know that this is not the correct version- …unless you believe Pete Seeger, who apparently thought that ‘Gimme’ was the original version. Perhaps my old dad was using Seeger’s version for some reason, but that seems doubtful. So now I don’t know if I’ve got a mondegreen here or not. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/94 "2014-07-08T08:45:08Z")
A friend claimed to hear the words ‘Sodding Leigh-on-Sea’, but I find this doubtful, since the title of the song is actually [Suddenly I see](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suddenly_I_See), so it would take a deliberate effort to mishear it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/95 "2014-07-09T23:38:06Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > The lyric is about breaking a mirror, and worrying about the bad luck that’s supposed to follow. Of course, breaking a mirror is supposed to mean seven years of bad luck, not thirteen months. But on the other hand, there’s no significance to a thirteen-month-old baby breaking a mirror, either. Neither version makes any more sense than the other. Except for the 13. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/96 "2014-07-10T00:03:08Z")
It’s pitiful when the song lyrics are garbled and the singers blow a chance at redemption. For years I (and many others) couldn’t tell what the penultimate line was in the theme song for “All In The Family”. I heard it as “G-R olla salaried rate” which I knew had to be wrong but there was no sensible alternative. Then for the last couple years of the show they re-recorded the theme song with arch over-enunciation of the words “Gee, our old La Salle ran great” and even knowing the lyrics you could barely pick them out. I think Jean Stapleton just couldn’t enunciate the word “ran”. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/97 "2014-07-10T00:53:14Z")
Dave Barry once said, in one of his books, that he thought that the opening line to _Help Me, Rhonda_ was “Since she put me down there’s been owls pukin’ in my bed.” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/98 "2014-07-10T01:05:47Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Nobody mentioned it because nobody in the history of the world ever actually misheard the song that way. 😛 On the contrary, [here is a scientific study of that very mondegreen](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14640748908402385#.U73k27EU7qw). Furthermore, [Jimi himself was aware of the auditory ambiguity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_haze#Mondegreen_lyric), sometimes deliberately sang “kiss this guy”, and I believe, sometimes gave Noel Redding a peck on the cheek after singing the line. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/99 "2014-07-10T01:10:38Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > In \*The Big Bang Theory \*theme song: > > For the longest time I couldn’t figure out “Neanderthals developed toes.” It finally occurred to me that they developed TOOLS. This is why Europeans with Neanderthal genes, are not lactose intolerant. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-misheard-song-lyrics/682066/100 "2014-07-10T01:12:49Z")
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