An ex-girlfriend swore it was, “Dirty Jeans–dungarees.” :rolleyes:
I never did understand why seeing someone’s face would make you a boll-weevil.
“I saw her face, now I’m a boll-weevil.”
Very weird song.
Home, where my fox’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting silently for me.
-Paul Simon, Homeward Bound
I listened to this song for years (from childhood into college) hearing that incorrect lyric, and thought that it didn’t make any sense and ruined an otherwise perfect song. Turns out I was ruining an otherwise perfect song!
I named a character in a play I wrote once based on mis-hearing. Inexplicably, I heard the line “I’m watchin’ Sis go pitterpat” from A Chorus Line’s “I Can Do That” as “I’m watchin’ Cisco pitterpat.” In my head, it was some famous dancer I’d never heard of, and the singer was watching him on TV. None of the other references to the singer’s sister in the song clued me in to the actual lyric until muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch later.
Just a couple of days ago, my wife and I had a debate over whether the line in Stevie Wonder’s Very Superstitious was “Thirteen-month-old baby” or “Thirteen months of maybe.” I googled the lyrics, and found a lot of people on each side.
13 months of maybe? What does that even mean?
The Beatles: “The girl with colitis goes by.”
Billy Joel: “I am an elephant man.”
Sondheim: “Don’t you love farts? My fault I fear.”
The Shirelles: “Marmoset, there’ll be days like this; there’ll be days like this, my marmoset.”
Top Cat! The most effectual Top Cat!
Whose intellectual close friends get to call him TC,
Pro-vi-ding it’s with dig-ni-ty!
At the age of six, I thought it was “Or by name it’s Worthington T” and wondered what the hell that meant. 
I didn’t learn the correct lyrics until I saw them printed in a book of TV themes when I was 25 or so!
Two from the '70s:
“I’m not talking ‘bout movin’ in,
And I don’t wanna change your life”
and
“Spirits rise,
And their dance is unrehearsed”
For the life of me, I could not figure out what the hell was being said in either case until I finally saw it in print!
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.
Yeah, I still think the first one is right. What is it supposed to be?
Well, 13 month old baby makes sense–the age is an unlucky time for the baby.
Spider-Man, Spider-Man,
Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Wealth and fame he’s ignored,
Action is his reward.
For years, it sounded to me like “Welcome, Ben, he’s a yord.” Ben, I figured, referred to Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, but what in Stan Lee’s name is a yord? Is it anything like a yute?
Both are right. They were just unintelligible (to me, at least).
One of my friends once ridiculed another for not realizing the line goes “Hey! Caesar! Leave us kids alone!”
Another friend was talking about that yesterday.
Erm, Isn’t that “Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!”?
I always thought that sugar bear line from EJ was kind of strange…
There’s a stupid electronic dance song out there called “Eat, Sleep, Pray for Pete”.
Sometimes spelled “Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat”
In the song “I’m Yours” I always hear “No but I won’t get sauteed no more”. Maybe Mr. Mraz was tired of being pan-fried with an assortment of vegetables and soy sauce. I don’t actually know what the real words are, as I’ve only ever heard it in public places (grocery store, etc.) and never bothered to find out. Might check that now . . .
Also, random anecdote about mishearing lyrics: When Bob Dylan first introduced the Beatles to pot, he thought they’d already tried it; when asked why he has assumed this, he said they’d written a whole song about it. Turns out he was hearing “and when I touch you, I get high, I get high, I get high”.
Of all songs, **Jingle Bells **
I always heard:
Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
as
Dashing through the snow
In a one horse soap and sleigh
and just figured that the ‘soap’ referred to some sort of horse tack related
to pulling a sleigh :smack:
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.