I just remembered this: a few years ago there was a song called “The Diary of Jane,” but the way the guy sings (whiny) it sounds like “The Diarrhea Gang.”
“Ready, Salmonella? Listeria? Campylobacter? By our powers combined, we are…The Diarrhea Gang!”
That’s the point. He heard it as “Caesar” and was so sure about it (despite the obvious contextual clues) that he ridiculed another for thinking it was “Teacher”.
Paul Young: “Every time you go away/You take a piece of meat with you”
It made sense at the time, given that he had done a song called “Toast” earlier. I just assumed he was obsessed with food lyrics a la Weird Al.
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”.
Whenever I hear “Life is a Highway”, my brain twists it to:
Your Hershey highway,
I want to ride it all night long.
That’s pretty awful.
Arthur Shappey of MJN Air
“Get dressed you merry gentlemen…”
(A traditional Christmas Carol)
The granddaddy of all misheard lyrics is of course “there’s a bathroom on the right” from Creedence’s “Bad Moon Rising.” I’m amazed we’ve gotten this far into the thread without its being mentioned.
From “Groovin’” by the Rascals:
“Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie!”
Who the hell is Leslie, and why does he/she belong in the mix? Is it the girl’s kid?
(It’s you and me endlessly, btw :smack: )
I’m usually really good at determining the real lyrics to songs, but one that caught me for years was Rush’s Limelight.
Living in the fish islands
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
It’s Living in a fish eye lens.
You know how you thought something was what it was since forever and you never really thought twice about it? It’s was only within the past year that I realized “Living in a fish island” might not be what they were saying.
Really? Some thoughts:
For just over a year I wondered if she was cheating on me, it was 13 months of maybe
I chased this girl for like a year and got nothing but 13 months of maybe
Not really a hard lyric to interpret. Yes I know it isn’t the correct lyric - just sayin’.
I was about 16 when I figured out that Louis Armstrong was singing, “The bright blessed / The dark sacred night.” Until then, even knowing it had to be wrong, I couldn’t help but hear, “The bright blessed day / The dogs say ‘Goodnight’.”
“All I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here, in my arse.”
“Open up to me, I could do your girlfriends”
Nobody mentioned it because nobody in the history of the world ever actually misheard the song that way.
For years I thought that David Bowie had the best metaphor in rock when he sang:
Ashes to ashes
Fuck to fuck it
What a disappointment to find out it was really:
Ashes to ashes
Funk to funky
Dylan had a great line in “Jokerman” when I thought it was:
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dark look on your face
But no, it’s the more mundane:
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase;17150901But no, it’s the more mundane:
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face[/QUOTE]
I couldn’t believe “Hunting the horny back toad” was really the correct line in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The last line of Boston’s “More Than A Feeling” is “I see Mary Ann walk away.” For many years, I thought it was “to sever me off from the world”.
R.E.M.'s “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth” has the line “You wear a shirt of violent green”. Again for many years, I thought it was “You want to shudder violently”.
One of the best-known examples of this is the Raspberries’ “Go All The Way”. The song is NOT called “Don’t Go Away”. 
I submit this conversation between me and my cousin in 1979 when we were 11 years old. (OK, the dialogue may not be 100% correct but the story is.)
Cousin: Have you heard that song “Vie Sarona”?
Me: What? You mean, “My Sharona”?
Cousin: No, it’s “Vie Sarona.”
Me: What are you talking about? That doesn’t even make sense. The guy is
singing about his girlfriend. Her name’s Sharona. “My Sharona.”
Cousin: No it isn’t. It’s “Vie Sarona.”
Me: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!
Cousin: It’s “Vie Sarona.”
My cousin wasn’t the smartest kid in town. 
Eddie Money: ‘I think I’m in love / and I can’t get it up’ (the things love’ll do to a guy sometimes!)
It actually is ‘And I can’t get enough’
Then there’s one I was SURE could not be the actual lyric but WAS:
The Cars: ‘It’s an ORANGY sky / always with some other guy’ (Is “orangy” a word?)
In that same song, I thought ‘It’s just a broken lullaby" was, well, an EFFIN’ lullaby.
Singers shouldn’t mutter.