# Have you ever mis heard a song lyric? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 3, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680 "2016-08-03T20:11:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/21 "2016-08-04T20:00:25Z")
Early in Rush’s career, Geddy Lee’s enunciation often left something to be desired. My copy of their _Fly by Night_ album was a pirated cassette tape, so I had no lyric sheet. And so I heard the chorus of “Beneath, Between & Behind” as: Beneath the noble fir Between the brown-haired squirrel Behind the beauty racks of beer I realized at the time that the second line made no sense at all. But for the second line, I first heard the song around the same time Doug & Bob Mackenzie were popular, and they frequently used the slang, “beauty” in the sense of “cool”, and they talked about beer a lot, so I assumed I was just hearing Canadian slang in the song. Nevertheless, I think I realized that the line still didn’t make much sense in the context of the song’s verses. Correct lines: Beneath the noble _bird_ Between the _proudest words_ Behind the beauty, _cracks appear_ ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/22 "2016-08-04T21:24:54Z")
**Mister Rik** …_Between the brown-haired squirrel_ = _Between the proudest words_…is one of the more impressive mis-hearings I’ve come across. Kudos. In _Rocky Raccoon_ I always thought Paul said “…and her name was Moogie-Ill” lol and speaking of “Nancy”, in _Here Comes the Sun_, I thought Paul was saying “Naaaaan-cy: it’s all right.” "Cause I’m a rocket maaaaaaan…ok I’m _completely_ lost after that… ok - these are supposed to be mis-hearings when we were, like, kids, right? Guess it doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/23 "2016-08-04T23:35:47Z")
_“Take off, you Hoser! Get your filthy paws off my **beauty racks of beer** , Eh?”_ Between the brown-haired squirrel… Damn, that is some funny shit right there! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/24 "2016-08-04T23:50:46Z")
Even after learning the correct lyrics, I still swear Taylor Swift is actually singing about “Starbucks lovers” in Blank Space. I don’t care what she says. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/25 "2016-08-05T12:32:50Z")
England Dan & John Ford Coley _I’m not talkin’ ‘bout the linens And I don’t want to change your mind But there’s a warm wind blowin’, the stars are out. . ._ The Police \*They’re only checks I’ve left unsigned From the banks of Cheops in my mind \* And my favorite one to mention in these threads from The Clash’s _Rock the Casbah_ \*". . . from the mental retardated" \* ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/26 "2016-08-05T15:39:25Z")
Goodbye Mr. Cheops 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/27 "2016-08-05T16:13:53Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > England Dan & John Ford Coley > > _I’m not talkin’ ‘bout the linens > And I don’t want to change your mind > But there’s a warm wind blowin’, the stars are out. . ._ It sound like: “I’m not talkin’ 'bout meridian” to me. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/28 "2016-08-05T16:40:28Z")
Elton John’s Tiny Dancer, I didn’t learn the title of the song until well into adulthood, and I still got the lyric wrong: _Hold me close, I’m tired of dancing._ It wasn’t until \*\*Almost Famous \*\*came out that I looked up the lyrics. On the England Dan & John Ford Coley song: _There’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars around_ Never made sense to me, but it’s a song – it doesn’t have to. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/29 "2016-08-05T17:04:17Z")
> [@Personal](#): > > On the England Dan & John Ford Coley song: > > _There’s a warm wind blowin’ the stars around_ > > Never made sense to me, but it’s a song – it doesn’t have to. Thank you. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/30 "2016-08-05T17:30:36Z")
> [@Personal](#): > > Elton John’s Tiny Dancer, I didn’t learn the title of the song until well into adulthood, and I still got the lyric wrong: > > _Hold me close, I’m tired of dancing._ You don’t want to hear the version that goes, “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/31 "2016-08-05T17:35:37Z")
Forever and always, I thought **Rush** was singing, “I will choose a bathysphere.” Odd, I know, but I figured it was Rush, they will rock about bathyspheres like no one else could. **Spice Weasel** set me straight. :o ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/32 "2016-08-05T18:06:31Z")
Actually, I have a new one, but it was my mishearing. The Tom Waits song “Georgia Lee” is a mournful ballad about a young girl dying unnecessarily - whether from overdose or murder is not quite clear. There’s a repeated chorus - \*“Why wasn’t God watching Why wasn’t God listening Why wasn’t God there for Georgia Lee?”\*The first time I heard it, I clearly heard the last chorus as: _…Why wasn’t **I** there…_ And that’s still how I prefer to sing along. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/33 "2016-08-05T18:48:44Z")
ELO’s “Last Train to London”. As a kid my mom played ELO a bunch, and I didn’t know the title of the song, and I’m pretty bad at hearing correct lyrics. So when the titular part of the lyric came up, what I heard instead was “Let’s Drink to Luna”. Seemed to fit pretty well to me, right? He was hanging out with a pretty woman at a party and he was using the moon as an excuse to sit around and drink with her some more, or something. On a simpler note, in “Four Little Diamonds” I thought it was “And if the Lord don’t get her then I will” instead of “And if the law don’t get her then I will”. Seemed a bit dark. The option of going to hell or whatever he would do seemed like a worse thing to wish on her than getting arrested or whatever he would do. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/34 "2016-08-05T19:04:20Z")
Yeah all the time , I have to see the lyric to understand the whole song . It stinks when movie don’t have CC for the songs . ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/35 "2016-08-05T20:24:04Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > **Mister Rik** …_Between the brown-haired squirrel_ = _Between the proudest words_…is one of the more impressive mis-hearings I’ve come across. Kudos. /bow The funny thing was, I understood the lyrics of the verses perfectly. There was just something about the way he enunciated the words of the chorus that fooled me. I was probably 13-14 years old at the time, and I had grown up with noble fir trees, while I had never heard a bald eagle referred to as “noble bird”, so that mishearing is understandable. Mistaking “proudest” for “brown-haired” … all I can figure is that “P” and “B” require similar mouth movements, as do “D” and “N”. Toss a bit of an accent in there, and the sounds can be confused. Then my young brain probably realized that “brown-haired words” would make even less sense and subconsciously substituted a word that both rhymed (well, if you pronounce it “squirl”) and could be brown-haired. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/36 "2016-08-05T23:01:11Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > And my favorite one to mention in these threads from The Clash’s _Rock the Casbah_ Almost anything sung by Joe Strummer was open to misinterpretation. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680/37 "2016-08-05T23:33:08Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > England Dan & John Ford Coley > > \*I’m not talkin’ 'bout the linens > [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > It sound like: “I’m not talkin’ 'bout meridian” to me. I used to think it was “I’m not talkin’ 'bout religion.” Rush: “Living in a fish-islands…” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-mis-heard-a-song-lyric/761680.md?page=1)