I’m under 30, but I like older music way more than music from my era, in general. I’ll have to check them out – thanks for the info!
Still hear “what” as that? In other words, what is the actual original you are mis-hearing?
So does Snopes.
The song by Seal, “Kiss From a Rose.” It actually goes, “I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey,” not “grave.”
I never understood why he seemed to be singing about Bolivia, here’s how I heard it
I’m not talking Bolivia
And I don’t want to change your life
Never thought to look it up, but until today, that’s what I believed it was.
I’m not talkin’ 'bout meridian…
I also thought that a strong wind was blowing the stars around. A really, really strong wind.
I’ve heard that Motorhead’s Lemmy spent years singing the eight of spades instead of the ace for his own amusement.
…well I’ll be damned.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean but I count eleven repetitions of the word “BATMAN!” in the theme tune:
The idea is that isn’t someone saying “Batman” but one or more horns blowing two sharp notes that sound like “Batman.”
What?! I had to look it up. I like grave better.
Ok, so metal song: In Flames, Crawl Through Knives.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMUuLuwmmBg)
Correct lyrics:
It’s burning
It’s for me to decide
If flames will reach heaven tonight
It’s in my hands
Misheard lyrics:
It’s burning
It’s for me to decide
If flames will reach heaven tonight
It’s in my ass
The other was Highway to Hell, though it’s more something you can’t ‘unhear’. Heard it on Howard Stern, who substitutes a racial slur into “Season ticket on a one-way ride.” Each time I hear the song, now, I actively try to reverse this. No luck, no luck.
Is that like whenever I listen to Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It I hear:
We’re white-- yeah!
We’re free-- yeah!
We’ll fight-- yeah!
You’ll see!
It doesn’t matter that I know that’s not what it says, that’s how I hear it and sing it. Makes many of my friends mental.
Well NOW it is.
That’s definitely someone saying “BATMAN!” No way is it horns.
I had a listen, and some of it sounds like the horns, and some of it sounds like words.
And count me as number 5 or whatever, who thought it was “Every highway”.
I heard “warm wind blowing the stars around” too, but I just thought the line was really poetic. The real lyric seems blah to me.
At the coda of Scenes From an Italian Restaurant, I like to imagine that Billy Joel leaves off singing about wine and sings:
A bottle of reds
Ooh, a bottle of whites
Whatever kind of mood you’re in tonight.
This is thread is blowing my mind.
In People Who Died, the lyric that goes “26 Reds and a bottle of wine”, I always thought it was “26 Reds and a bottle of white”, because not only would White still be wine and so not change the meaning of the line, but it’s also a color and thus also a play on words vis a vis “Red”. I prefer my lyric.
Speaking of which, this isn’t a Mondegreen, but while we’re on the topic of better lyrics that don’t change the meaning of a song but simply add better wordplay, in Paul Simon’s Late in the Evening, a lyric goes
Stepped outside and smoked myself a J…
…[snip]…
It was late in the evening, and I blew that room away
A much better-known phrase than “blew that room away” is “blew that joint away”. Which is a double meaning and thus a better lyric.