The only change is the last line, which is “Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo” <sic>
<While listening to Aerosmith’s Dude Looks like a Lady, my Mom asks if they are singing Do the Lucky Lady? So, whenever i hear the song, i sing ‘do the lucky lady’ for the heck of it.>
When I first heard that one, I thought it was “Do me like a lady” or “Do me, little lady”.
Some other favorites of mine: I was in a bar with some friends and the song “She Drives Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals was playing. A girl at the table thought they were singing, “She Tries Being Pregnant”
My sister heard “Girls On Film” (by Duran Duran) as “Cows On Pills”, and she heard Kenny Loggins’ “Vox Humana” as “F**k You Over”
I don’t know why, but when George Michael was covering “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” for that benefits show a coupla years back, I was sure he said “Don’t Let Your Son Go Down on Me”. Hmm…have to keep the little guy out of rest stops, I guess.
My favorite garbled lyric, tho, is someone who heard ‘get yer motor runnin’ in ‘Born to Be Wild’ as ‘ketchup warm and runnin’.
Inasfar as ‘Whisky in the Jar’ goes, Metallica was covering Thin Lizzy, who was covering an old Irish pub song. The chorus goes something like this:
musha ring dumma do damma da
whack for my daddy-o
whack for my daddy-0
there’s whisky in the jar-o
Whether or not “musha ring dumma do damma da” is Gaelic mystery coolness, or it just sounded good, I do not know.
-sb
PS: ‘Whisky’ is one of my favorite songs, because it has so many mutations. The Metallica/Thin Lizzy one is by far the most violent and depressing one, tho…
They say the Lord loves drunks, fools and little children.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
I remember back in high school hearing Deep Purple’s Smoke On the Water, and my best friend started singing “Slow Running Water”… it took a helluva long time to straighten him out on that one. Neither of us had the album (yeah, it was that long ago) so I couldn’t show him in print. Then there was the time he heard “She was a long cool woman in a black dress” and sang “It was a dead woodpecker on a cadillac”. That was hilarious, but easier to fix as he KNEW that one was wrong.
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned anything by Nirvana yet, especially “Smells ike Teen Spirit.” I can’t understand a single word.
BTW, back when I worked for Sam Goody we got our fair share of mangled song titles/artists. A few of my faves:
“I Sing for the City” (“Synchronicity” by the Police)
Joan Jett and the Blackheads (Blackhearts)
Winston Morales (Wynton Marsalis)
Taco Bell’s Cannon (Pachelbel’s Canon)
Bruce Springfield
It always sounded to me like he was singing :
I am Troy Aikmen
I am Troy Aikmen
I am the walrus
Of course I knew this wasn’t the case since Troy was just a kid when it was made, but I still like to sing it that way.
Since we’re bitchin’ about song lyrics, I’ll add this here. It’s not garbled, just dumb.
Greenday’s “Time of Your Life”(?), the opening line is
“Another turning point,
a fork stuck in the road.”
That line always bugs me. Every time I hear that line, I get a vision in my mind of some cartoon I’ve seen at some point that took “a fork in the road” and put a giant fork in the road sticking out of the ground. It’s stupid. That line makes no sense. It would be one thing if it were a parody song or a line for a joke, but that’s supposed to be a serious song on death and here’s this mangled line about a fork stuck in the road. Makes me think they don’t understand the cliche about a fork in the road, so being literal makes as much sense to them.
Glad to see I’m not the only one that thought “bad moon on the rise” was “bathroom on the right”, doctor 
When are you going to realize being normal isn’t necessarily a good thing?
For my shame, I wondered for years why a pacifist like John Lennon sang “I’m just a genocide”.
No one has mentioned my fav - the one my dad woke me one night to insist I buy: “that song about the guy with 400 kids…”
the real lyric (from Kenny Rogers “Lucille”) is: 4 hungry kids and a crop in the field. That song will always remind me of my dad
I am a redhead, you see, and I do not tempt. I insist. -Cristi
I thought “Break On Through” by the Doors was “Break Off News”. It doesn’t make much sense, but when did Jim ever make sense?! I still have to stop myself from singing it that way.
Also what’s with the 60’s song about the “Secret Asian Man”? or is it “Secret Aged Man”?? There’s all kinds of fun to be had with that one.
Sweet Basil
Here are the lyrics to ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ by Pearl Jam. They still don’t make much sense though. You can find the lyrics to virtually any song wia quick search on the internet though.
YELLOW LEDBETTER
Unsealed, on a porch a letter sat
Then you said I wanna leave it again
Once I saw him on a beach of weathered sand
And on the sand, I wanna leave it again, yeah…
On a weekend, on a visit on her way, yeah…
And they called and I said, and I want what I said…
And then I call out again
And the reason, oughta’ leave her calm, I know
I said, I know what I wear, not a boxer or the bag
Ah yeah…can you see them?
Out on the porch, yeah, but they don’t wave
I see them, round the front way, yeah…
And I know and I know I don’t want to stay
Make me cry…
I see, ooh…I don’t know there’s something else
I wanna drum it all away
And I said, I don’t, I don’t know where there’s a boxer or the bag
Ah yeah…can you see them?
Out on the porch, yeah, but they don’t wave
I see them, round the front way, yeah…
And I know, and I know, I don’t wanna stay, oh…
I don’t wanna stay… (3x)
I don’t, don’t wanna…yeah…ooh…oh…
To continue the Pearl Jam sub-thread, I thought the refrain of “Jeremy” was the kid’s name:
Jeremy Spokaine Cassidy
And I really couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. I had to see the video before I got it.
My family also had a running argument about the second line of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler.” (I know, I know, but you gotta fight about something.) The various choices were:
On a train bound for glory
On a train bound for Norway
On a train 'bout to go away
On a train bound for nowhere
We finally decided the last was right, but never cared enough to find out for sure.
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!
I’ve posted these before, but I’ll do it again for the sake of the newbies.
One point, a bunch of good friends and I were out having dinner and libations at the local pub. At some point, for whatever reason, we all start singing the chorus of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Imagine our reaction when my friend Kay belted out, “Pour some sugar on me, in the neighborhood!”
My favorite misheard song lyric is from a song called “Shame” by Stabbing Westward. The real lyrics are “I don’t know what’s real without you, how can I exist without you?” Thing is, he’s screaming this at the top of his lungs, so it comes out more like “How can I have sex without you?”
I think I like that version better.
“Buffalo Bills? Oh, yeah. The guys that always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” --WallyM7
[in her quiet voice] Um, I totally thought it was “do the lucky lady.” [/in her quiet voice]
One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzche
My favorite is Fine Young Cannibals Soup and Salad Bar . . .
What? You say it’s Suicidal Blonde?
But that takes all the fun out of it.
I only got one thing to say to you all…
“Bald headed woman… bald headed woman to me-eee.” – what I thought “More than a woman” was for about 5 years as a kid.
oh wait, one more:
For the song “Surfin’ USA”, I thought a the chorus went “A bushy, bushy Von Irwin… Surfin USA” To this day I don’t know what the real line is. Something about a hairdo I think. I formed this impression when I was a kid, and I guess “Bushy Bushy Von Irwin” seemed as likely as anything.
The Muppet Movie
I couldn’t figure out what “Life’s a butter cream” was from “Row, Row, Row your boat”. Another one I got wrong was the John Lennon Song “(It’ll be)Just Like Starting Over” (I think that’s the name of it), granted I was only about six but my mother was really confused when I asked her to put on the “little bee” song
Okay last one “Head Like a Hole” by NIN. I honestly thought he was singing “Fall down to war, the one your serve”, the second time I heard it, I realized I was an idiot.
Avumede, that line from Surfin’ USA is
‘a-bushy, bushy blonde hairdo.’
“You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment.” - Bill Hicks