He does sing that at least once - “trying to keep an eye on you/like a hurt lost and blinded fool.”
OK, I must confess this one. I think this is probably only me, but perhaps others will come out of the woodwork.
From Steely Dan, Hey Nineteen, a song I’ve known for decades. I just figured this out a couple months ago.
What I always thought was “Look where we’ll go, look why we’re runnin’” is actually “The Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian”
I laughed half to death when I realized how far off I was. It’s especially funny because of how he enunciates “the fine Co-lom-bi-an.”
My excuse is that I was too young to know what that was about when I first heard the song.
“I’m not talking 'bout the linen” and “There’s a warm wind blowing the stars around” seem pretty common. Enunciate, England Dan and John Ford Coley!!
I too heard it wrong for years. I got the Cuervo Gold mention but thought the next words were “Fine Coke, rum in” in keeping with the booze theme. Or the coke might have been cocaine.
A college friend of mine was most upset by John Cougar Mellencamp’s antireligious attitude in “Ain’t that America”. He thought the line was “He’s got an interstate running through his front yard - **he thinks his God is so great **” vice the correct “He thinks he’s got it so great”
I rest my case…
Well, this is one that I don’t know if “almost everyone” gets wrong, but in James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James it took me 20 years to learn that the lyric was not…
All the birches seemed dream-like on account of that frosting,
but was rather…
All the Berkshires seemed dream-like…
I know a fairly obscure song that almost everyone gets wrong. There’s a “cowboy” song called Cowpoke that’s been covered by several people including Riders In the Sky, Eddy Arnold and Hank Williams Jr.
I looked up the lyrics one time and came across about 10 sites that had it transcribed as:
I ain’t got a dime in these old worn out jeans
So I’ll stop eatin’ steak and go back to beans
I’ll pick up a ten spot and press God I know
Well I’m ridin’ the broncs in the big rodeo.
Finally I found one site that had it correct and it was kind of funny, because it read like this:
I’ll pick up a ten spot in Prescott I know (not press God)
From ridin’ the broncs in the big rodeo.
Incidentally, Prescott is a city located in between Cheyenne and Douglas (which are mentioned in the song’s first line.)
For years I thought he was singing “the fine comb run me in” which doesn’t make any freaking sense.
Do people really think Alanis Morrissette sings about “the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me” in You Oughta Know? I like it so much more than “cross I bear” that I sing along using the wrong lyric.
If you want to go “really old school”:
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
four calling birds…
I thought that was the lyric until I was eighteen and I saw it in one of those misheard lyric books that people use as stocking stuffers. I was shocked to realize I’d been hearing it wrong my whole life. (My dad is the world’s biggest Hendrix fan and I was sure that if there was anything I knew by heart, it’d be Purple Haze. Shows what I know.)
Hahahaha! That’s an awesome one!
I always assumed that “Blinded by the light” simply couldn’t reference a douche, but I never could figure out a phrase that would make sense. It still barely makes sense when I hear the correct lyrics.
I KNOW I have some doozies that I misheard, but I can’t think of any right now. I’ll be back, I’m sure…
Joe
Forget about online lyrics sites.
From the Lithium CD single complete lyrics:
“Oh no, I know a dirty word”
“Revved up like a deuce” - think Little Deuce Coupe.
Springsteen actually pronounces it “deuce”; it’s that Manfred Mann character who mucked it up. 
Yeah, I know - still don’t like the lyric…
Joe
I knew at the time that Cuervo was booze but didn’t know it was tequila. So I thought the line was “The Cuervo Gold, the fine cold rum to you.” 
And I thought that until the advent of the internet and the lyrics page of Steely Dan’s website.
I’ve heard several people misquote “Band on the Run” as “Man on the Run.”
“…and if there’s ever-changing world in which we’re livin’…” -Paul McCartney
Most people hear this as “ever-changing world in which we live in.” I’m sure they’re wrong. McCartney’s written some dumb lyrics over the early but nothing with that kind of basic grammar bungling.
That may be the case, but in the Manfred Mann version, the singer (I forget who it is), really does stretch that “deuce” into “douche.” I can’t figure out any accent or stylistic tick that would cause someone to elide “revved up like a deuce another roller in the night” into “revved up like a douche another roller in the night.” It sounds to me like some sort of joke or something, but there’s definitely a “sh” there that doesn’t belong.
I think that almost everyone gets Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” wrong. Not that they mishear the stupid (in my opinion) line ’ Someone saved my life tonight sugarbear’ but that it’s so inane that they can’t believe they’re actually hearing it correctly and thus try to figure out what he’s *really *saying.
Along the same lines, even though it sounds *exactly *like Steve Miller says “I speak of the pompatus of love” in “The Joker”, my ten year old self knew full well that there is no such word as “pompatus” and therefore enlightened everyone to the “fact” that he was saying “properties”.:smack: