Do ya mean, “and if this ever-changing world…” by any chance?
Ack. That should be “runner” not “roller” up there.
Maybe.
:smack:
Well, I could have sworn John Cougar was saying
“No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from” but lyrics sites have it as:
“No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from”
Are they correcting him just to be nice?
From “Natural Woman”:
*“When my shawl was in the lost and found, you came along to claim it.”
*I always wondered why Aretha didn’t feel like a natural woman, til she got her shawl back.
Shelley" Fabares’s song “Johnny Angel” the word is concentrate, not contemplate. Every person I have known, who’s known that song, has said “contemplate.” I only found out I was wrong because I saw an episode of “Later with Bob Costas” and he said the same thing and Shelley" Fabares, corrected him.
With the Internet now, most people can get the correct lyrics right away rather than guess.
It took me 20 years to figure out Cher was saying (in her song “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves”) “three months later, I’m a gal in trouble.” It sounds like “dream moz-a-leer, I’m a gal in trouble” 
Still an improvement on the “I know this is wrong, but damned if I can hear anything else” version I heard for that song:
I’m not talkin’ 'bout the living…
The opening lyrics to the Beatles’ “Come Together” are “Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me”, though this is difficult to hear unless you are listening carefully. I’ve seen authorized sheet music with these lyrics either omitted or incorrectly transcribed as “Shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop”.
Let’s not forget Aretha Franklin’s cover of “Respect”, where her ad-lib “Take care, TCB” is often misquoted as “Take out, TCP” or something similar. Cecil Adams himself covered this topic in his article, “What exactly is Aretha singing in ‘Respect’”?
One of my friend’s kids sang this as ‘Taking care, it’s easy-pee’.
Check out this live version on YouTube, it’s clearly “Oh Lord”.
I think they’re being nice or maybe copying from the provided lyrics, which don’t always match what’s sung. There’s definitely a word between “forget” and “where” that I’ve always heard as “from”.
Maybe “just?” - I cannot forget just where it is that I come from…
Joe
When it first came out I assumed for ages that she was singing ‘Thieves, thieves, tramps and thieves’ and wondered why she didn’t mention gypsies at all as that was in the title!
A friend eventually put me right.:smack:
For me, it was the lyrics to the third verse of “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan:
“Gonna have forever to fly
Wind velocity nil
Born high forever to fly
If you want your cup I will fill”
I don’t know if it was a case of everyone getting it wrong so much as it was no one understanding what he said. I certainly never understood. It wasn’t until 1987 (well before I had access to the internets) – 21 years after the song came out that I was on vacation in England and went into a music store. There was a Donovan songbook with the words to the song printed.
I never understood the first line of the bridge in “Behind Blue Eyes” by the Who, either: “When my fist clenches, crack it open.” It always sounded like, “When life is tension, Krakatoa.” (I know, that makes absolutely no sense) I finally learned the real words, again twenty years after the song, thanks to the internets!
And, as I’ve posted here in earlier threads, I’m one of the people who thought the line “You and me endlessly” in “Groovin’” by the Rascals was, “You and me and Leslie.” I never could figure out who the hell Leslie was and why she was needed to make life ecstasy! :smack:
I hear “I’m not talking ‘bout movin’ in” which goes with ‘and I don’t want to change your life’.
But what is the lyric if it’s not “and there’s a warm wind blowing the stars around”?
Suppposedly the lyric is “there’s a warm wind blowing, the stars are out”.
I saw a Bruce concert on VH1 a few weeks ago (maybe it was Storytellers?) where he discusses this. He said Manfred Mann specifically changed it to “douche” for effect, and their version went to No.1. He seemed amused by it.
I think “yesterday came suddenly” is better. You’re right, he is talking about today, and he’s saying today came suddenly. “Yesterday came suddenly” means the same thing as “today came suddenly” (it has to be today for there to be a yesterday, right?), but it fits the rest of the song much better. IMO it’s a fantastic example of McCartney’s lyrical genius.
Unfortunately, liner notes aren’t always correct.
For instance, Free Will by Rush, the line as sung is
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
But it’s different in the liner notes to Permanent Waves. I don’t have them in front of me, but it’s something like
If you choose not to decide, you cannot have made a choice.
Yeah, the sung version is better. I don’t know how the difference arose, but my guess is that an early draft was used to print the liner notes ahead of time, and then in the studio they worked the line over and got the better version.
I’ve seen a couple other examples I can’t remember offhand.