"Mondegreens" where you are utterly convinced that you are right, and the rest of the world is crazy

[Manduck]

@Barkis_is_Willin

I always thought it was flying spoon.

I remember when this was a new song (because I am that old), that it was controversial because “flying spoon” was thought to be a cocaine reference. So back then at least, everybody thought it was flying spoon. Which is also what it sounds like.

[Irishman]

@BMax

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqwLjkqj8Gw

Even with the lyrics printed in front of me, I still hear “I’m not talkin’ 'bout Bolivia”

Your ears are fucked up. It’s clearly “movin’ in”. No ambiguity at all.

That’s okay, I went years not knowing that Don Henley was saying “brown skin shining in the sun”. For some reason, I wanted to make that about her eyes, so I could never parse the words.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

In “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” all the online sites have him saying “She’s overboard, self-assured/Oh no, I know a dirty word.” A much more sensible read of the garbled lyrics is “She’s all on board, self-assured/And all I know are dirty words.” He’s talking about how much more impressive she is than he.

Remember, lyrics sites aren’t maintained by the artists.

[Leaffan]

@Irishman

Your ears are fucked up. It’s clearly “movin’ in”. No ambiguity at all.

That’s okay, I went years not knowing that Don Henley was saying “brown skin shining in the sun”. For some reason, I wanted to make that about her eyes, so I could never parse the words.

I never knew who the boys of summer were supposed to be. Although baseball is quite popular in Canada, I didn’t ever recall hearing “the boys of summer.” A few years after the song, suddenly the phrase was everywhere.

Do other international members know this is a baseball reference?

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Cobra Starship’s very catchy “You Make Me Feel…” repeats the title several times; the next word that follows is electronically distorted, but always sounded to me like “good.” I was amazed when I looked up the lyrics and the word was actually “so.”

Lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/you-make-me-feel-lyrics-cobra-starship.html
Video: Cobra Starship: You Make Me Feel... ft. Sabi [OFFICIAL VIDEO] - YouTube

[Manduck]

@Leaffan

I never knew who the boys of summer were supposed to be. Although baseball is quite popular in Canada, I didn’t ever recall hearing “the boys of summer.” A few years after the song, suddenly the phrase was everywhere.

Do other international members know this is a baseball reference?

I’m also Canadian, and I knew it from the book (The Boys of Summer (book) - Wikipedia) before the song came out. I think the book was mentioned fairly often in the sports magazines I used to read at the time, and I may even have read the book itself.

[Harvey_The_Heavy]

@JKellyMap

The “Blue Album,” aka 1967-1970, EMI’s official Greatest Hits compilation (chapter 2) from 1973.

It’s “modern”.

I’ve always thought it was “modern” because of the lyrics printed in the original Blue Album, but now I look at the first CD issue (1993), and it has changed to “Martin”. I can’t imagine they’d change it unless the first one was wrong. Anyone got the remaster? Also, listening to the three versions of Get Back from the rooftop concert does nothing to clear it up.

Fly By Night: The lyrics printed in the original CD issue read “My ship isn’t coming and I just can’t pretend”.

Paranoid: The album version sounds like it could be either “enjoy life” or “end your life”, but I have 19 various official and bootleg live versions sung by Ozzy, Ronnie James Dio, Ian Gillan and Tony Martin. 17 of them clearly say “enjoy life”, with a distinctive “j” sound. The only exceptions are the Beat Club 1970 and Paris 1970, where Ozzy clearly sings “end your life” with a distinctive “y” sound. These two recordings were made around the time the song first came out, so maybe it was “end your life” and then changed later.

[bobkitty]

@Irishman

Your ears are fucked up. It’s clearly “movin’ in”. No ambiguity at all.

I didn’t hear Bolivia, but I most certainly didn’t hear “movin’ in.” There always seemed to be an L in there somewhere.. “I’m not talking 'bout the limit..” or something. Not sure- I just sort of slurred that line.

I also heard “There’s a warm wind blowing the stars around,” which.. never really made much sense.

[Scholar_Beardpig]

Poker Face by Lady Gaga. She’s not getting him hot, she’s getting him hard. I don’t care if it doesn’t rhyme, that’s what she says.

[Harvey_Ferguson]

@Harvey_The_Heavy

I’ve always thought it was “modern” because of the lyrics printed in the original Blue Album, but now I look at the first CD issue (1993), and it has changed to “Martin”. I can’t imagine they’d change it unless the first one was wrong. Anyone got the remaster? Also, listening to the three versions of Get Back from the rooftop concert does nothing to clear it up.

I’ve always heard it as Martin, my curiosity led me to this which to me sounds like Modern.

[Ludovic]

@bobkitty

I didn’t hear Bolivia, but I most certainly didn’t hear “movin’ in.”

A few months ago on a whim, I changed my Facebook status to Ludovic “Is not talkin’ 'bout the linen.” Oddly enough, one of my friends was planning on running a misheard lyrics trivia game the next day, a huge coincidence!

[JKellyMap]

@Harvey_The_Heavy

I’ve always thought it was “modern” because of the lyrics printed in the original Blue Album, but now I look at the first CD issue (1993), and it has changed to “Martin”. I can’t imagine they’d change it unless the first one was wrong. Anyone got the remaster? Also, listening to the three versions of Get Back from the rooftop concert does nothing to clear it up.

Interesting, thanks. The official sheet music says “Modern,” but they sometimes get things wrong. (I remember Mick Jagger once said, of “Dandelion,” that “they made up a whole new song!”).

[Irishman]

@Krokodil

In “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” all the online sites have him saying “She’s overboard, self-assured/Oh no, I know a dirty word.” A much more sensible read of the garbled lyrics is “She’s all on board, self-assured/And all I know are dirty words.” He’s talking about how much more impressive she is than he.

Remember, lyrics sites aren’t maintained by the artists.

Yeah, but Kurt Cobain is not known for his lyrics actually making sense. Surely someone has checked the lyrics that came with Lithium, and versions have been printed in books.

Smells Like Teen Spirit | Lyrics and interpretation

The lyrics to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” were often difficult for listeners to decipher, both due to their nonsensicality and because of Cobain’s slurred, guttural singing voice. This problem was compounded by the fact that the Nevermind album liner notes did not include any lyrics for the songs aside from selected lyrical fragments.

The lyrics for the album—and some from earlier or alternate versions of the songs—were later released with the liner notes of the “Lithium” single in 1992.

[Critic David] Marsh, trying to decipher the lyrics of the song, felt after reading the correct lyrics from the song’s sheet music that “what I imagined was quite a bit better (at least, more gratifying) than what Nirvana actually sang,” and added, “Worst of all, I’m not sure that I know more about [the meaning of] ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ now than before I plunked down for the official version of the facts.”[50]

Drummer Dave Grohl has stated he does not believe the song has any message, and said, “Just seeing Kurt write the lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, you just kind of find it a little bit hard to believe that the song has a lot to say about something. You need syllables to fill up this space or you need something that rhymes.”[56]

Seems to me very likely that lyrics don’t make much sense, when made up on the fly.

@Leaffan

I never knew who the boys of summer were supposed to be. Although baseball is quite popular in Canada, I didn’t ever recall hearing “the boys of summer.” A few years after the song, suddenly the phrase was everywhere.

Do other international members know this is a baseball reference?

That’s a baseball reference? I figured all the lines are talking about a beach and such, the boys of summer were all the guys flocking to the beach for the summer, then gone during the school year.

@Elendil_s_Heir

Cobra Starship’s very catchy “You Make Me Feel…” repeats the title several times; the next word that follows is electronically distorted, but always sounded to me like “good.” I was amazed when I looked up the lyrics and the word was actually “so.”

Lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/you-make-me-feel-lyrics-cobra-starship.html
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpyZEzrDf4c

Versions sound like “that”, “good”, and “so”. The video has a photo booth where pictures have a descriptive word plastered on them, like “sexy” or “playful” or “incomplete”. I can see a tie with “feel so…” there.

[Diceman]

@installLSC

In Nirvana’s “All Apologies”, there’s a line that clearly sounds like “I proceed from shame”. Yet on the CD’s lyric booklet, the line is “Aqua Seaform shame”. Not only does the official version not make any sense, but the other line matches up with the song’s and album’s theme of self loathing. If fact, I wonder if “Aqua Seaform” was just Cobain’s inside joke.

Now that you’ve brought up Nirvana…

The refrain of “Smells like Teen Spirit” seems to be nonsenical gibberish. There are 2 lines that lyics websites always give as “A mosquito. My libido. Yeah!” I’ve always, always heard this as “I’m a skater, not a Beatle. Yeah!” If my version isn’t correct, it should be

[pulykamell]

I’m still not convinced he’s singing “deuce” in the Manfred Mann version of “Blinded by the Light.” What kind of accent pronounces “deuce” with a “sh” at the end of it? Not that “douche” makes sense in context, but it sure as hell is a dumb pronunciation of “deuce.”

[Doug_K]

@Sam_A.Robrin

Paul McCartney got soooo much grief for “In this ever-changing world in which we live in”–years later, when called on it, he insisted it was “…in which we’re livin’.” That’s not how I hear it sung in the original recording, but I’ll give it to him just to have it corrected!

I have the book Wings Complete, published by Hal Leonard in 1977. The line is printed as “If this ever changing world in which we’re living.” On both the studio and live version (from the Wings Over America album) his enunciation is less than clear, frequently dropping final consonants - e.g. “changin’”, “livin’”, “live n’ let die”. In the studio version the ‘if’ is clearer the second time than it is the first. In the live version “if” is fairly clear both times.

[Irishman]

@Diceman

The refrain of “Smells like Teen Spirit” seems to be nonsenical gibberish. There are 2 lines that lyics websites always give as “A mosquito. My libido. Yeah!”

I will point out that of the four lines, those two actually make sense. I don’t know what mulatto and an albino are doing, but I’ve reworded those lines for explanation:

A light-skinned black person,
a light-skinned white person,
a really tiny thing,
my sex drive! Yeah!

What I take those two lines to be saying is “my libido is like a mosquito - really really small”.

YMMV.

[eschereal]

In To Cry You a Song, the quasi chorus part on the lyrics sites claim that he say “I’m a glad bird”, which sounds believable on the first pass but not so much on the second pass. I always heard “I’m a black bird”, which does not make a whole lot of sense to me but it fits the second pass more closely and has a better scan to it.

[Baal_Houtham]

Well damn, I just found out I’ve been mis-hearing the Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” and, yep, I prefer my imaginary lyrics.

What I’ve always heard is:
“What a fool believes he sees,
the wise man has the power to reason away.
(His power’s better than nothing…)”
…which means that an intelligent person can devise ego-saving rationalizations and potentially be a bigger fool than a simple man.

But no, the lyrics are:
“But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing”

Ahh well.

[JKellyMap]

@For You

In To Cry You a Song, the quasi chorus part on the lyrics sites claim that he say “I’m a glad bird”, which sounds believable on the first pass but not so much on the second pass. I always heard “I’m a black bird”, which does not make a whole lot of sense to me but it fits the second pass more closely and has a better scan to it.

I hear “glad.”

But I always heard “I’m with you, lads” in “For Michael Collins…”, when apparently it was “LEM”, the original acronym for the Lunar Module. So my track record on “Benefit” lyrics comprehension is iffy.