“Hold me closer, Tony Danza!
Count the headlice on my hiney”
I was listening to “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful yesterday. And I realized for the first time that the line was “All around, people looking half dead/Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head.”
Which makes sense. And rhymes. But for some reason I’ve always heard the line as “hotter than a mattress”.
This whole song is one string of mondegreens:
Ohhhh… and I always heard it as “[something] in a mansion.”
“California Girls” was on the same CD.
Turns out the line is “I dig a french bikini on Hawaiian island dolls/by a palm tree in the sand”. Not “I dig a french bikini on a wild-eyed doll/it’s like poetry in the sand”.
A line in the Stones song "Paint it Black’ always sounded to me like:
“No more will ugly seagulls/Turn the people blue”
What it really says:
“No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue”
City of New Orleans, sung by Arlo Guthrie
Not Grave yards full of old black men
it is really:
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles
It’s been One Week since I found out that there is no X-Files episode that features Donna Mason. Literally, one week ago I read the real lyric.
It’s 2020. We’re all Donna Mason now.
Yes we are.
But are we all doing it doggy style so we can both watch? Yes, I have conflated two different songs in my head.
Sealing wax - used to seal documents.
I would have thought that obvious from my response.
You gotta be of a certain age (and from the US) to misremember this song.
Look for the union label when you are buying a coat, dress or bows.
Remember somewhere our union’s growing. Our wages going to feed the kids.
Around the house we work hard, but whose complaining?
We take the IRT and sometimes the D!
So always look for the union label; it says we’re able to make it in the USAAAAAAAAA!!!
I see you probably have to be a bit of a New Yorker to understand my misunderstanding.
Ok, so “bows” should be blouse - but I’m not sure that qualifies as a mondegreen, because it really doesn’t change the meaning. Or is there another mistake?
Well.
Mark today as the day I figured out the lyric’s in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland are:
To talk of other things
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
Of cabbages and kings
Since I was a small child, I thought THAT was “ceiling wax” also, which somewhat made sense because of the nonsensical bits around the rest of the song…
And I have also somehow just realized I never read Lewis Carroll’s original Alice books…
The union people are not riding the MTA. What they are actually singing, I don’t know.
Look for the union label
When you are buying a coat, dress, or blouse,
Remember somewhere our union’s sewing,
Our wages going to feed the kids and run the house,
We work hard, but who’s complaining?
Thanks to the ILG, we’re paying our way,
So always look for the union label,
It says we’re able to make it in the USA!
Damn, I got the phrasing all wrong! But my way is the way I hear it in my head.
That is what makes it a mondegreen! 
According to this page, the correct lyrics are:
“Look for the union label, when you are buying that coat, dress, or blouse,
Remember somewhere, our union’s sewing, our wages going to feed the kids and run the house,
We work hard, but who’s complaining? Thanks to the ILG we’re making our way,
So always look for the union label, it says we’re able to make it in the U.S.A.”
The ILG(WU) is the International Ladies’ Garment (Workers Union).