Listening to the classic rock station this morning and Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good” is playing. It reminded me that, as a child, I thought the words were:
“I have a mansion, Organ Surprise…”
I thought it was the name of his mansion. You know, like Tara in Gone with the Wind.
It’s really “forget the price.”
Any other funny misheard lyrics?
In Van Halen’s “Running with the Devil” - I never could figure out what “no love euchareal” was – something to do with the Eucharist?
Oh - it’s really “no love you’d call real” with really odd phrasing.
My mother-in-law’s good for this too… she wanted to know what the “Do the Calculator” song was about (“Dude Looks Like a Lady” Aerosmith)
Oh yeah. I was really prone to mishearing stuff as a kid.
There was this unavoidable BeeGee’s song in the 70’s called “How Deep is Your Love”. The lyric was “And she came to me on a summer breeze”. I heard it as “And she came to me, on a submarine”.
Funny how I didn’t question it.
Also, I can’t be the only one who thought the lyric in Blondies “Call Me” was “Cum on me”, right?
Do do do doooo the calculaaaaator! I love it!
I have a co-worker who thought “Too Legit” by M.C. Hammer was “Do the Jerk,” partially because she and her family had recently visited a museum exhibit of the history of dance. She and her brother loved The Jerk; when she heard the Hammer song, she thought the craze was sweeping the nation.
Do the jerk, do the, do the jerk.
My sister thought that the line from Harry Chapin’s Cat’s in the Cradle was:
“What I’d really like, Dad is the Florida car keys”
as opposed to, “What I’d really like Dad is to borrow the car keys.”
When she told me, I had to ask her, “What the hell is a Florida car?”
She had no answer.
I have tons of mondegreens. I’m still figuring out Stones lyrics after 30 years. My personal fave comes from Diana Ross’s ‘Love Hangover.’
“I gotta Swedish handover
I don’t wanna get over…”
Took me years to figure it out.
I still can’t hear BTO’s “Takin’ care of business” without singing
“Bakin’ carrot biscuits”
Every Day!
Also, I still don’t know what Elton meant by “She got Electric Boobs”
I used to thing that in ‘twist and shout’, shake it up baby was, shakin a baby.
My mom thought Billy Squire’s “In the Dark” was “Shaharazad”.
I still giggle from that. My mom does, too.
(Gosh this ages me).
I love mondegreens, they always make me smile. I don’t recall having too many, but from my early youth:
When I needed sunshine, I got rain (the Monkees) became When I needed sunshine on my brain. Why I would need sunshine on my brain, I never could figure out.
A friend of mine thought that Huey Lewis’ I want a new drug was I want a new truck
“in the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight”
“i’ll ream your ass”
“i’ll ream your ass”
“i’ll ream your ass”
“i’ll ream your ass”
This is one I just heard today, so it’s fresh in my mind.
“Cows are stalking islands in the sun”
Which is actually
“Clouds are stalking islands in the sun” from Baby I Love Your Way by Peter Frampton.
I like my version better.
a nice site for those of us who mumble thru “whiter shade of pale” (and you know who you are 
I had a friend in high school who thought that the Buzzcocks’ “Autonomy” went like this:
I, I want you
On top of me
instead of:
I, I want true
Autonomy
The cow-island thing made me remember one of my own –
I always heard
“Islands in the stream, that is what we are”
as
“Modern Industry, that is what we are”
I didn’t find out until I asked someone, “Why’d they make ‘Ghetto Superstar’ out of a commercial?”
when I first heard “Paperback Writer” on an AM radio in the 60s, I thought the lyrics were car directions: I heard the title as “Take the next right turn.”
The first time I heard Eminem:
Misheard Lyrics:
Hello, My name is, my name is…Lynn Cheney*
Correct Lyrics:
Hello My name is, my name is…Slim Shady
to save face I will say it only took 1 listen to catch this. ** I found it ironic that he got into with Lynn Cheney & even mentions her on the second album.*
Took a while to catch this from the same
Misheard Lyrics:
Well since age twelve, I’ve felt like I’m someone else
Correct Lyrics:
Well since the age of twelve, I’ve felt like I’m someone’s elf
U2’s Electrical Storm is getting a lot of airplay in my area right now. Every time I hear the lyrics “Electrical Storm”, I hear “Electric Toaster”. Even though I know the right lyrics, I still hear it wrong.
On a slightly different track, my mom used to sing “Mares eat oats, And does eat oats, And little lambs eat ivy!” to me when I was very young. It took me TWENTY TWO years to figure out that they were actual words, and not “Marsie-dotes and dosie-dotes and little lamsie-divey!”
Hey, I never claimed to be gifted! 
I was sure that the chorus to Rush’s “Subdivisions” went like this:
Subdivisions
In the basement bars,
In the battle cars
Turns out it’s “in the backs of cars”. The suburbs of Toronto are somewhat less interesting that I had suspected, apparently…
Olivia Newton-John’s “Have You Never Been Mellow”:
The line:
“Kick your shoes off, close your eyes.”
filtered through my adolescent brain became:
“K-kiss you some, close your eyes.”
I was in my early teens when ONJ hit it big and every guy my age had the hots for her.