Romantics -
What I like about Jews,
They really know finance.
In the Annie Lenox and Howard Shore song “Into the West” from LOTR are these lyrics:
…
Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time…
I don’t think that fits the message and significance of the song, so I change the first two lines:
…
Hope grows
Against the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time…
Same number of syllables, but more appropriate in context.
I also always look over my shoulder whenever Don Henley sings “Don’t look back, you can never look back” in “The Boys of Summer.”
Every time I heard “Bony Moronie”, I always wondered how Larry Williams could get away with singing about them making love on their knees behind the trees. Now that I know the real lyric, I still like mine better.
I always thought he was singing “I saw a dead head sticking out of a Cadillac” (Dead head sticker on a Cadillac). I like my version better.
I did the lead sheets for some Dan & Coley abums in the 70’s, and I’m pretty sure it’s “blowing the stars around.”
But I wouldn’t swear in a court of law because (1) I’m not sure I did that song for them, and (2) I’m not sure the composers supplied the lyrics for me. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, then I had to cope like everyone else, although I had top-notch quality studio recordings to work from. I charged the publisher more if I had to guess.
I had a friend who would sing “I’m blue if I were green I would die.”
Another of mine that I just did this morning is Zombie, by the Cranberries.
With their tanks
And their bombs
And their bombs
And their guns
Eeyore head
Eeyore head
They are dying
Eeyore heeeeeead
Eeyore heeeeeead
Zombie
Zombie
Zombie ee ee ee
Owner of a horse and cart!
Owner of a dish-wash-er!
Much better than an…
Owner of the nuclear-powered fleet carrier USS Nimitz!
Owner of a Mamiya C33 that’s generally in good condition except that the taking lens has a bloody huge set of gouges in the rear element, contrary to your description of them being QUOTE nice & clean & are also free of any scratches, dust, haze or fungus UNQUOTE, which disappoints me because it’s otherwise a decent albeit very heavy example of Mamiya’s fascinating attempt to mate the post-war medium format system camera approach pioneered by Hasselbald with the pre-war twin-lens-reflex design!
And so on. Like all humour, it works because it’s subversive. You’re expecting me to sing “owner of a lonely heart”, but I replace “lonely heart” with something else that has four syllables. And then I subvert the subversion by singing things that brutally, violently break the meter of the song. The more brutal and violent the subversion, the more unlikely the object, the funnier it is. Why stop at objects? Why not be the owner of a growing, gnawing sense of alienation and disillusionment that can only be held at bay by harvesting souls?
I admit this isn’t a new idea. Mystery Science Theatre 3000 did a whole skit on the subject of how to determine whether the owner of a perfectly functional cheese slicer is better or worse than the owner of a pi-ie. But I came up with this idea independently, before I’d heard of MST3K. The idea of singing things other than “lonely heart” when singing the chorus of Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, I came up with the idea by myself, because the pinballs on the great pinball table of my mind are in constant motion. I am tilting the board non-stop.
But I feel I need a government grant to really explore the topic, though. 'frinstance, suppose I sing “owner of an owner of a lonely heart”, and then extend it so that I’m singing “owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of a lonely heart”, or “owner of an owner of an owner of an of an owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of an owner of a lonely heart”. Perhaps I could just concentrate on that one thing. With some kind of mathematical nomenclature. “[Owner of an owner x 4.6x1[9]] lonely heart”, for example. At what point does it stop becoming funny? After the first billion iterations, or beyond? Does it regain its funniness?
That bit about the Mamiya C33 is true, by the way. Interchangeable lenses, bellows focusing which makes every lens a quasi-macro lens, physically built like a tank (e.g. it has blow-out panels in the rear and wet storage for HESH rounds, four crew, passive infrared, Chobham armour, flip-up viewing hood). But the taking lens has a set of gouges - not just scratches, but bits of glass missing - on the rear element, and although it might not affect image quality too much, why put up with it? And, is mathematical nomenclature actually numenclature? That was a pun.
That’s the song that has the chorus start with the line
“I’m not talking about the linen”
right? 
Slow talkin’ Walter, the fire engine guy.
I think he is too talking 'bout the linen. I got a real jolt (I think it was here on this very board) to learn that there is NOT a warm wind blowing the stars around.
Also, “One.” Actual lyrics: “One…singular sensation…” (etc.) What goes in my head: “Step, cross, step, ball-change, KICK, step, KICK, hat…”
He’s dancin’ with the chicken slacks
She’s movin’ up and back
“…cause we are li-ving in a venereal world, and I am the venereal girl…”
“Owner of a lonely fart…”
We are one in the Spirit
We are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit
We are one in the Lord
And we’ll take all God’s enemies
and put them to the sword
And they’ll know we are Christians
when they die
when they die
Yes they’ll know that we are Christians when they die.
Found another one, by the excellent slightly pop-punk band called Fireworks (they’re so good that all of their songs sound like album openers.)
They have a lyric that goes
“we’ll start having to cope with the fact that
none of the things we say are making any sense at all”
I originally heard it as
“We’ll start having a Coke with the fact that
none of the things we say are making any sense at all”
Which doesn’t make any sense at all. Which I thought was the point of the line :smack: . But I’m singing it that way from now on cause mine is better dammit.
“My pony plays the bongo”
I blame my wife for that. I will never hear it as, “Marconi plays the mamba” ever again.
LOL My old buddy Glen Sarcona taught me that version 
To Laibach’s Tanz Mit Laibach we sing something along the lines of
Eins, zwei, drei, vier
Give the German Kittens Beer! [instead of Bruederchen, komm tanz mit mir]
Eins, zwei, drei, vier
German kittens want their beer! [instead of Beide Haende reich ich dir]
and so on.
mrAru also substitutes words in english that sound german in Rammstein songs:dubious:
I still insist on singing My Bonnie with the Vietnam variant and got my goddaughters doing it as well.
I do a couple of those already mentioned – Secret Asian Man, Tony Danza, and (occasionally) there’s a bathroom on the right.
One of my own is from a Barry Manilow hit in regular rotation when I was a kid: “Looks like tomatoes!” That was my mondegreeen and I’m sticking to it.
The one I find most fun is The Beatles’ Lady Madonna – in the break where they sing “ba ba bah, ba ba ba bababah…” I do it as chickens bawking. I always picture Gonzo leading his chicken chorus on The Muppet Show.
–Cliffy
Jeff’s nuts roasting on an open fire…
I like substituting “ba fangool” for “I love you”:
I just called to say “ba fangool”
I actually heard it as this once, and now I can’t sing it any other way,
Aretha Franklin:
‘Cause you make me feel,
You make me feel,
You make me feel like
A mental old woman’