That *is *better! Or even “nod” would be better. “Rot” never really worked for me.
So after listening to Strawberry Fields Forever for almost 60 years, I just recently learned that the correct line is
No one I think is in my tree
I mean, it must be high or low.
I had always heard it as the (much better) line:
No one I think is in my tree
I mean, I must be high alone.
The “high alone” image ties in with no one else being in his tree, and the double entendre on “high” is more pointed in my version, referring both to his location in the tree and to his mental state, unshared by anyone else, which is consistent with the sense of isolation expressed elsewhere in the song. I’m still kind of gobsmacked that my version isn’t correct.
The song “Darkness” by The Police (last track on Ghost In The Machine) - I always thought he was singing
I wish I never woke up this morning
Life was easy when it was pouring
Apparently the actual lyrics are
Life was easy when it was boring
I think my version makes more sense, especially with all the thunder-y sounding drums. It sounds like a rain storm!
As a teen, I thought the lyrics to the Led Zeppelin song were:
Made up my mind, making you starve
Goin’ to California with an aching…in my heart
Made sense to me: he’s going to kill his girlfriend through forced starvation, then flee to another state, but with regrets.
(It’s actually “make a new start.”)
Wait, what? They are?
I like pouring better, too.
Well, those are lyrics I found on the internet, so they could be wrong. I don’t believe my copy of the CD has printed lyrics.
Genius lyrics has “boring”, and they are righter than most.
Well, it’s still pouring for me, so there, Stewart!
Modern Love
Real lyrics:
I know when to go out
Know when to stay in
Get things done
What I hear:
I don’t want to go out
I want to stay in
Get things done
I need to stay in to get things done. Make perfect sense.
Down on the Corner
Right lyrics: Bring a nickel, tap your feet
I hear: Bring a nickel, happy feet.
Bring a nickel and your happy feet, because you’ll be dancing to the music.
I could be here ALL DAY LONG.
It’s made even worse when I strongly suspect that the singer (who is usually the lyricist) has actually changed the lyrics over time from what they were on the original studio recording-where he likely just forgot what the originals were and just made them up later off the top of his head during live shows.
My fave example of the above is The Cult’s “Big Neon Glitter”, where I’ve always heard it the opening stanza as:
Oh, drag me back, and drag me back
And drag me back, drag me back, drag me back
To that ocean, of absolution
If you listen carefully, you can clearly hear 4 syllables for the first part of the bolded line, 5 for the latter. Makes sense, a very evocative image, and why wouldn’t anyone want to return to a place which will wash away all of their sins?
Except I’ve sampled a few live versions, and now Ian Astbury (lead singer) now sings:
Thru that revolution, without solution."
Now we have 6 syllables for the 1st part vs. 4–where did they come from, why are there more now? There is absolutely NO “r” sound in the original either. Annnd semantically we also now have a totally nonsensical return to a hapless and worthless situation, vs. the one in the above version where actual deliverance is achieved. The online lyric sites all insist it is the latter, alas.
The other bugaboo is (going to the other extreme) spurious sounds that the singer makes, which the online site people then pick up on and invent phony words to put into their formulations, typically resulting in something which makes less than zero sense.
REM’s “I Believe”:
When I was young and give and take
The foolish sent my fool away
Always heard the 2nd line as that way, recalling the nuns at my grade school who attempted to do just that (hint: they utterly failed).
Alas, Michael Stipe puts in a spurious “K” sound towards the end, meaning the onliners think he’s actually singing
The foolish said my fool: ‘awaKe!’
Huh?! The foolish (in this case) would want to keep you asleep. Plus, if that is indeed the intended lyric, where is the “to” before “fool” at? At best we just have the image of someone being startled awake, with no actual clue as to why the “foolish” would be such for doing so even if it just a case of a student falling asleep in class and having the instructor hit them with a ruler or something.
Paul Simon, “The Myth of Fingerprints” (from Graceland)
Real lyric: “Ever since the watermelon”
What I heard: “Elvis is the watermelon”
It doesn’t make any less sense than the real lyric, and it ties nicely in with the album’s title.
What!? I’m just finding this out. Damn.
“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”:
Real lyric: “The baddest man in the whole damned town”
I heard: “The baddest man in the whole downtown”
My lyric almost works, I just assumed downtown was Leroy’s territory. But I admit it does contradict that line earlier in the song that says he lives in the South Side of Chicago, which of course is not downtown.
Once upon a time I thought that The Bitch is Back had instead of:
The Bitch is Back
Stone-cold sober, as a matter of fact
I heard it as:
The bitch is back
A dog called Rover as a matter of fact.
It’s a good play on words. You thought I was using an offensive term about a girl but I’m actually talking about a dog using an acceptable word (yes, I know a female dog wouldn’t be called Rover).
Porcupine Tree, “Baby Dream in Cellophane” also has a dog in it, maybe…[video linked to the 2nd iteration]
Pale dogs and demigods
But it has always sounded a lot more like this to me:
Held a box of sticky glass
Which is precisely what cellophane basically is, right? And again if the former lyric is true, then why do we have a definite if spurious “s” sound for the 5th syllable there for the last two interations (for the 1st one I don’t hear an “s” admittedly, but I definitely don’t hear a “d” for the last two).
Creedence Clearwater Bad Moon Rising.
There’s a Bad Moon on The Rise.
People started saying, There’s a Bathroom on the Right. Even John Fogarty has perfomed it that way for laughs.
I know this is a very old - and very long - thread, so I’m going to reference this long-buried post:
From Bob Dylan’s “Lily, Rosemary & The Jack of Hearts”. Per Dylan’s website:
The door to the dressing room burst open and a cold revolver clicked
I always assumed it was “…a Colt revolver”, with Colt being both a famous manufacturer of revolvers and pretty much synonymous with the vibes of a silver-mining town with gambling wheels and dancing girls. Sorry, Bob, I don’t have a Nobel prize but I still know better than you on this one.
Consensus lyric from “Down on the Corner” (Creedence Clearwater) …
Poorboy twangs the rhythm out
On his kalamazoo
And Willy goes into a dance
Doubles on kazoo
What my ears heard for many decades:
…Willie goes into a dance
The devil’s on the loose
I like mine better.
Wow, TIL today. I’ve also always thought it was “devil’s on the loose”. For a long time I also heard “bring a nickel, can’t be beat” rather than “tap your feet”, and I heard “you don’t need a pinhead” rather than “penny”, but I can’t really argue that my version is better for those lines. Fogerty really mush-mouths the lyrics on that song more than usual.
I’m guessing that the Ed Sullivan version used live vocals with recorded instruments. No devils. Just kazoos.
And the official version with lyrics on the Youtube CCR channel is also devil-free. Too bad.