I almost laughed myself out of my chair when I read this one!
For the longest time I thought that the Offspring’s “Come Out and Play” said:
“Drink your milk!”
instead of “Take 'em out!”
I still have to sing it that way. It’s just more fun!
–==the sax man==–
"Rock and roll poochie poo. Lordy Mama like my shoes.
I’m probably the only one who heard Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing as:
“Money for nothing and your checks for free”
Hey, I was 12 and I had just got my first checking account. Everywhere I saw sings for “Free Checking”.
I think part of my problem is that I really don’t listen that closely to the lyrics anyway. I’d listened to Lola by the Kinks for years and years, but it wasn’t until a DJ led into it with “everybody’s favorite song about crossdressers”, that I stopped, listened and went “well, yeah, I guess so.” :eek:
GES
As a kid, I always thought Beatles “Paperback Writer” was “Take the back ride Zack”. you know in the first of the song where he sings it slowly.
My friend Jackie was very, very tired one road trip when Aerosmith’s “Jaded” came on. She listened with much exhausted confusion on her face, then finally said, “Why does he want to jade the Jews?” 
Absolutely priceless.
“You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille…
With four hundred children and a crop in the fields.”
My mom had to pull the car over because she was laughing so hard when she heard me sing that. 
Sheri
Thanks you for posting this thread! I’ve been to Kiss This Guy many times over the past couple of years… it always makes me crack up! Unfortunately, it is no longer accepting new submissions, but the site is still very much fun to read!
The guy who wrote that book is Gavin Edwards; he’s had three other books out since then. I’ve read them all!
And for anyone who’s wondering what the story behind the mondegreen is, I don’t have the book, but this web page explains it all, I think.
I can’t remember any of my own, but if I do, I’ll post them here!
I know we NY’ers have a reputation for being a little provincial, but a few years back I couldn’t help but laugh at a local caller to a (now defunct) rock station during an all-request Saturday and asked the DJ to play “Livin’ in the Bronx”.
“Livin’ in the Bronx”? asked the DJ…by who?
“That right”, responded the caller, who wanted to hear The Who’s “Emminance Front”
This was a friend’s mis-hearing, but I immediately started singing it this way when he told me:
Oatmeal Bag
You really can’t blame 'em
Oatmeal Bag
Society made 'em
Of course it’s really Oingo Boingo’s “Only A Lad”, which goes:
Only a lad
You really can’t blame him
Only a lad
Society made him
When I was a kid I was just SURE that Cher’s Half Breed was about a guy named Alfred…
Alfred! That’s all I ever heard.
I collect misheard Def Leppard lyrics. I have about 60 of them, not counting the misheard lyrics for “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” (I’ve collected a mondegreen for almost every line of that song, so I put it in its own special section. (If I may be so bold: http://amethyst-isle.com/clowns.htm.)
My favorite of mistakes I made is from “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”: “Every dream I dream is like some kind of rash and reckless scene” becomes “Every dream I dream is like some kind of fashion fricasee.”
My favorite of mistakes others have made is from “Breathe a Sigh”: “I more than long for your affection” becomes “I’d mow the lawn for your affection.”
Doesn’t help that DL only included lyrics for one album.
Who told?
I always thought Radiohead’s Creep had rather odd lyrics:
I’m a creep
I’m a WIDOW!
When, of course, Thommy-boy is in actual fact a ‘weirdo’.
I got credit on some mishead lyrics site (I think it’s called ‘The Ants Are My Friends’) for that one.
Green Day - When I come around.
Sewed donuts on my door…/So don’t knock down my door…
Hehe… that’s pretty funny. Sewing donuts to someone’s door.
I was so glad to see those books of misheard lyrics and to see threads like this one – I always had a hard time understanding lyrics. I thought it was just me. Now I learn that everybody else has a hard time, too. My difference was that my brain never managed to work that white noise into a coherent Misheard phrase.
My father used to sing “One Ton of Metal” whenever he heard “Guantanomero” on the radio.
Hold up, kids!
It’s time to include the old standard. The granddaddy of all misunderstood lyrics:
*Pardon me boooooyyy, is that the cat that chewed your new shoes?
I’ve only had one that I can remember, and I’ve been singing it the same way ever since. (Especially afer being corrected!)
Journey - Open Arms
“So, now I come to you, with broken arms”
What the heck was I thinking?
I heard a guy singing along with Creed’s “Higher” and it cracked me up.
“Can you take me higher, to a place with golden streets” is the original lyric, I believe, but it came out as “to a place with Golden Tee”.
I also have a friend who used to think Nine Inch Nails’ “Terrible Lie” was “turn on the light”. And another friend who thought the same thing about “Renegades of Funk”. Except it was ‘red-neck kings of f**k’.
I had a calendar on my desk at work last year, full of misheard lyrics. Every day was a laugh riot.
A few of my favorites:
There’s a bathroom on the right - CCR- There’s a bad moon on the rise.
You make the rice, I’ll make the gravy- Billy Joel, You may be right, I may be crazy.
I’m looking for a lover who won’t blow my brother - the eagles , I think the song is Already Gone, but I’m sure the real line is, “I’m looking for a lover who won’t blow my cover.”
Tampax! Tampax! - another Stevie hit, except it’s supposed to be Stand Back.
I’ll be back with more later -
Oh my God. I just blew snot all over my monitor.
I thought she was hollering, “Cab free!”
My sister still makes fun of me for that, and thinking the Beatles were singing, “That’s Bobby Love!” instead of “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
But what I really came here to share (before hillbilly queen sent me rolling on the floor, was that at the end of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” I thought they were saying,
"If you don’t clean your feet, you can’t have any pudding!
How can you have any pudding if you don’t clean your feet?