Here’s the most recent one I could find; my understanding is it’s too old to perform thread necromancy on, so I’m starting a new one.
I was looking for song lyrics today, idly paging through Sarah McLachlan songs, when my eyes alighted on part of the song Building a Mystery. The song is apparently about a man who pretends to believe in ancient/new age-y religion, but is something of a poseur, or so I gather from lines like
Apparently he’s a good-looking man, since the lyrics refer to his “smile that won’t wash away” and say “you’re so beautiful”.
Therefore I was never surprised by the line, “you stretch your ass to wear,” even though I couldn’t make out the next words, so I never knew quite what this fancy-dressed poseur was stretching his ass to wear.
Turns out the real lyrics are
Apparently I pronounce rasta “rahh-sta” like “shah-sta”, and the artist “rass-ta” like “class-ta”. Or “ass-ta”. And she doesn’t pause long between “your” and “rasta”.
Anyway, that was one I was pretty sure of, and was hilariously wrong about, so I hope it amuses.
It does amuse I could never understand that line either until I saw the lyrics , only I thought she was saying something about *astro * wear :smack: Like he’s running around in a spacesuit or something.
This is an old one: In the Creedence song Bad Moon Risin’, the lyric “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” has often been nisinterpreted as “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
So imagine my amusement when I watched John Fogerty performing this song on Live By Request. Fogerty is clearly heard at one point singing “There’s a bathroom on the right,” and conspicuously pointing offstage with his right hand. Then at the end of the song he adds, “And it really is on the right, too.” Nice to see he’s having fun with it.
My mom recently learned that the title of the song is “Forever in Blue Jeans” and not “Reverend Blue Jeans.” She was flipping through a parenting magazine and the title of a photo spread with cute kids in denim was “Forever in Blue Jeans.” She mentioned to me that it was a funny take-off of the song title, “Reverend Blue Jeans.” I corrected her, and the song makes a lot more sense to her now.
Speaking of Karaoke, I never knew what the speaker was “doing” in Semi-charmed life, as that part was always bleeped or edited out by the stations. When I found out the line was “doin’ crystal meth’ll lift you up until you break,” I was surprised that most stations played the edited version. Of course, even the few times I had heard the real version I couldn’t understand the words.
Two of mine, one Destinys Childs Jumping,Jumping. In the chorus where they sing ‘Ladies leave your man at home, the club is full of fellas with their pockets full grown.’
For a long time I thought they were saying ‘full of fellas with their pockets full of bump.’ as in a drug reference, which I thought odd for those girls. I felt a little silly when I found out what it really was.
The other is Shania Twain’s That don’t impress Me Much. In the verse about the guy that loves his car so much that, ‘I can’t believe you kiss your car goodnight.’ Till I was listening to it on my Ipod I thought she was saying ‘I can’t believe you’d kiss your carpet knife.’ which I know doesn’t make much sense but it was the best I could make it out.
“'Scuse me while I kiss this guy” is a classic mishearing of a Classic (for those living under a very large rock, it’s from Hendrix’s Purple Haze")
One of my recent screwups: While driving late at night to my parent’s place in ME, with the windows down and the volume way up, I heard a kinda new-wavy-grungy tune that fit the hot summer night drive vibe pretty well. Seemed like an upbeat song, something about a June romance…
Except for the chorus, which I would have bet large sums of cash went, almost certainly, like “You make me feeeeel like a worm, you make me feeeeel like a worm. Your worm.”
Eh, you had a summer fling, and she made you feel like…her worm? Is that, uh, a good thing? Am I being had here? Is this some sorry attempt at cheap pathos?
Ah, but I found out in this very forum I had actually heard the song Dakota from an otherwise horrible band called “Stereophonics”. The correct lyrics are “You make me feel like the one (x2). The one.”
Not a misheard lyric, but the mention of Sheryl Crow prompted me to remember that I always thought the line “. . . I’ve got my forty-five on so I can rock on” in the song “Soak up the Sun” was about to a 45 record. The spf reference went right over my apparently sun addled brain. Double duh.
I could never understand that line either until I saw the lyrics , only I thought she was saying something about *astro * wear :smack: Like he’s running around in a spacesuit or something.
