Why am I posting?? It’s obvious I will have to hang my head in shame after this. I am notorious for mis-hearing things. My Dr. told me that I had an auditory learning disability, so at least I have an excuse.
Two of my famous misunderstandings (read: got teased for years):
Irene Cara - Flashdance. I heard Take your passion as Take your pants off.
Air Supply - Making love out of nothing at all. I heard I know just when to pull you closer as I know when to pull your clothes off.
When I was little, the Monkees were my favorite “group”. For years, I thought the line “We’re the young generation” in Hey, Hey… was “we’re the underation”. Had no idea what it meant, but I sang it loud and often. Think my parents finally said, “Huh?”, and corrected me.
“Take On Me”, by Aha, has a line that I still don’t know, but have always sung: “Isn’t life a- baked potato?”
And that operatic song that the Guinness commercials use now (used also in the Doors movie, I think). Whatever the main line of that song is I’ve always taken to be “This is the Salsa Boogie!” I only know it as the Salsa Boogie.
My brother learned this song in school that just drove me nuts when he sang it: “What should we do, Punchanella, Punchanella? What should we do, Punchanella from the zoo?” (Actually, I have no idea what the actual lyrics are, so that’s probably a Mondegreen right there.)
I told him it was a stupid song and he should stop singing it. He said it wasn’t any worse than that dumb “Tammy Moore” song I always listened to. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, “the one that goes ‘Tammy Moore, Tammy Moore, didja get very far?’”
I can’t think of one of my own right now, but this happened when Tabetha Soren was interviewing newly elected President Clinton for some MTV special. I believe the exchange went something like:
TS: “Favorite musician?”
BC: “Thelonious Monk”
TS: “Hmmmmmm…and who was the lonliest monk?”
I’m sure it’s happened before then, but that’s the documented version I know of.
When I was a child, The Bugs Bunny Show (“starring that Oscar-winning rabbit – BUGS BUNNY!”) began with a song-and-dance number by Bugs and Daffy that started,
“Overture! Curtain! Lights!
This is it, the night of nights!”
My young mind, struggling to make sense of what it didn’t understand, came up with,
“Oh M’sieur! Sheer delight!”
The basic problem was that I had never heard the word overture. Why m’sieur was a better choice, I’ll never know.
You have to keep in mind that I live in the Northeast where we drop the “r” at the end of many words (ex. summah and wintah are two of the four seasons) to understand this one. A friend at work told me that something made her so angry she became “livered.” I didn’t get it until I realized she had only heard the word “livid” and never read it and was adding the “r” that she thought was left off in casual speech.
I remember reading a news item years ago in which a young boy had saved a choking person’s life by using the Heimlich Maneuver. He later referred to his effort as the Time/Life Remover. Kinda makes sense in a way, though.
Okay, listen to the theme song to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. You know the one: aaAAaaAAaaaa, waa WAA waa. Listen to the guys chanting in the background. It sounds like they’re saying:
Eggroll
Eggroll
Eggroll
Eggroll
Eggroll, too
Eggroll
Don’t want two eggroll
Don’t want two eggroll
Don’t want two
No thank you
I have that speech pattern too. My supervisor at work told her son to use “er” at the end of words where I say “a.” It drove her nuts to hear “cleva” and “summa,” etc.
The result was a child (now 20) who still says “soder.”
Thank You! I heard the last half of this a few days ago and I swear that’s exactly what I heard. I was trying to figure out who the band was - because Rage would never call themselves rednecks.
You know, until I read this post I thought it was: “Overture. Cut the lights.”
Yeah, I know “cut the lights” doesn’t make sense, but that’s what I always heard.
::giggles:: That’s how my best friend and I used to sing it! I think we were about 8 years old when that song came out. It was years before I realized that we had the lyrics wrong.
