I’ve been peed on by a greyhound, it was certainly nothing to sing about. Stupid dog! If you stood still for a couple seconds he figured you might be a tree and he’d may as well go for it.
I post this one every time there’s one of these threads but one of my favorites is Aerosmith’s “Love in an elevator”, which I originally heard as “Lovin’ an alligator.”
That song still get’s me, I always here “I so hard to handle, now yes around”
the real lyrics are “I’m sure hard to handle, now yes I am”
Okay, the so/sure thing is understandable, but what Chris sings at the end of that line doesn’t even rhyme with “yes I am.”
My own that I really thought was the case for a long time:
Wasted away again in Margaritaville
Searchin’ for my lost Shaker soul
Some people say that there’s a woman to blame
But I know, it’s probably my fault.
Sure, it doesn’t rhyme, but I figured it was a metaphor for someone who’d broken free from their Puritanical value system and turned to a life of debauchery. Upon seeing the turpitude in which they’d sunk themselves, they longed for some shred of their former honest life to cling to. Turns out it’s just some drunk guy trying to find a shaker of salt.
I’ve been misunderstanding lyrics forever, and I’m still at it. I’m in the car with my kid and this song comes on. When alone, I’ve been known to sing along, even though the words kid of mystified me, I mean, why would anybody write a song that went, “We can be depressed, we can be depressed…”
But the presence of my kid in the car suddenly somehow revealed the actual lyrics, and I missed the boat by about an ocean: “Why can’t we be friends, why can’t we be friends?”
:smack:
On the other hand, even though I KNOW he’s not talking 'bout the linen, it sounds to me like, well, like he’s not talking 'bout the linen.
Can you please explain why that song is about murder? I don’t get it.
Doobie Bros. “Listen to the Music” – for 35 years, I thought the song was called “For A While It’s Confusing”
What’s really sad is I knew the Doobies had a song called “Listen to the Music”, but for some reason it was never played on the radio. :rolleyes:
(Excuse me while I kiss this guy…)
The Eagles, “You can’t hide your cyanide” . . . Lyin’ Eyes, rather.
CCR, “There’s a bad moon on the right.”
Don McLean, American Pie, "As the planes rise high into the night, to light the sacrificial rite . . . "
For awhile I thought he was not talkin’ bout the wedding, which makes sense in context. And I forget if I was one of the ones who thought there was a warm wind blowin’ the stars around.
Not a mondegreen, but I always substitute a soundalike word in the next line:
Speaking of Deee-Lite, and also not a mondegreen, whenever there is a song that says something like
I always wonder why they’re making an obscene reference to a prohibited act even though I know it’s not the lyrics.
As a child I loved singing along to The Go-go’s hit song, ‘Alex the Seal’.
Me too!
…“white winged dove”???
Back when the song was first released in the 1980s, a friend of mine was convinced that Cuts Like a Knife by Bryan Adams was actually “Cock Sucking Night”.
A girl with colitis goes by…
Instead of A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
I always felt bad for her medical condition.
A co-worker just told me about this one, not sure if it was him or where he heard it or what, but it’s now my favorite mondegreen.
Panama by Van Halen:
Actual lyrics: Reach down, ease the seat back
Misheard: Reach down, squeeze my seedbag
You know that Smash Mouth lyric:
“She was looking pretty dumb
with her finger and her thumb
in the shape of an L on her forehead”?
Yeah, well, my stepson thinks it’s “in the shape of an elf” which conjours some interesting mental images.
The song title wasn’t a clue? 
There’s not a warm wind blowing the stars around? :eek:
Let’s just say I initially misheard the lyrics to “Play That Funky Music, White Boy.”
There’s a warm wind blowin’, the stars are out. But it’s pretty hard for the wind to actually blow the stars around! (If I made that mistake before I’ve erased it from my memory.)
ETA: looking back on it, it’s possible that it could be another “Sugar Bear” situation, where what you think you hear really IS what you hear despite it making little sense.
Oh yeah, I have another one which I misheard back in the '70’s when I was young. I always felt funny singing along to it.
Oh, ho, ho it’s my dick, you know Never believe it’s not so.
Unfortunately, it was a long time before I heard the title of the song was “Magic”, that might have cleared things up.