In America’s “A Horse with No Name” I thought the line “The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz” was really “The first thing I met was a pile of bones”, but since that actually makes sense I can see why they didn’t say that.
Not a lyric, but a line of dialogue from a movie . . .
In Four Weddings and a Funeral, when Tom is giving his tasteless “best man” speech:
Real line:
“I remember the first girl Bernard asked to marry him. As I recall, she told him to sod off . . . <Gareth laughing> . . . and lucky for Lydia that she did. <Gareth roars>”
What I heard (for YEARS!):
“. . . As I recall, she told him to saw it off . . . and lucky for Lydia that she did.”
Now I am familiar with the phrase “sod off”, and why I heard it this way instead, I have no idea. But I much prefer mine. More graphic and thus even more tasteless than what he really said.
I think this is my third time posting this lyric. In Dire Straits’ So Far Away, I always heard the lyric:
Here I am again in this mean old town
And you’re so far away from me
as:
I hear that Armageddon is a mean old town
And you’re so far away from me
Mine is CLEARLY superior.
Winter Wonderland. The lyric clearly should be
Later on, we’ll perspire
As we dream by the fire.
I mean, everyone “perspires” in front of a fire, but who the hell “conspires”? What are they doing to do, celebrate New Years by overthrowing the government? Killing a family member? Shooting up Times Square?
That word has always annoyed the hell out of me, particuarlarly since there is such a good alternative.
Robyn Hitchcock has bizarre lyrics anyway, and the one I had wrong was in “Beautiful Queen.”
Real lyrics:
Have a ripe tomato here in ecstacy
My version:
Have a right to martyr here in ecstacy
Ain’t mine more poetical?
Actual lyrics:
Winter’s day, in a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing out mywindow to the street below
On a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snow
Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil”
Actual:
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
What I heard:
When the blitzkrieg raged
And fighters staged
I knew my words were wrong but I could never understand the real words. Reaching back into the mists of time-- I always sang (and still do) Rolls Royce’s Car Wash
You might not ever get rich.
‘Cuz you ain’t nothin’ but a big, fat son-of-a-bitch.
One day my husband heard me singing it and laughed and laughed and told me the real words are: Lemme tell you, it’s better than digging a ditch.
They’re conspiring to “face unafraid the plans that (we) made.” It’s a split infinitive.
Feed the Tree by Belly. Near the end, when she sings:
I know all this and…
I know all this and…
I know all this and more
I thought it was I’m no walrus, I’m no walrus, I’m no walrus and more.
Well, you’re vindicated. In the live version of Purple Haze, recorded at Candlestick Park in 1968, he does sing “'cuse me while I kiss this guy.” My cite is Guitar Hero World Tour…
Queen’s We Will Rock You
You’ve got mud on your face.
Mud? C’mon, it should be blood and I will never hear it without hearing blood
It’s “mud” the first time he says it, “blood” the second, “mud” the third.
So, you’re vindicated.
The first time I heard Hoagy Carmichael’s Lazy Bones:
Lazy bones
Sleepin’ in the sun
How you 'xpect to get your day’s work done
it was on the radio, and I was in the next room. I thought I heard:
Lazy bum
Sleepin’ in the sun
I still like mine better. Hey, it rhymes!
For the oldsters in this thread, The Fleetwoods “The Great Imposter”
What I heard as a child:
“Poetry so sweet
As a rabbit’s feet”
Actually:
“Poetry so sweet
has her at his feet”
Mine was cuter.
Tori Amos, “Past the Mission”
My lines:
*I can’t believe I went to Cuba…
Past the mission
I once knew a hired girl*
Original lines:
*I don’t believe I went too far…
Past the mission
I once knew a hot girl*
I figure my brain wanted to hear a more concrete story, and so made one up about a tourist who befriends a hotel maid and gets caught up in political intrigue while in Cuba. I mean, elsewhere in the song they mention a body that’s found and a prison… Someday I’ll write my version of it.
Paul Simon’s Kodachrome.
Actual lyrics:
If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they’d never match
my sweet imagination
everything looks worse in black and white
Turek’s lyrics:
I know they’d never match
my sweet remagination
everything looks worse in black and white
with *remagination *being a made up word meaning the shiny, glossy spin the mind imagines that makes memories of people and events seem better than they actually were. Basically, “Good Ol’ Day” syndrome.
Up till now I never knew what the lyrics were, but had thought that it was probably “I’ll give you Men of Mars to rule the world”, which would make sense considering his former alter ego of Ziggy. Although it sounds much more like “I’ll give you Mallomars to rule the world” than either mine or the real lyrics, but I did assume that it couldnt have been that.