Elton John’s Funeral For A Friend.
When I was young I thought ‘Love lies bleeding in my hands’ was ‘Love that feeling in my hands’.
Yup. Same here.
My funniest mondegreen is from childhood:
Correct: “Precious and few are the moments we two can share.”
What I heard: “Precious and few are the moments we toucans share.”
From American Pie:
Correct: “I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck, with a pink carnation and a pickup truck”
What I heard: “I was a lonely teenage rock and bucked with a big tarnation and a pickup truck”
Reverse mondegreen:
Every Elton John song has at least one line that I can’t understand. I was flabbergasted to learn, then, that what I assumed was a mishearing of the lyrics in “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” “sugar bear” was actually what he said. I was so certain I was wrong because, well, it’s dumb.
Nitpick:
Love Lies Bleeding is a different song than Funeral for a Friend. Yes, they appear as a medley at the beginning of the “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road” album, but it’s still two songs.
Nevertheless. 
Given that he always calls Lola “she” indicates to me he didn’t know until the end. Still, this just goes to show there are plenty of reasons things in the song things can be misunderheard.
For me, it was a “one horse slopin’ sleigh.” I mean, c’mon. A sleigh is a sled, and they’re meant to do down slopes, right? This one was especially designed for it.
Yeah, many people (including yours truly) are flabbergasted when they learn CCR came up out of Southern California. The funny thing is that Fogerty’s speaking voice is perfectly normal, he just sings really weird.
You mean “Sweet Jascha Heifetz”? Actually, I always knew the real words to this and “Hold me close now, Tony Danza,” I just find it funnier to sing along with the changed words.
Klytus, maybe you’re hearing both a live and a studio version of Lola. I’ve got albums with both and the lyrics are slightly different. (The change from “Coca Cola” to “cherry cola” cost me a turn in a game of Trivial Pursuit!)
–Cliffy
No, no, it’s “burnin’ up the fuel of everyone.” Those rockets are real gas-guzzlers.
And I can’t believe that I’ve been listening to that song for 30 years and didn’t know the correct lyrics until today.
See now, I always thought it was “won’t you take a ride on the flying spoon? Doo doo doo…”
Hmm… at least one site backs me up on this one.
You’re right – I misquoted. All the lyrics sites have “flying spoon”.
It still doesn’t sound like “Flying Spoon” to Pepper or to me.
I think it’s meant to be open so that you’re unsure, even at the end. When I first heard it, I also thought that the lines at the end settled it:
“… but I know who I am and I’m glad I’m a man and so is Lola.”
Until someone pointed out to me that it could also mean that Lola’s glad he’s a man.
I think it’s meant to be unclear.
I never looked up the lyric to EJ’s Bennie and the Jets until today. Imagine my surprise.
I thought it was:
*
Hey, Q!
Kill the rainy weather*
When in fact it was:
Hey kids, shake it loose together.
And the biggest topic of conversation on the playground that summer was:
She’s got electric boobs
Her Ma has, too
You know I read it in a magazine!
Correct:
She’s got electric boots
A mohair suit
You know I read it in a magazine!
Another Elton John. Rocket Man:
And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till Judgetown brings me 'round again to thine
I thought he was just being particularly poetic.
I have a friend who once thought that the 12th letter of the alphabet was ellaminno.
I had a run-in with some Gypsy transit thieves on the metro in Paris a few years ago–they tried to steal my mom’s wallet! True story.
Mine:
The Gentrys - Keep on Dancing
They sing, “I keep on dancing”; I heard, “Key-bop dancing”
I was very small at the time, and “key-bop” became my standard phrase to sing whenever I felt like dancing.
The Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet with Butterfly Wings
They sing, “like old Job”; I hear, “Michael Joe”
The Bee-Gees - More Than a Woman
My dad hears, “bald-headed woman”
My favorite intentional mondegreen:
Donna Summer - Hot Stuff
Jon Stewart joked that he used to think she was singing, “I’m looking for some matzoh, baby, this evening”
I always heard a certain marching song as “…the capons go rolling along.” I asked my husband the military nut about this one day, because I was curious as to why someone would write a song about chickens rolling down the road - was this an activity the infantry pursued to pass the time between engagements? - and he looked at me all flabbergasted and said, “Caissons, my love. The caissons go rolling along!”
It’s funnier my way.
Huey Lewis and the News, If This Is It
Sung: You’ve been thinkin’ and I’ve been drinkin’
We both know that it’s just not right
Now you’re pretendin’ that it’s not endin’
You’d say anything to avoid a fight
Heard: You’d say anything to a butterfly.
The Beach Boys, “Barbara Ann”:
“I went to a dance,
Looking for romance,
Saw Barbara Ann
So I thought I’d take a chance…”
Heard:
“I went to a dance,
Looking for a man,
Saw Barbara Ann
So I thought I’d take a chance…”
There’s a song I hear a lot at clubs, and for the longest time I thought the lyrics were:
“Everybody in the club get tits”
I was wondering about it out loud one night: “What do they mean by “get tits”? Are they only talking to the guys? Are they assuming everybody is a guy? But then there would be no tits to get. Are they assuming girls like tits too? Does this hold a double meaning for guys and girls respectively?”
My friend gave me an odd look. “They’re saying, ‘Everybody in the club get tipsy.’”
I STILL say it sounds like tits.
I’m in the “kissed by a rose on the grave” camp, too. I also looked up the rest of the lyrics and had a few other things wrong. At least according to reallyrics.com, and I’m dubious about their lyrics. It says “My eyes becomes large / And the light that you shine can’t be seen.” Now this is even more confusing than I thought since I thought it was “can”. Now her light can’t be seen even though your pupils are dilated? Must be pretty dim - at least one of us. I’m just going to have to hear it my way unless someone can make sense of it for me.
I made a typo once saving the lyrics to a Cyndi Lauper song and wrote “Monet Changes Everything” and thought - hey, that’s a neat idea too.
I always have difficulty hearing bits and pieces of lots of songs, and I usually don’t sweat it. But in the song I’d Really Love To See You Tonight I heard “I’m not talking 'bout the linen” and thought that the line was just a bad euphemism until one day I just listened correctly and heard “I’m not talking 'bout moving in.”
My wife said that she always thought this other song was some Star Wars reference since the line was clearly “Carry a laser through the darkness of the night.” Sounded good to me, though I just hummed /keer-e-elase-un/ and left it at that. I figured a flashlight would be more illuminating than a coherent beam of light, so it must be something else. Then I found the article Kyrie Eleison.
My favorite, and this always cracks me up, is combination of lyrics in this article that gives “On a dark dessert highway, Cool Whip in my hair. Wurn Snell of Colitas … rising up through the air.”
Try as I might, I always heard “moo venom” and came up with the image of a poisonous cow.