So earlier today the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Scar Tissue” came up on one of my Pandora channels.
I had always heard the refrain as something like “With birds and shade it’s so lonely with you.” I knew that didn’t really seem right, so I looked up the lyrics.
It’s actually “With the birds I’ll share this lonely viewin’.” I honestly never would have guessed that.
The part…
…I heard as well.
How I heard “no tell if I die” instead of “don’t care if I die” in “Flip, Flop, Fly”, only the great Blue Meanies know.
That’s somehow quite a surprise. I’m really no stranger to a misheard lyric myself, but that one was always as clear as a bell to me.
Afternoon Delight:
This relies on British English slang, but as a child I heard the first line of the chorus as
Ahh, sufferin’ shite
To be honest, the first four syllables were pretty indistinct and I was pretty well aware that I had no clue what they really were - though they were something like that - but they always resolved into shite at the end of the line.
I recently watched the American Masters biography of Janis Joplin with the closed captioning on. And I realized that for all these years, what I heard as the start of Piece of my Heart:
“Didn’t I make you feel like you want to own me?”
was actually:
“Didn’t I make you feel like you were the only man?”
Yikes.
I just looked up the lyrics to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” when I was posting in the “occupations in songs” thread, and I just discovered I was hearing it wrong all these years.
I always heard:
“Joan was quizzical, studied at the physical science in the home” (A slightly awkward phrase, but I figured they worded it that way to get the meter right).
It’s actually:
“Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical science in the home”. To be fair, I’d never actually hears of pataphysics until now.
Add me to the “Binded By The Light” group, but I always heard “Wrapped up like a douche, and roll her over in the night.”
And apologies to Elton John for “Hold me close I’m tired of dancing.”
I’m really good at understanding lyrics; I don’t know why, but I am.
Anyway, Steve Winwood’s “Give Me a Higher Love” absolutely sounded like “Rickey and Oliver” to me.
I’m embarrassed to say I only found out the real title to the Aerosmith song: Love in an Elevator just a few weeks ago. I always mumbled along, figured it was something like “lovin’ la via bella” or some other foreign term meaning loving a good life.
I’m going to hide now.
I always thought the lyrics to Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”, aka the song from Top Gun went
“I went to the danger zone
Right into the danger zone”
I just learned today it’s actually
“Highway to the danger zone
Ride into the danger zone”
Hotel California:
Real lyrics: smell of colitis rising up through the air
My lyrics: warm smell of coleep dust rising up though the air
I didn’t find out what colitis was until reading the Straight Dope, but what the heck is coleep dust?
I strongly believe that Bon sings ’ …Seasoned digger on a one-way ride’ I searched Australian slang for word ’ digger ’ and it is used to describe '… endurance, courage, ingenuity, good-humoured mate etc.
Okay, I’m going to try to make that an earworm.
(I’ll gladly trade eternal bliss for some good pie…)
.
And since this thread has been resurrected this (rightly so, it’s timeless)… I’ve just got to point out this is the saddest thing I’ve ever read:
Several years ago, “Another Brick in the Wall” came on the radio while we were driving somewhere.
I said to my husband, “I don’t understand. How come he can’t have any pudding if he don’t clean his feet?”
Hubby, almost driving off the road: “What the hell?!? It’s ‘How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?’”
Me: “Gee, that does make more sense.”
Freewill by Rush
The line is actually “I will choose a path that’s clear” and I heard “…a bathosphere.”
A friend quickly set me straight (after looking at me up and down with contempt, ha-ha).
ETA: Hey, who wants cake? My treat!
I should clarify: which I had never heard at the time (I was about 11 years old when I heard Elton John’s version). Should have written, “I hadn’t yet heard.” Probably a case of imprinting, but I do like John’s version better.
Gary Owens, genius DJ on KMPC AM710 in the 70s, very kindly supplied the answer to that.
What I’m wondering is: who thinks Dude looks like a lady is a real song lyric, and why won’t Google help me find the complete lyrics to Do The Lucky Lady?
Nitpick: That song is Love Lies Bleeding. Funeral For A Friend is the instrumental that immediately precedes it on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album.
Uh, Wendy. It’s colitas, not colitis.
So I just figured out that the song that plays during the end credits of Lovecraft Country is “Sinner Man”, not “Cinnamon” like I’d been hearing.