Misheard Song Lyrics

"So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings" by Caroline Polachek has been in my head lately- there's a section where the backing vocals go "show me love, na na na" but a bunch of the youtube comments are joking about it sounding like "show me the banana". Funny enough I started reading through comments right when that part came up.

Update: someone in the aforementioned comments was claiming it was "show me love, na na na", but it turns out that's the mondegreen, and it is officially "show me the banana" according to an interview with the artist.

Edited by MikeK on Mar 5th 2021 at 5:02:30 AM

Listening to "Down On The Corner" by CCR, reminded me of another misheard lyric.

Actual Lyric: "Willy goes into a dance, doubles on kazoo."

What I've literally heard since I was a kid: "When he goes into a dance, devil's on the loose"!

Edited by Brandon on Mar 15th 2021 at 12:01:52 PM

From "Stroke Me" by Billy Squire:

Actual lyric: "Stroke me, stroke me"

What I thought it was until a couple days ago: "Something, something"

I've been hearing the song for months on the radio, but, because the really only play it at night, I've barely been able to comprehend the lyrics on account of being tired. It made looking for the song a nightmare, I'll tell you that much.

I only just now discovered that the voice in Hell March is saying "Die waffen, legt an!" instead of some random gibberish.

"Dance This Mess Around" by The B-52s has a couple sections where they start listing off dances, both real and imaginary. One of them has always sounded like "do the Pikachu!" to me, which I knew had to be incorrect because the song predates Pokemon by a couple decades or so. Turns out it's "the coo-ca-choo".

Edited by MikeK on Mar 27th 2021 at 1:34:10 AM

An old one just reoccurred to me, and apparently it's pretty common: "Ain't No Woman (Like The One I've Got)" by The Four Tops as "Ain't no woman like the one-eyed Gott". Growing up we had a neighbor with a glass eye, so as a kid I was like "Oh, okay, the woman he's in love with in this song has the last name Gott, and she has a glass eye". I mean it'd be weird for him to identify her that way, but maybe it would be considered Fair for Its Day because the narrator loves her and doesn't take pity on her or anything.

x4 I heard it as "the devil's on kazoo". Closer to the actual lyrics, but kind of hilarious to picture Satan playing a kazoo in a jug band.

Edited by MikeK on Apr 23rd 2021 at 12:12:41 PM

An alternative misheard lyric: "Ain't no woman like the one-eyed goth.

"I'm A Believer" by The Monkees

Actual lyric: "When I needed sunshine, I got rain."

What I heard: "What I need is sunshine on my brain." (admittedly, that still fits the tone of the song).

Heck, for years I was convinced that Smash Mouth had altered the lyric when they did their cover of the song. But, recently I heard the original by The Monkees on the radio, and was taken aback that they do in fact say "When I needed sunshine, I got rain".

Edited by Brandon on May 3rd 2021 at 9:28:35 AM

“Truth Hurts” by Lizzo

Actual Lyrics: You could’ve had a bad bitch, non-committal.

Misheard Lyrics: You coulda had a bad bitch, Malcolm Middle.

________________

“Grenade” by Bruno Mars

Actual Lyrics: “Throw my hand on a blade for ya”

Misheard lyric: “Throw my head at a plane for ya”

Edited by DookieIdiotNimrod on May 29th 2021 at 1:42:11 PM

I heard "throw my head on a plate for you".

For a different Lizzo song, there's "Juice" - "I like shouting naked better all the time" ("I'm like chardonnay, get better over time"). My mondegreen could be some weird sexual innuendo, but I was literally just thinking about standing in the shower and yelling. Which could be therapeutic maybe?

The Beatles - "She's A Woman". "My love don't give me presents / I know that she's no peasant" is already arguably in Painful Rhyme territory... but on top of that, most of the time it sounds like "I know that she's no pheasant", like Paul's friends suspect his girlfriend is a game bird in disguise, but he insists she isn't.

From Madonna's La Isla Bonita: I misheard "I fell in love with San Pedro" as "I fell in love with some Pedro", as in, a random Spanish guy named Pedro.

Another popular misheard lyric is "I fell in love with some bagels."

That line is a mondegreen goldmine. "I fell in love with some dago" is apparently a popular though insulting-sounding mishearing. "I fell in love with lumbago" is one with a rather distressing medical condition involved.

on top of that I've seen a line in the same verse misheard as "young girl with eyes like potatoes" (it's "eyes like the desert", but admittedly Madonna kinda sings it weird to make it seem like "desert" and "San Pedro" rhyme)

Edited by MikeK on Jun 17th 2021 at 9:34:27 AM

In Far Cry 3 when Skrillex begun his infamous Make It Bun Dem the lyrics sounded to me something like: "We must shoot the pistol, not the piss end mek'em a la fun."

It was pretty funny despite the song being embarassing as <insert the most embarassing thing you know here>.

I just heard the song "Somebody Loves You" by Betty Who for the first time while trying to find things to add to an extensive" feel good" playlist: It took me a few seconds to adjust for her Australian accent and realize she asks "who's around when you can't be strong?" near the beginning of the song, not "who's around when your coffee's strong?" the latter would make sense if she knew someone who craves extra strong black coffee when they're in a bad mood I guess? Actually, I've been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls lately, so my WMG is that I'm right, the lyric really is about coffee, and it's a song about Lorelai's Must Have Caffeine tendencies, from the POV of Luke.

Edited by MikeK on Jun 23rd 2021 at 10:53:07 AM

I was watching the first episode of This Is Pop, a Netflix documentary series about pop music, when at one point they showed a clip from Backstreet Boys' "I'll Never Break Your Heart" - when it came to the line "I'd rather die than live without you", whoever wrote the closed captions thought it was "I'd rather diet than live without you". Could also be a typo, or even a particularly absurd case of Never Say "Die"?

Edited by MikeK on Jul 4th 2021 at 5:25:55 AM

I had one from my childhood suddenly pop into my head, for "Puff The Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary:

Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the Ottamis in a land called Honah Lee

"Ottamis" didn't seem like a real word, but I knew stories and songs sometimes used made-up words. It reminded me of "hippopotamus", therefor I pictured Puff playing around in a swamp or marsh. It's actually the autumn mist he was frolicking in.

I just now found out I've been singing one of my favorite songs wrong, and I'm kind of disappointed because I liked my version of this lyric too much - Specifically T. Rex - "Cosmic Dancer". I heard:

What's it like to be a loon?

I liken it to a balloon

When it's really:

What's it like to be alone?

I liken it to a balloon

Ignoring the fact that the latter is kind of a forced rhyme, I liked the former because I saw it as about being (or being viewed as) a Cloud Cuckoolander. I guess being "a loon" and being "alone" can both be compared to being a balloon - you're hanging on by a thread, even if there's someone holding you steady you're still high above them, you're fragile, etc.

Edited by MikeK on Sep 27th 2022 at 3:56:38 AM

The Internet has ruined me, I keep hearing the last line of the chorus of Fox on the Run by Sweet as "You simp away" (actually "you slip away").

Oh, and speaking of T.Rex in "Get It On" I keep hearing "You're windy and wild" as "You're bloomin' wild"

Edited by FirstSnow on Sep 26th 2022 at 1:49:20 PM

In one line of "Dancing in the Street" by Martha and the Vandellas, I misheard "Baltimore and D.C." as "Baltimore NPC".

In 'Higher' by Carly Rae Jepsen I have always heard "and i don't know how to speak spanish" instead of "and all my fears have vanished" and "santa called before" instead of "so cynical before"

Every time I listen to "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance I hear "strike a violin pose" instead of "strike a violent pose".

In Open Your Coffin by Vargskelethor, with the line "This was just supposed to be a nap", I thought he was saying "This was just supposed to be an EP" but pronouncing EP like "ehp".

I thought it was a joke about how his previous Skeleton Metal albums were only EP length but the one Open Your Coffin opens for (III) was more LP length.

...I still pretend that's what he's saying because I find it funny.