singing the wrong words
 

Have you ever sang a favorite song for years, only to later find that you had the words wrong? Especially if the words totally changed the meaning of the song for you?

For so many years, I thought they were singing

"Give me the Beach Boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in their rock and roll and drift away..."

I thought the singer loved the Beach Boys as much as I do, and sang about them in the chorus. Sad that it took one of my teenager's friends to point out my error while I was singing.

Sure have.

Better yet, there's one song that I see periodically put in tattoo form. I've only seen ONE person get the lyric correct, as they all put "you" rather than "you've", because its difficult to hear. Nothing says permanent quite like "I couldn't take 5 minutes to google the correct lyrics."

Haha! Someday I'll get a tattoo of a surfboard that says "Give me the Beach Boys and free my soul." And see how many people correct me.

which song?

The Archive of Misheard Lyrics - KissThisGuy.com
Here's a whole siteful of misheard lyrics.
I've made similar mistakes, but nothing interesting.

I thought and fought with people that the lyric was: "the angel Aquarius" instead of "the age of Aquarius". I also thought "hang on snoopy" instead of "hang on sloopy".

Close Your Eyes to See by Circa Survive.

Mine is kind lame, but in the They Might Be Giants song 'Particle Man', for years I thought that they referred to 'Person Man' as 'the greatest man', when it's really 'degraded man'.

I still like my version better. What do they know, anyway?

I always get lyrics wrong. I like the song "Colorful" by Verve Pipe, but for the longest time I couldn't figure out what they meant by "I watch the backus, they leave single file"....
OH! I watch THEIR BACKS AS they leave single file.....

A classic one supposedly is by Creedance Clearwater Survival's Bad Moon on the Rise:
Don't go out tonight
It's bound to take your life
There's a bathroom on the right.

there are a couple of Drive-By Trucker songs that many fans get wrong:

- WRONG: "The seven years my daddy spent..."
- RIGHT: "The sound you hear is my daddy spinnin' "

- WRONG: "Nobody makes bridges that size"
- RIGHT: "Nobody makes britches that size"

i remember back when chumbawamba released their song about getting knocked down.

Kids everywhere were walking around singing whatever the fuck they thought they had heard in the song.

who gets knocked down by an elephant?

My brother thought it was "Man in the liver" instead of "Man in the mirror"

My mother is notorious for this....

My personal favorite:
The Real Version: "...and swim in your veins like a fish in the sea"
Mama's Version: "I can swim in the ocean, I can piss in the sea"

Wait, this is not how it's sang?

You're in the land of the lady Mondegreen now.

Happens all the time.

'Scuze me, while I kiss this guy.

Ah, the thread I have wanted to create (or find) for more than a month now, but I couldn't think of a witty enough title.

Thank you, Xerxys, for bumping this back up.

My two that came to mind that are beyond forgivable are:

Hold me close atomic dancer -- from Elton John's Tiny Dancer (I honestly could never remember the title to note how wrong I was)

Oh, oh Big old jet and a lighthouse -- from Steve Miller Band's Jet Airliner (again, I never could quite catch the real title of the song, until decades later)

what about......."slow motion Walter,the fire engine guy"?

Too many to list them all. I sing loud and proud and usually the wrong words.

Here's a few:
(correct) - (shesus version)
"You take a piece of me with you" - "You take peas and meat with you"

"Hush, hush, keep it down down, voices carry" - "Hush, hush, keep it down, down, it's so scary"

"Thunder" (beginning of Thunderstruck) - "Fuck you"

""Kodachrome" - "Pocket comb" (JJ and I both had that one wrong growing up)

and my latest mangling is one of Phoenix's song:

"Think less but see it grow, Like a riot, like a riot, Oh!" - "It's less, but see it grow, like a rhino, like a rhino-o-o"

Here's a little Eddie Money, courtesy of my wife:

correct: "I think I'm in love, and I can't get enough"
incorrect: "I think I'm in love, and I can't get it up"

I love how it changes the entire song.

"Hush, hush, keep it down down, voices carry" = Mush. Mush. Take me downtown, Mrs. Carey.


(What the hell. I figured the singer was in Alaska and had jumped in a dog-sled taxi driven by Jim Carey's mother.) :rolleyes:

AC/DC Dirty Deeds

Right: "Dirty deeds and they're done dirt cheap"
Me: "Dirty deeds and the thunder chief"

My Mama's notorious one

The Real Version: "Stand and Deliver" (by Adam Ant)
Mama's Version: "Stand in your Liver"

she would dance around the kitchen singing it that way...25 years and I can still remember this like it was yesterday lol

That's a pretty popular one to miss.

I thought this thread was going to be about when you're driving in the car with someone and they're singing along with the radio. They then forget the words and sing something like:

"She got eyes of the bluest skies as if they thought of rain...
I'd hate to look uh ihh who bmpeeee dua poomp anoww per bvmmm"

And you're thinking to yourself 'wtf? Embarrass them now or leave it alone?'

Oh, no, man! The line is obviously "Hold me closer Tony Danza".

http://www.myclassiclyrics.com/artis...ny-Danza-1.jpg

Until fairly recently I thought this was the lyric, too, and I've always wondered WTF an atomic dancer is. :o

I just youtubed this song and your version is better!

There is a lyric in Time by Pink Floyd until a few years ago I thought it was "Ticking away the moments that make up the dog days." Well, It's actually "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day." The thing is, it really doesn't lose it's meaning with my mistaken lyric so I never even bothered to see what the real lyric was and even hearing the song over and over again I always heard dog days even though the real lyric is actually very clear.

Dirty deeds and the Thunderclese!

http://www.transbuddha.com/images/up...ndercleese.jpg

Stella's little sister used to think it was:

Wastin' away again in my gorilla suit.
Looking for that lost zipper I caught.

She was puzzled about what backstory would result in some people claiming that there's a woman to blame. Perhaps the seamstress who built the costume?

it's "dirty deeds done with sheep"

my younger brother used to say..

she a kwi kwe kwe

obviously refering to Fine Young Cannibals' .."she drives me crazy"

he was 5 years old

Assumed lyrics: "I'm a belly cancer
I shit forever and I never care"

Actual lyrics: "I'm a belly dancer
I'll shake forever and I'll never care"

Listen at 1:03 minutes.

Instead of "Pour Some Sugar on Me," my cousin's friend would sing, "Go on shoot your own leg." So I added "ONE STUMP OR TWO!" instead of "one LUMP or two." It makes me giggle.

Learned a new word today; should have learned it a half-year ago.
 

Darn. I can't believe I overlooked this post. I can't add anything to it's awesome flow; not even if I tried.

No lyrics to add, I'm afraid.

" ... ya she's a bitch ... owch ... " as if he was smacked for saying it.
I couldn't figure out for the longest time why the song was called "Brick House"
Now that I know the correct words, I still don't know why it is called that.

The barbie song "come on Barbie, let's go party"
My (then very young) daughter used to sing "come on Barbie, let's go potty"

Dad used to sing to be goofy: There's a bathroom on the right

Actual: There's a bad moon on the rise

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
REVVED UP LIKE A DOUCHE, ANOTHER RUNNER IN THE NIGHT

EDIT: Wait, I can't write things in caps without it magically changing to lower-case?

Well, that destroys about 2/3rds of my humor.

Oh, it's just when it's the entire post. That's understandable.

Yeah, Poor Manfred Mann and his Earth Band (singing that song written by Bruce Springsteen). Everybody born after 1980 says "douche."

As a big Eddie Money fan and a guy that has never butchered one of his songs, I'm amused.

It's because the lady's stacked, and that's a fact.

This isn't difficult.

That's IT??? My family-famous faux pas:

No Doubt, Spiderwebs
I sang the chorus this way for years "I scream my balls off ...", but my daughters educated me. "I screen my phone calls".

I like it my way :p