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Mondegreen


Tman

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Misinterpreting the words in a song and singing yours. A famous mondegreen is; She belted out a mondegreen when she sang, "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."

Embarrassingly I had one for years by AC/DC.  "Dirty Deeds at Redondo beach."  My sister in law's parent's live there and my brother next door in Manhattan beach. I honestly thought it was that. Combination of attention deficit and volume I suspect.

Surely there are mondegreens other folks sang.

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not exactly a misinterpretation but for years I couldn't make out what Dylan's 2nd line was in Idiot Wind. it was just indistinguishable mumbling.  "Someone's got it in for me, wrkkjjekrooif00o2;3;lcooirc';lr;l" 

one day I stumbled upon the sheet music. turns out he's singing "they are planting stories in the press". I had to laugh. I swear I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was trying to sing up till then.  I love Bob. 

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From my older sister's era and a do-wop group called The Monotones

"I wonder wonder who  ... do do do do ... who rode the moo cow now"

was really

"I wonder wonder who  ... do do do do ... who  wrote the book of love"

In my first real road band, the guitar player heard it the same way with his older sister's radio play.

"There's a bathroom on the right" instead of "There's a bad moon on the rise" - CCR

"Flies in the Vaseline" instead of "Life in the fast lane" - Eagles

Wife calls husband and asks him where he is, and he says, "I'm On The Green" (I mondegreen)

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Drummer in our band when I was a teen Sang Taking Gerafizzes instead of Taking Care of Business. He honestly thought it was a gastric acid reducer for old people that BTO was singing about.

 

I receive a daily word of the day from some site that I never signed up for but look at just for grins. Today's word was Mondegreen which I'd never heard of and voila. Gotta admit Notes, your golf use was great!

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"The bathroom on the right" I heard that too, but knew I was hearing it wrong.

Its like that yacht rock song "It' magic I know, never believe it's not so". I knew what they were singing, but I cant help but hear "It's my d! ck, never believe it's not so..."

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28 minutes ago, Big Bill said:

"The bathroom on the right" I heard that too, but knew I was hearing it wrong.

Its like that yacht rock song "It' magic I know, never believe it's not so". I knew what they were singing, but I cant help but hear "It's my d! ck, never believe it's not so..."

That would be an intentional mondegreen? I have a few that I would share but would be grounds for censure.😖

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I do it with just about every song from the first 3 albums by R.E.M.  

Love old R.E.M.  but never really could understand much of what Mike was singing. 

Of course I never let that get in the way of me liking their music. 

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“Down on the corner out in the street, Willy and the poor boys sayin’ a nickel bag cant be beat.”   I thought this was the lyrics for years. Until a friend said, you trying to be funny and corrected me.  Hey, in 1969 a 15 year old kid thought like this. 

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The Beatles  from "Back In The USSR" - All the way the paperback was on my knees instead of All the way the paper bag was on my knee

Elton John from "Benny And The Jets" - She got electric boobs, a mohawk too instead of She's got electric boots, a mohair suit

And the classic from Manfred Mann's cover of Springsteen's - Wrapped up like a ****** another rubber in the night instead of Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night

Sometimes singers mumble - that makes it fun for us.

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3 hours ago, merciful-evans said:

There are many. One that I mistook was 'Love Wars'. For a long time I thought they sang 'Cowboy'. No? Listen to it again.

Does anyone know what Elvis song I'm referring to? I call it 'Mrs. Fisher's Mine'.

 

 

 

"Suspicious Minds"...

[smile]

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Actually this topic makes me think of a 'reverse mondegreen' where I was 17 and travelling in the car with Dad, listening to a band called The Wildhearts and the track 'My Baby is A Headf**k'. Dad asked me if they were singing 'my baby is a heifer' and all I could do was nod and agree...

Edited by Filbert
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A band I was in back in the late seventies was covering a song that Lefty Frizzell  had done.  We couldn't make out one entire line of the song so one of the guys wrote Lefty a letter care of the record company asking him to clarify.  He actually wrote back in a hand written scrawl, thanking us for doing one of his songs, but said that he didn't remember the words either!!

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David Bowie's "Golden Years" ("whup whup whuup") -

Can the backing vocals really be "come develop the baby".....? What can he mean?

No it's "come get up my baby"....🕴️

Edited by jdgm
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Cream:  "Strange Brew - grill what's inside of you". 

Does Howling Wolf actually sing "Watch out, strange cat people" on "Little Red Rooster"?  As that's what it sounds like.  What's that all about eh?  [biggrin]

One of the first blues LPs I ever got was "Festival of the Blues" a budget price reissue on Marble Arch records of the famous live album.

Muddy Waters does "Clouds In My Heart" on it. For many years I thought he was singing "land of the flagship" when it was really "lightnin' a' flashing".....#-o

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I guess my best one is from Bryan Adams' "Somebody". I always thought he said "I passed out at Madonna's, when you walked in the room" I was almost right: "I thought I saw the Madonna, when you walked in the room". I mean, he was probably famous enough to be hanging out with Madonna in 1985 and passing out at her place...sounded reasonable!

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