Oh no I hear you say not this old thing again.
Send your suggestions for Mondegreens to top10@independent.co.uk
Yes we’ve done this before, but the Independent’s latest top ten is Mondegreens
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OK, I will bite – WTF is a Mondegreen?
It’s a misheard lyric.
The term stems from someone confusing the line “laid ’em on the green” for “Lady Mondegreen”. Not sure what the song was, but that’s where it comes from IIRC.
I had to look it up too, Les! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
Sorry Jack and Bob, should have explained my post better . Thanks to Bingo for doing so.
mancherons.
“I was a lonely teenage drunken fuck.” American Pie. Thought that was the line for years.
“No-one on on earth could feel like these, all torn and overgrown with fleas”. Little me in the 80s.
Mine were like the lanes and rambled/Mine were like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
– you’re gonna make me lonesome when you go, by Clearly enunciating Bob
“Golden brown, texture like sun,
Lays me down with my masheerums…”
‘Masheerums’ patently being some exotic thing I’d never heard of.
mancherons
*penny drops*
Right. This has lived with me since The Beatles released Yellow Submarine as a single and a young me played it incessantly on the family stereogram. Just go to 2:03 in the video and tell me the repeated vocal (John?) is not copying the phrase “sea of green” as… STEPHEN GREEN. You can’t. Because they do. Conclusive proof that The Beatles mention an 11-year-old boy in one of their biggest songs. Where can I apply for my share of the royalties?
The obvious one is “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” isn’t it?
Along with Desmond Dekkers’ ‘ Me ears are alight’
A classic ad:
For a long time I always heard this bit of Atomic
love’s true bluish light
as
Lost in Jewish lies
I heard it fairly recently and thought “That can’t possibly be right” so I googled it.
I always wondered why Aretha Franklin insisted her honey should give her her porpoise* when he got home.
*Not all of it, just a, just a, just a, just a little bit of it, obviously.
Elton’s tribute to his songwriting partner’s footwear:
Rocket man / Bernie and his shoes I’ve never known
And CCR’s advice for the incontintent;
Don’t go out tonight / It’s sure to take your life / There’s a bathroom on the right
When we were at school my middle brother somehow mistook the lyric (from the hymn “Lord of the Dance”);
“dance then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the dance said he”
for
“dance then, wherever you may be, I am the thing with the jumbo jet”.
Still makes me laugh thinking about it.
Combining Chiz’s Elton and incontinence themes, since someone pointed out ‘Someone saved my life tonight – shit the bed!’ I can’t hear it any other way. I think it’s an improvement, actually.
I always heard Louis Armstrong sing:
“I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dogs say goodnight”
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – Let’s Hang On
“Got a lot of lucky peanuts”
Paul Young – Every Time You Go Away
“Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you”
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
“And so as you hear these words, telling you now I want my steak”
Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall Part II
“No dogs orgasm in the classroom”
Blur – Song 2
The first line is (obviously): “I got my head shaved, by a trombone player”
and the last line of the chorus states: “Is there any jam?”
The Sugababes — Round Round
“Don’t you worry ’bout a thing
All you need is a fisting.”
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite – REM
“Calling Jamaica”
Let’s pee in the corner, let’s pee in the spotlight
Re: “Calling Jamaica” from The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite – REM
For I while I thought it was:
“Caling John Major”
… although I couldn’t for the life of me see why Michael Stipe would wish to contact the then conservative Prime Minister of the UK and MP for Huntingdon.
“Calling Cheryl Baker”
???
Is it not H.M. Bojay? I think he has a shop in Islington Green.
Down in the cellar
With Peters & Lee
Mine is “Don’t stop til the post office, don’t stop til you get enough” (Michael Jackson).
And in “Barabajagal – Love is Hot” Donovan seems to sing “Fine fine Asinedyne” – I couldn’t find any such word in the dictionary so I googled the lyrics, but I’m obviously not the only one who’s confused, because different lyric providers gave varying answers. I found exemples of “Acelandine”, “and Celandine” or just “Celandine”.
It’s obviously a made-up word then, and I think “Asinedyne” sounds more like what he’s singing. Maybe Donovan is Mondegreening his own lyrics?
Might as well face it, you’re a dick with a glove – Robert Palmer
I left my brains down in Africa – Toto
A Spandau Ballet mondegreen is almost worthless I realise (much love tho I hav for ver Spands ;-))
But I always heard this line from Gold as…
“…love is like a half-risen wall, and you could leave me standing so tall………”
While I’ve since learned* it is actually….
“…love is like a hard prison wall……………”
I personally prefer (I would, wouldn’t I?) ‘my’ misheard version, redolent as it is with potential for future (brick) building…
*learned from where you ask?
I think that settles it.
A friend just posted this Peter Kay clip. A few good ones here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxPDnBDLGx8&list=PL62DqFobjlDS9cyykiwUecnBQklHhKZ0n