Musical Malapropisms..

[brewerpaul]

I'm sort of hijacking the Malapropism thread (which I love) because musical malapropisms have their own unique name: Mondegreens. There are tons of websites out there devoted to mondegreens with hilarious examples (eg Jimi Hendrix's "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy"). For starters:

http://www.uh.edu/~mbarber/mondegreens.html

As a kid, when I heard the carol "We Three Kings", I always wondered where Orientaar was...

Go to it!!

[missy]

there was a full moon out this morning when we (Noah and I) left for school / work. He started singing the infamous:


"There's a bathroom on the right".

[fearfaoin]

"There's a bathroom on the right".

Of course, that's something you'd want to know when there are
hurricanes ablowing and you know the end is coming soon.

[TonyHiggins]

I heard an interview awhile back with some famous rock star who slurred the lyrics to a famous song and everybody thought it was intentional and cool. He said they were recording late at night and he had dozed off and snapped awake (or someone nudged him) when his line came up and he just got it out.

And there's a phrase in Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence that I can't make head nor tail of. I choose to leave it a mystery.
Tony

[Joseph E. Smith]

From Michael Jackson's Billie Jean: 'The chair is not my son'.

[emmline]

And there's a phrase in Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence that I can't make head nor tail of. I choose to leave it a mystery.
Tony

Which one? Well, at least what does it come before or after?


Personally, I used to sing wrong lyrics to Jellicle Cats. What I thought was "have you been in the love nest of heaven and hell?" is really "have you been an alumnus of heaven or hell?"

[emmline]

From Michael Jackson's Billie Jean: 'The chair is not my son'.

I thought it was "the chad is not my son." Which was a little premature since Charlie's Angels (the flick) had not come out yet.

[Unseen122]

(eg Jimi Hendrix's "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy").

I always like to say "Scuse me while I eat some pie." I can't think of any right now but I have probably said millions.

[chas]

(eg Jimi Hendrix's "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy").

When I was a wee lad, I thought Herb Alpert was singing "You see the sky / The sky's in love with you".

[Charlene]

When I first heard "Sixteen Tons" I thought the chorus was "St. Peter don't you call me cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company stove."

Well, gee, I must have been 5 or 6 at the time, and I had never heard of a company store. But I did know there were stoves that burned coal, and I thought this coal mine had a huge stove that used 16 tons of coal every day.


*******
My husband just mentioned that in the song "Teddy Bear's Picnic" he thought it said "the monkeys came in de skies" and he always had this mental pictured of monkeys swinging down from the trees or de skies and crashing the picnic.

Edited to add that my husband wants to make sure everyone understands he was in kindergarten at the time.

[Wombat]

I've mentioned this one before but it bears repetition. I once heard a live recording by the writer of 'Daydream Believer' in which he sang the following chorus:

Wake up Sleepy Jean,
Oh what could it mean,
For a daydream deceiver,
And an old closet queen

[Claus von Weiss]

Well, in her younger days my wife loved to sing along to Paul McCartney's "Ma Looking Tired". She was mildly surprised hearing the real title ...

And don't you ever let her know, I posted this here!

Claus

[djm]

Claus, that one took me a while to figure out. Excellent!

djm

[SteveK]

I have an old LP of a band called Barde. They sing Fanny Power in Irish (? I'm not really sure about the language) Anyway, I had it on one time when a friend was here and he said "That's the deer f*****g song." Sure enough, if you listen closely there's a part where they sing deer f*****g.

[Flyingcursor]

When I first heard "Sixteen Tons" I thought the chorus was "St. Peter don't you call me cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company stove."

I used to think the same thing. Amazing.