Bang me in the chest...

Our correspondent from the Copper Belt in Zambia, David Wegener, suggests:

Ask people on the blog to write in lyrics to songs that they've gotten wrong and always thought the singer was singing one thing, when in fact they later discovered that he was singing something radically different.

I just heard about example A-1 a few days ago and I'm still laughing to myself about it. Your son knows about it and so do my girls, but they just told me. John apparently used to think that Paul McCartney was singing "Bang me in the chest," when in fact he was singing, "Bennie and the Jets."

Maybe we shouldn't limit it to lyrics, but also include mistakes like thinking "Bang me in the chest" was done by Paul McCartney? Anyhow, the pit is open...

Comments

[Keith LaMothe]

Several years ago a friend of mine, his patience-with-ignorance exhausted, had to rebuke me for pronouncing the musical term "Bass" like the fish homograph.

Oops.

[Dave Sarafolean]

I've never heard Paul McCartney sing "Bennie and the Jets." The only version I know about is the one by Elton John.

For misundertood lyrics try Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon on the Rise." I used to think it said "Bathroom on the Right."

[Fr. Bill]

Like a zillion others, I heard misheard the lyrics to "Bad Moon Rising."

Lyrics: "There's a bad moon on the rise .."
I heard: "there's a bathroom on the right ..."

Someone told me that he heard the lyrics to Guantanamera incorrectly:

Lyrics: Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera ...
Misheard as: "One ton tomato, I ate a one ton tomato ..."

[Robert K.]

When I first saw this video I hadn't ever heard the song it used, didn't know the group, and I fell for an apparently common mishearing of a part of the lyric:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGGtDHdtmJA

Where he sings "the drugs don't work" me and alot of other people hear: "the trucks don't work". I was thinking: "That's an unusual lyric...possibly deep..."

Here's the full song in a good live performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RklnFD3jN80

Careful, the video in the first link is sad...

[Matthew French]

There's a song by Rusted Root called Send Me on My Way. My wife always thought it was Sammy and the Whale. I know... it sounds totally different when you say it but if you've heard the song you might understand.

Come to think of it I may have unknowingly named my son after this particular Sammy. She did really like the song.

[al]

Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze

He sang: scuse me while I kiss the sky
I heard: scuse me while I kiss this guy

Wouldn't listen to that song for a long time.

al sends

[Robert Perry]

"you chose a fine time to leave me, Lucille, with four hundred children and a crop in the field."

(it's really "four hungry children," if I remember right)

[Valerie (Kyriosity)]

Mondegreens!

[Robert W.]

My father has forever ruined "Lead on O King Eternal" for me by always saying "Lead on O Kinky Turtle."

[Hannah Bayly]

Okay, I've got 2. Both of others, not myself.

First, we discovered a couple years ago that Taylor always thought the words to "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" went, "In the meadow, we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is PARCEL brown. He'll say, I'll say, You'll say, All say, SNOWMAN! But you can do the job when you're in town. Later on, we'll expire, as we sit by the fire..." Original, "In the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is parson brown. He'll say are you married. We'll say no man. But you can do the job when you're in town. Later on, we'll conspire, as we sit by the fire..." When we explained this to Taylor, he said, "I always wondered what that meant. It never really made sense to me." NO Kidding!

Next, when, Michal, Ben, Kim, and I were in South Africa, we had the pleasure of hearing a Zulu man sing a song which went, "You are fairer, much fairer, than the lily that falls by the wayside. You are precious, so precious to me." What he sang,"You are father, much father, than the lily that falls by the website, you are precious, so precious to me." I can hardly express how difficult it is to sit without laughing when someone is singing those words with so much feeling in his voice. I don't think any of us managed. We just hoped he would think we were smiling so broadly out of extreme appreciation.

[Kamilla]

Oh, Hannah, how funny! Don't you love those accents?

The first Sunday I visited my church, one of our Ugandan priests was preaching his farewell sermon. That afternoon, I told my mother we had had a sermon about Geezuss Crust!

Kamilla

[Carroll Quigley]

Secret Asian man, secret Asian man
We're givin you a number
and takin 'way your name

[Todd]

There is a play on this theme in a recent cell phone commercial. Does anyone remember the song? Something about rock the Casbah...

[Brandon]

I thought that the Billy Joel/Garth Brooks song "Shameless" was "Shaveless". I could never understand why Garth was singing about being bearded.

I also thought that the song "Hey Jealousy" by the Gin Blossoms was "Hey Josie". (My wife thought it was "Hey Chelsea", an obvious reference to the former First Daughter.)

[Stephen Baker]

No, no, no. It's, "There's a baboon on the ride."

[Kamilla]

Oh, no, Todd! Not The Clash - I can see it now, our apartment door open, Combat Rock blasting down the hallway and all our friends coming over to our place before the game because Wendy and I had an apartment in the building behind the old DU fieldhouse.

Not sure I want to stroll down that lane again,

Kamilla

[Archie]

I sang about that secret Asian man for several years too!

(Secret agent man for those of you who don't immediately know)

[al]

One on my dear wife...

From the hymn All Hail the Power of Jesus Name

"Let angels prostate fall..."

She did not even know they had glands.

al sends

[Stacy D McDonald]

Al said:
He sang: scuse me while I kiss the sky
I heard: scuse me while I kiss this guy

You mean he wasn't saying, "scuse me while I kiss this guy???" LOL I can't beleive it! Are you sure?

"You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille, - four hundred children and a crop in the field."

I too mixed this one up when it was popular. I was riding in the backseat with my parents, singing at the top of my lungs, when my dad turned around and asked me to repeat what I had just said! LOL It never occurred to me that it might be strange for one man to have 400 children!

[Stacy D McDonald]

A couple of years ago, my daughter, Virginia Grace (now 6 years old), was overheard singing:

"America, America, God shed His grace on thee,
And crowned thy good, with Robin Hood, from tree to shining tree!

[Pastor Trey Austin]

I grew up in the home of a Southern Baptist minister, and we all listened to country music and we sang Gospel hymns and so forth. I actually did think Kenny Rogers was singing about Lucille leaving 400 children with her husband and a crop in the field (and to be honest, i didn't know why he was complaining, since he had plenty of help to get the crop in!). But we also listened to the Oak Ridge Boys (a Gospel cross-over group), and their song "Come On In" has a line that says "Come on in! Baby take your coat off. Come on in! Baby take a load off." And i heard, "Come on in! Baby take your clothes off. Come on in! Baby take your robe off."

Of course, there were a few hymns i misunderstood as well. One of them was one you've heard many times--"In the Garden," where i thought the chorus said, "Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me i am his own." But that one, together with the other one made it all the worse. My father, when i was very young, pastored a church in Wendell, NC, called Clyde's Chapel Baptist Church. One song that we often sand in church was the wonderful hymn, "Down at the Cross." The first verse says, "Down at the cross where my savior died, down where for cleansing from sin i cried, there to my heart was the blood applied. Glory to his name!" Of course, that's not what i heard; i heard "There to my heart was the blood of Clyde." All that together gave me the strange impression as a young child that Jesus had some other names he went by--Andy and Clyde, the latter of which, i thought, was the source of our church's name.

More recently, when i was singing in a choir at a church we were members of, one member of the choir who didn't enunciate very well ruined one of the beautiful and simple praise choruses i always enjoyed, "I Love the Lord." Of course, as you probably know, the song goes, "I love the Lord, and i lift my voice to worship you. O my soul rejoice! Take joy, my King, in what you hear. May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear." However, this bass singer who didn't enunciate very well was singing it, and all i heard him say was, "May it be a sweet, sweet sound in yo' REAR." It was all i could do to keep from disrupting everyone in the choir, but everytime i hear that song, now, i can't help but think of that. :-\

[David Wegener]

My son, John, would like me to defend his honor and point out that he never thought Paul McCartney sang, "Bang me in the chest."

This was his father's mistake. Don't know where Paul came from. It was that other English singer that was knighted.

My wife used to think the words in the song, "my eyes adored you," were "my eyes of Georgia," whatever that might mean.

[Brian]

I thought Wang Chung were saying:

"We were cool on Christ."

Hey, they're Christians, I thought.

Actually, they were saying: "We were cool on craze." with an English accent

[Joel Klein]

These two were on purpose, so I'm not sure they count:

"We bring sacks of rice on trays, into the house of the Lord." (We bring the sacrifice of praise...)

"We've been singing this song forever..." (I could sing of your love forever).

[Hannah]

This is just too fun. I thought of another on a couple minutes ago. A couple years ago, a friend was telling me about the worship song, "This is the Air I Breathe" which I had never heard. The problem: she wasn't enunciating and was speaking very quickly as she sang the first couple lines which go, "This is the air I breathe, This is the air I breathe." What I heard was, "This is the Arab rage, this is the Arab rage." To this day I can't hear that song without laughing. I was SO confused=)

[Kamilla]

I do have my white lab coat on at the moment, so I hope this sounds official - the precordial thump is no longer recomended, except in a witnessed cardiac arrest and then only by trained medical personnel.

So no more banging on the chest - ok?

Kamilla

[David Bayly]

Is this OK for this thread or should I start another post?

I remember the time in the early 70s when Tim tried to convince dad that the early Black Sabbath song, "Sweet Leaf" was actually an ode to Christ.

Dad looked at him like he was out of his mind. "It's about marijuana," he said.

"No, you don't get it. 'Sweet leaf' is Jesus," Tim insisted.

"Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath

ALRIGHT NOW!
Won't you listen?

When I first met you, didn't realize
I can't forget you, for your surprise
you introduced me, to my mind
And left me wanting, you and your kind

I love you, Oh you know it

My life was empty, forever on a down
Until you took me, showed me around
My life is free now, my life is clear
I love you sweet leaf, though you can't hear

Come on now, try it out

Straight people don't know, what you're about
They put you down and shut you out
you gave to me a new belief
and soon the world will love you sweet leaf

[Fletch]

Well...leave it to misspelled overheads in the worship service, which read:

"Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sn had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow."

Sn - the chemical symbol for tin, which actually rhymes with sin...so now I can never sing this verse without singing "Tin had left a crimson stain..."

Come to think of it...tin and sin could both leave crimson stains...

Fletch

[Stephen Baker]

The daughter of a former pastor of mine used to think the old gospel song went like this:

"When the roll is called a 'pyonder,' I'll be there."

[Archie]

Fletch,

Did your parents name you after Chevy Chase? Funny movie...

Archie

[Sarah Dionne]

My mother had to explain to me when I was about 5 years old that it was a "one horse open sleigh," not a "one whore soap-n-sleigh." I don't think I knew what a whore was anyway at that age.

And it wasn't until I was in college that I realized the words were "no discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful," and not "notice that you never have to climb a rainbow."

My 4 year old daughter was loudly bellowing her new Sunday school song a few weeks ago. "I may never ride in the calories!"

[Tim Bayly]

My friend, Jack, tells us his son used to walk around the neighborhood belting out, "Down in the boombox, down in the boombox..."

[Heather]

Apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree... my husband finds it hilarious that I STILL insist that the Eagles wrote Hotel California about the adulteress warned against in Proverbs, specifically in Chapter 7. Just try and prove me wrong!

PS And don't even try to say the song is about drugs! ;)

[Amanda Ewer]

I'm with you, Heather. Definitely about the adulterous woman.

[Jim Hogue]

Even though it is from Friends, my favorite is still Phoebe's rendition of "Tiny Dancer" - "Hold me closer, Tony Danza..."

[Rebecca Nugent]

Here's one for you:

When my brother and I were little, we were listening to a radio station playing Christmas music. The song "Feliz Navidad" came on. Being that we were completely brought up in the boondocks in rural Pennsylvania, we had never heard such a song before (in another language, that is!) We immediately started making up our own version and laughing: "Fay-leese snotty-snot!" After awhile, my mother realized that if we were to ever sing that out among the "city folk," we might offend someone, and she made us stop.

Also, there was "With a jelly toast proclaim.." instead of "With angelic hosts proclaim..."

[Chantal I.]

Heather,

I always heard that Hotel California was about the Church of Satan that was started in the 60s. Who knows though. My mum insists the song is about drugs. I think all the theories are entertaining!

[Brandon]

Heather,

My guess, then, is that you mishear the "one smell of golitas" line, a reference to marijuana, for "one smell of lolitas"?

[Heather]

Shows what you know, Brandon. It's "colitas"--supposedly a reference to the choicest part of the marijuana stalk. And yet I will not be dissuaded.

[Mary Lee Bayly]

I can't even stand to listen to Hotel California. I don't care what it's about.

My mistaken lyric is obscene, so I can't actually write it, but just so you know, I listened many times to the Eagles sing the line "______________________________

I'll see how long this post lasts before my husband deletes it.

[Done. Your loving husband.]

[Phillip Pfiester]

I bet I'm not the only one who grew up thinking "We Three Kings" were from the land of Orient Are...

[Linda Shanholtzer Dugan]

No, no, no, you've got it all wrong!? Those three kings were from "Orien Tar".

[David Baker]

I thought Johnny Cougar (Mellencamp)'s song "Jack and Diane" had the line "Changes come around real soon make us swimmin' in men"! No thanks, I thought!

My wife thought the Rocky song "Eye of the Tiger" was "It's the I love you tiger". She never understood why the tiger loved people... I told her that maybe they're yummy!

[Tim Bayly]

Hey Linda, any relation to my dear friend from years gone by, Carol Shanholtzer, of many apples, many sodas?

[Elizabeth Bortka]

When I was about four and my dad was driving the family home from somewhere after dark, he turned on his favorite easy-listening station when I heard Frank Sinatra crooning, "Strangers in the night/exchanging glasses. . . " I missed the rest of the words because my young brain was too busy trying to envision two people who had not met, trading eyeglasses in a romantic way (yes I also watched too much TV).

Okay, this isn't from a song, but I had to throw it in.

When my younger son was very little, he used to think that I used my debit card to get money from the "eighteen-men machine."

[Kamilla]

There's a men machine - eighteen or not, tell me where?!

Kamilla

[Carole Canfield]

Okay, I'm surprised this one hasn't shown up yet, and I won't bother putting what I (and all you others) THOUGHT it was! Here's the real McCoy:

"Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night."

My hubby thought "LMNOP" was the longest name of a letter in the alphabet.

My dad had a few he misheard as a kid:

"The little orange Jesus, asleep on the hay," and
"Christ, the royal master, leans against the phone."

And my personal favorite:

"When the roaches crawl up yonder, I'll be there!"

[Linda Shanholtzer Dugan]

Yes, Tim, Carol is my one and only wonderful sister.

[Kirsten Miller]

We sing the Nicene Creed at our church. One of the ladies told me her five-year-old son asked her, "Who got spanked by the prophets?" (You know the line, "...who spake by the prophets.")

[Stacy D McDonald]

This isn't exactly a "song" I heard incorrectly, but it is priceless - especially in light of our present battles. When I was about 8 years old, I was really into starting clubs - I was a Little Rascals fan, after all.

I started a club called the Sunflower Girls of which I was the president, of course. One day, I decided that my members and I were going to picket our neighborhood (something I had seen or heard on the news, I assume).

We diligently made large signs with crayons and poster board and taped them to sticks. We marched around the neighborhood, proudly waving our signs. It was around 5:00 in the evening and many dads (and probably some moms) were driving home from work.

We couldn't understand why so many cars slowed down and pointed laughing. Finally, it became embarrassing and we all ran to my family's garage to hide.

It took me a long time, even after my dad explained it to me, to figure out why people were laughing. In an attempt to copy "Women's Lib" signs, our signs actually said, "Woman's Lip." Archie Bunker would have been proud.