Misheard Song Lyrics

treeguy64

treeguy64

Hari Om, y'all!
Location
Austin, TX.
OK, there used to be a website that had thousands of misheard song lyrics, listed alphabetically by the correct song title.

As a guy who made my living in the music biz for thirty years, as a lead vocalist and bass guitar player, I always got a kick out of that site.

The site seems to have disappeared, but maybe I didn't look hard enough. I don't care.

What I'd like to try, here, is a thread that lets our age group input on tunes whose lyrics they have misheard. (If a thread like this exists, in recent time, just post the link, please, and our faithful moderator can pull this thread, if he so chooses.)

I'll start: Rock The Casbah, by The Clash (1982)

Salt weenies say they like it.
Bum uh duh Casbah,
Bum uh duh Casbah.
 

Purple Haze, by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Purple haze all in my brain / Lately things, they don't seem the same / Acting funny, but I don't know why / 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy /

Should be "kiss the sky". :ROFLMAO:

Edited to note: I didn't hear it this way, but I read on another website that some others did.
 
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I'd always wondered if examples on those sites were made up.. I mean did anyone really hear "There's a bathroom on the right" or "Hold me closer, Tony Danza"?

I haven't misheard many lyrics, but one that came to mind: I was around 4-5 years old, and one of my brothers had the 45 rpm record of The Ballad of Davy Crockett.. seems quite a few people recorded the song, but the version they had was by actor Bill Hayes. As Mr. Hayes was from IL, I wonder if it was his attempt at a Southern accent- the lyrics are actually 'killed him a bear when he was only three,' but that's not the way I heard it!
As a little kid, it made me kinda upset- and then I wondered "what the heck was a three-year-old doing in a bar in the first place?!" Because the way I heard those lyrics was: "killed in a bar when he was only three!" so I imagined a small child being shot in a bar fight... :eek::ROFLMAO:
 

We had an old record. When they played it I'd sing along-
"He followed down the street like a newky-wood"

They asked me what a newkywood was. I had no answer. Then, they explained it was "Like I knew he would". It never clicked until I recalled this many years later.
 
Funny thing, though: When my band got requests for tunes we didn't know, we'd still do 'em, and pack the floor. I made up the lyrics, as best I could remember them, knowing full-well that they were not the real deal. Still got great applause. This even extended to other languages: Playing The Mercado, in San Antonio, a BIG wedding. Mexican couple. Got a request for La Bamba. We faked it, with me singing, phonetically, a tune I hadn't heard in over a decade (at that time). Everyone danced, everyone got into it. Now that I speak Spanish, having taken it at a college, here, I'm cool with the actual lyrics. Funny flub: I sang the second line: "Una poca de grassa." So, I was singing that when you dance the Bamba, you need to do it with a little grease! Should be "gracia," grace. The bride came up to the bandstand, and laughingly corrected me. Cool! Now that I think of it, just imagine everyone dancing on a greased floor! Yeah, lots of fun!!!
 
Joan Baez version of “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down”. She never took the time to read the lyrics and ruined the story behind Robbie’s song.
 

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