Lyrics You Misheard.

[JesusAndYourBush]

UB40, I'm a prima donna. Yes.
Yazoo. Yes, I heard that one too.
Intergalactic.  I first heard it as "Intergalactic, warn the children".

Redemption Song. "Oh the pirate and the rabbi".

Laura Branngan - "Gloria"... "I think they got the ELLIOT!"
(the correct word is "alias".)

[jobotic]

I always heard that as "Cutting Cheryl Baker's hair, Cutting Cheryl Baker's hair, Cutting Cheryl Baker's hair, Cutting Cheryl Baker's hair, oohhhh"

So what is it really? It's going through my head now and I've got no idea. Ollie, d'ya meet your mum?

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I remember mishearing Tina Turner's raunchy wee ditty about having sex in a car ('Steamy Windows') as 'Stevie Windows.'  Not sure I had any real idea who the titular Stevie might be - possibly a bloke that Tina fancied?

In my defence, I was still a few years away from puberty at the time, and we all have to mishear a few Tina Turner lyrics in order to grow as people, don't we?  It's just a phase I was going through.

[thraxx]

So what is it really? It's going through my head now and I've got no idea. Ollie, d'ya meet your mum?

Apparently, I found out only a couple of weeks ago it's "Call me when you try to wake her up".

It's in my head too now, the other things that's getting on my tats is the bit where he goes "something more th'th'th'th'th'th'th'thubstantial a can of beans or black eyed peas a nescafé and ice"  or some such shit like that

[Kane Jones]

So what is it really? It's going through my head now and I've got no idea. Ollie, d'ya meet your mum?

"come and help me cut this blubber up."

[Maurice Yeatman]

Sister Sledge - I always thought it was "I wonder why he's the greatest dancer", even though that didn't really make sense.  Why would anyone wonder why?   

The real lyric is apparently "Oh what! Wow!", which weirdly looks like a mistranslation itself.

[doppelkorn]

20th Century Boy

"Great Sanjarito!
I wanna be Otto!"

I thought "Great Sanjarito" was a genuine exclamation.[nb]45 I was, Syd[/nb]

[non capisco]

Sister Sledge - I always thought it was "I wonder why he's the greatest dancer",

I thought it was that until, well, just now.

[Jijifranko]

I thought "To make the most / before we turn to ghost" in Wild Beasts' 'Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants' was genuinely a misheard lyric - "Surely he must be saying "before we turn to go"? But that wouldn't rhyme... so, it must be "ghost." But that doesn't make any sense!" - until I found out that was the actual line.

Wild Beasts lines I actually misheard were both in the same song - Bed of Nails. The first ("Be blatant as a bailiff") became "Be blatant as a bay leaf", and the second ("Surround me like a warm bath") I heard as "Surround me like a wombat."

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

There's a Take That song that has a line which sounds like 'I really love Suzanne Vega' ("Million Love Songs", something like that?), circa 1992. I remember it well, as I had a right ol' crush on a girl who looked like Suzanne Vega at the time (I've seen recent pictures of her on her Facebook page, she's a right fat cow now, more Olive from 'On The Buses' than the tasty 'Tom's Diner' type. You can never go back, readers).

Around the same time, it always sounded like Madonna was singing 'Hugh Laurie' on the chorus to 'Erotica'. That's what I heard, not this 'Bill Oddie' nonsense that everyone elses was hearing. Always been a bit of an iconoclast, so I have.

[phantom_power]

I thought "To make the most / before we turn to ghost" in Wild Beasts' 'Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants' was genuinely a misheard lyric - "Surely he must be saying "before we turn to go"? But that wouldn't rhyme... so, it must be "ghost." But that doesn't make any sense!" - until I found out that was the actual line.

It just means until we die doesn't it?

[DukeDeMondo]

There's a Take That song that has a line which sounds like 'I really love Suzanne Vega'

I used to know someone who genuinely believed they were singing "all I do is shite an' sing" in the chorus of Pray.

[Don_Preston]

In ABBA'a Dancing Queen, the line "You can dance, you can die having the time of your life." I wondered why anyone would want to every enjoy themselves with the evening potentially ending due to shuffling off this mortal coil.

It was only years later that I discovered that the unexpected nature of death is one of life's greatest thrills.

[Maurice Yeatman]

Around the same time, it always sounded like Madonna was singing 'Hugh Laurie' on the chorus to 'Erotica'. That's what I heard, not this 'Bill Oddie' nonsense that everyone elses was hearing. Always been a bit of an iconoclast, so I have.

I thought Sting was singing "Jan Leeming" in So Lonely.

[buttgammon]

I thought "To make the most / before we turn to ghost" in Wild Beasts' 'Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants' was genuinely a misheard lyric - "Surely he must be saying "before we turn to go"? But that wouldn't rhyme... so, it must be "ghost." But that doesn't make any sense!" - until I found out that was the actual line.

Wild Beasts lines I actually misheard were both in the same song - Bed of Nails. The first ("Be blatant as a bailiff") became "Be blatant as a bay leaf", and the second ("Surround me like a warm bath") I heard as "Surround me like a wombat."

I had a Wild Beasts one too. On 'Palace', I assumed the lyric was either "the bath man called" or "the gas man called" but it turned out to be "the bath ran cold". Just looking that up, one lyrics website has "love is a sport" instead of "that was a squat"...

[koeman]

In the background throughout Dawn Penn's excellent 'You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)', some fella keeps saying 'tell the people'. I always thought he was saying 'pelvic meatballs'.

[Levi]

La Isla Bonita by Madonna. I thought the opening line was, "Last night I dreamt of some dago." I really did think it was that. The video had loads of Hispanic people in it, so I thought Madonna was referring to them. There's also a line that sounds like "Young girl with eyes like potaters" I'm sure that's not the right lyric. But life is to fucking short to bother looking up anything to do with Madonna.

I always heard the opening line as ' Last night I danced with some Pedro' which I always thought was quite a dismissive way to refer to the random spanish man she'd just picked up.

The theme song of the CBBC  programme Shaun The Sheep is another one. Managed to mishear 'Life's a treat with Shaun the sheep' as 'Life surgery with Shaun the sheep' conjuring up the image of an Aardman Animations sponsored vivisection lab.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72P_pRvmwXo

[Hypodeemic Nerdle]

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Dr_Keloid/me_ears_are_alight/

Added a new 'un: Bauhaus' "Dog Entrails". Er, "Dark Entries".

[Utter Shit]

I thought it was that until, well, just now.

Samesies.

[thraxx]

I thought Sting was singing "Jan Leeming" in So Lonely.

I honestly thought it was "Toon Army" for a while.

[thraxx]

The first time I heard REM's The One I Love I though the opening lyric was:

This one goes out to the one eyed slug.

[non capisco]

The first time I heard REM's The One I Love I though the opening lyric was:

This one goes out to the one eyed slug.

Hahaha! Belter!

[Ray Travez]

Up until a month ago, I thought The Bar-Kay's 'Soul finger' was about a Bond villain. Embarrassing.

also-
He was a sk8tr boi, she said 'see ya later boy'
He wasn't good enough for her
Now he's a superstar, swimmin' in his catarrh

[thecuriousorange]

I thought for ages the chorus of Elvis Costello's 'Battered Old Bird' was 'He's a battered old bird and he's living in bedevilled love' which I really liked and fit in with the unrequited agony theme of a lot of the rest of the album. Turns out it's 'He's a battered old bird and he's living up there, oh woah'. Oh woah?!! Pull your finger out, Declan. I just pretend it's what I thought it was now.

I thought it was "and he's living in this old world".

Until now.

[Bobby Treetops]

4:35 into Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer does he really sing "I've been peed in the river"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g93mz_eZ5N4

[DangledTeeth]

The summer hit of 2000, 'Freestyler' by Bomfunk MCs.

Towards the middle of the song I thought I heard: 'so who thrusts the selection back in the island'. Years later, I read the lyrics were: 'so who the fuck is Alice? Is she from Buckingham Palace?'

Usually, the misheard lyrics become more silly once I'm aware of what should have been sung or rapped. This example, however, isn't one of them.

[Brundle-Fly]

In the background throughout Dawn Penn's excellent 'You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)', some fella keeps saying 'tell the people'. I always thought he was saying 'pelvic meatballs'.

Similarly, Hit That Perfect Beat by Bronski Beat (sans Jimmy Sommerville version) chorus was them singing,

"Meatball, meatball, hit that perfect meat ball."

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I heard one line of Pretenders, Brass in Pocket, as, '...gonna use my style.  Gonna use my sausage...'

[The Beached Torpedoes]

Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking
When I said I'd like to
Smash every tooth in your head
Rub mashed potato in your hair.

In your head may be easily misheard as In your hair by any listener unfamiliar with the theatrical whine of Morrissey; Smash every tooth as Rub mashed potato is a mystery to me and, as mysteries go, I feel will remain unexplained.

[Crabwalk]

I used to wonder why Morrissey was checking the register for a historical fax in 'The Queen is Dead'.