Songs where you misheard the lyrics and like your version better

[JaDanketies]

wtf Crawling by Linkin Park isn't 'The Music World Is Real,' it's instead 'Confusing what is real'. Typical bullshit nu metal lyrics rather than a non-sequitur comment about the reality of the music world.

[Kankurette]

Oh snap. Took me years to find out they weren't singing about the music world.

You disappoint me, Linkin Park.

[Deliciousbass]

https://youtu.be/Ya6LC1o2lnA?t=75

"we had crazy fucking times, 'til the visa card expired"

I always heard as "'til the visacotic spies...."

as a 14 year old i thought this was some reference to an obscure spy group that messed up whatever relationship the song was on about. Visacotic spies.

[willbo]

Ooo La La, Ah oui oui - run the jewels - I heard as Oo la la, are we clean

[Cuellar]

Looking up the tab for Nick Drake's Time Has Told Me revealed that the first line is

"Time has told me, you're a rare, rare find"

NOT

"Time has told me, you're rarefied"

It's honestly been about 20 years that I'd thought it was 'rarefied'.

[Jockice]

This is more of misunderstanding then a mishearing but I've always loved Open Your Heart by the Human League. It's probably my favourite song by them. But the bit where it goes 'end concealing' was something to do with not getting your nob out too early in a relationship or suchlike. Then I heard it recently and it clicked. 'End' does not refer to male genitals and it actually means stop concealing, which is why the next line is 'try revealing, open your heart.'

Honestly, for almost 40 years I thought it was some sort of dirty joke.

[phantom_power]

Looking up the tab for Nick Drake's Time Has Told Me revealed that the first line is

"Time has told me, you're a rare, rare find"

NOT

"Time has told me, you're rarefied"

It's honestly been about 20 years that I'd thought it was 'rarefied'.

I always thought it was "you're a rarer kind"

[Hobo With A Shit Pun]

Somehow, until today, the only version of Byker Hill I'd heard was the one by the Barely Works. The way they sing it, I thought the chorus repeated some sort of regional-patriotic rallying,  Byker Hill and Walker Shore, Call your lads for ever more" , rather than the real lyrics "...Collier lads for ever more."

As a child of Thatcher's Britain, my version is sadly more true.

[pigamus]

I always thought it was "you're a rarer kind"

Let's not even start on his famous butter fruit tree

[phantom_power]

Not mishearing but misunderstanding but my daughter thought that the man that Lana Del Rey was singing about in Video Games liked the bad girl's honey, i.e. honey made by a bad girl

[Blue Jam]

Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air

In west Philadelphia born and raised
On the playground was where I spent most of my days
Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool
And all shootin' some people outside of the school

I have only just learned that Will was playing "b-ball" (basketball, I assume) rather than murdering people. I grew up thinking the lyrics were Will cheekily playing down his involvement in gang violence and his mother not buying it ("I got in one little fight and my mom got scared") and this being the entire reason she packed him off to Bel Air. Only now do I see what a massive overreaction that was from Ma Smith. To think I had been on her side until now.

Apparently I'm not alone though:

https://www.tmz.com/2013/03/03/fresh-prince-of-bel-air-lyrics-prompt-school-shooting-lockdown-pa/

[Icehaven]

Apparently I'm not alone though:

https://www.tmz.com/2013/03/03/fresh-prince-of-bel-air-lyrics-prompt-school-shooting-lockdown-pa/

I know it's a cliched thing to say about anything like this happening in America but he's genuinely lucky he wasn't shot himself.

[Cuellar]

I have only just learned that Will was playing "b-ball" (basketball, I assume) rather than murdering people. I grew up thinking the lyrics were Will cheekily playing down his involvement in gang violence and his mother not buying it ("I got in one little fight and my mom got scared") and this being the entire reason she packed him off to Bel Air. Only now do I see what a massive overreaction that was from Ma Smith. To think I had been on her side until now.

Apparently I'm not alone though:

https://www.tmz.com/2013/03/03/fresh-prince-of-bel-air-lyrics-prompt-school-shooting-lockdown-pa/

Hold on doesn't the 'shooting some b-ball' line play over shots of Will actually playing some b-ball.

[Blue Jam]

Maybe, but I have still never heard it called "b-ball" anywhere else!

[Cuellar]

Fair enough - I was really into basketball as a child so I must have picked up the term

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I remember thinking that Paul Simon sang the following lines on 'The Boxer' (my idiotic interpretation in bold):

"Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers
And then I come home from the war zone, Seventh Avenue".

The next line makes a lot more sense when you realise it's actually:

'Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue'.

[JaDanketies]

Three lions on the shirt
Jewels remain still gleaming - referring to the crown jewels maybe, or the jewels in the cup?

But it's actually Jules Rimet still gleaming, which is the name of the 66 cup, named after some FIFA bigwig

True story

[Blue Jam]

I'm not much of a football fan but I still knew it was "Jules Rimet" and a reference to the World Cup trophy. And yet I didn't know what "b-ball" was...

[Icehaven]

First few times I heard Hit The North by the Fall I thought he was saying "Hitler!!" I don't like that better though, I'm not a monster.

[popcorn]

Three lions on the shirt
Jewels remain still gleaming - referring to the crown jewels maybe, or the jewels in the cup?

But it's actually Jules Rimet still gleaming, which is the name of the 66 cup, named after some FIFA bigwig

True story

I only discovered it wasn't "jewels remain still gleaming" a few weeks ago. I don't know anything about football. I always vaguely assumed it meant the crown jewels.

Like many others, I also once thought it was "three lines on the shirt", possibly referring to the Adidas logo, but a kid set me right about that back in the 90s.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Re: the fresh prince, I thought it was 'shooting some meatball' (but meaning basketball). According to Reddit I wasn't alone in that.

I've just found out that the first chorus of "I See a Darkness" by Bonnie "Prince" Billy isn't 'and then I see a darkness':

[JesusAndYourBush]

b-ball heads

[JaDanketies]

Hips don't lie

I never really knew that she could dance like this (hey)
She make a man wants to speak Spanish
¿Cómo se llama? (Sí), bonita (sí)
Mi casa (Shakira, Shakira)

Wyclef does a lot of weird annunciation to try and hide the terrible rhyme of 'like this / Spanish' so it made it hard for me to understand. I was never too interested in the song and I kinda thought it was, "I never knew that she could dance like that, she makes a man want a Shish Kebab."

[canadagoose]

Talking of "Spanish", I thought the lyric in Carly Rae Jepsen's "Higher" was:

And one of my things is "Spanish"

Rather than "every one of my fears has vanished". I thought she meant one of the things that turned her on was Spanish. I also thought "you pulled a gem out of the mess" was "you pulled a Chairman of a mess", like Chairman Mao or something.

[phantom_power]

In Unfinished Sympathy it is "I know that I've imagined love before" and not "I know that I've been mad in love before"

[canadagoose]

In Unfinished Sympathy it is "I know that I've imagined love before" and not "I know that I've been mad in love before"

That's one I genuinely had wrong too.

[Jockice]

Every time to this day I hear Games Without Frontiers I get 'she's so popular' in my head. And with Four Lions it's 'children they're still gleaming.'

I know fine well what the lyrics are but it doesn't stop me.

[phantom_power]

That's one I genuinely had wrong too.

I only have TOTP subtitling to go on with the "imagined" bit, to be fair

[willbo]

I always thought White Town's I could never be Your Woman was "never could be *a* woman"

There's a Viking metal band I like called Grand Magus with a song called Sword of the Ocean about a Viking who's been all around the world as a trader. I thought the bridge was "and the Muslim invaders, we trade them with gold", but it's actually "are we remorseless invaders? Or traders with gold?"

[flotemysost]

I have only just learned that Will was playing "b-ball" (basketball, I assume) rather than murdering people. I grew up thinking the lyrics were Will cheekily playing down his involvement in gang violence and his mother not buying it ("I got in one little fight and my mom got scared") and this being the entire reason she packed him off to Bel Air. Only now do I see what a massive overreaction that was from Ma Smith. To think I had been on her side until now.

Apparently I'm not alone though:

https://www.tmz.com/2013/03/03/fresh-prince-of-bel-air-lyrics-prompt-school-shooting-lockdown-pa/

Hahaha. I first heard it as "chewin' some meatball" (I was pretty young). Love the idea of Will casually dropping in a reference to murdering people then being all "I DIDN'T ASK TO BE BORN"