When I was young, one of my brother’s favourite albums was “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney and Wings. My dad happily sang along to the title track “Sand on the Rug”.
Of course, being the annoying person that he was, he continued to sing this just to be irritating even after it was pointed out to him that he’d misheard the lyrics.
Everyone’s probably done this at some stage (misheard song lyrics, that is, not intentionally set out to annoy their offspring). After all, pop singers don’t always have the best diction, even when they’re not purposely mangling words to fit a rhyme or rhythm. Yes, I’m looking at you, Mr Elton Extra-Syllable John. “No Sac-ar-i-fice” indeed!
I was guilty of it myself only this week. The girls and I were discussing current songs and “All About That Bass” came up. I’m busy singing “I’m all about that bass, ’bout that bass, no trouble” when Drama Duck gives me a pitying look.
“You know it’s actually ‘no treble’, don’t you?” she says.
Hey, that makes so much more sense!! But honestly, have you heard that song? It still sounds like “trouble” to me!
It wouldn’t be the first time. I have a long history, dating back to my preschool days, of blithely singing something that’s completely wrong.
There used to be a show called “Romper Room” on TV back when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Every day they did the same activities, sang the same songs, and I happily followed along. One song they sang began: “Bend and stretch, reach for the stars”, and I always sang the next line “Here comes Juicily, there goes Lars”. Despite my mother’s best efforts, she could never convince me that the words were actually “Here comes Jupiter, there goes Mars”.
Demon Duck cracked me up recently by confessing she’d made a mistake with the lyrics of Rihanna’s song S&M. There’s a line that goes “sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me”. One of her friends had heard her singing it and pointed out that Rihanna is not, in fact, excited by “cheese that’s whipped”, as she had thought.
What about you? Any misheard lyrics you’d like to ’fess up to? Don’t tell me it’s just my family!
“Guantanamara” is probably mangled by plenty of people. When I was little, I sang it as, “One sad tomato … oh, he was one sad tomato …” Don’t ask me where I got the “S” from.
That seems perfectly understandable to me! Foreign words are particularly challenging for little people. And I heard an “s” in “Jupiter”, so I know it’s possible!
Stevie Wonder’s ‘He’s Mr Know-it-all’ came to my ears as ‘Sweeeetness going on an’ all.’ I sang it on the bus on the way to camp when I was about 10 and all the cool kids looked at me in complete scorn.
Stupid cool kids. I bet they were sitting on the back seat of the bus, too! (At least that’s where the cool kids hung out in my day. Needless to say I sat up the front.)