The Archive of Misheard Lyrics

[David L. Donald]

Pretty funny stuff.
My sister sent me this link.

http://kissthisguy.com/

Not the case for me now, but,
I have been in a few bands where the singer JUST never got it,
no matter how much you tell them, they still sing a wrong lyric.

It is beyond the pale in Thailand of course,
they have lyric books and 70% of what's written is dead wrong...

"Make me bone country hoes to the space where I was bored...
Western virgin, mounting mama, make me bone country hoes" etc.
Of course the harmony singer is doing it wrong too...


Chacha made me fall over laughing over an Elvis tune we do,
that she REALLY she mis-heard

I'm a
Hugga Hugga Body Glove

Some of her Britany Spears karioke lyrics are really out there too.

[Richard Sevigny]

Misheard, misquoted, and sometimes just too plain lazy to look them up (with the internet, no excuse nowadays)

I've been lead singer more often than not, so I'm just as guilty.

One of the guys in the rock band I belong to sings that Elvis tune. Let's just say he does his own version...

[Mike Shefrin]

deleted

[Ray Minich]

"Purple Haze", yes, sounds like my Sunday morning...

[George Rout]

My dear old (late) mother for a long time thought the vocalist on Mr. Sandman sang "Mr. Sandman, bring me a drink"!!!!
Geo

[Steinar Gregertsen]

A singer I played with in the early 90s used to forget the lyrics all the time,- but he was a master at improvising new ones on the spot! I don't think many people noticed, but I have several hours of live recordings of us and there's some pretty hilarious stuff going on there....

Steinar

[Joe Eisenhart]

Grandaddy of all time was a funk band from thr Bahamas, 1974 I believe, Beginning of the End. Tune was Funky Nassau. Misheard lyrics enabled this 1 hit wonder. Anyone guess why, or better yet heard this one

[erik]

I often find it hard to understand lyrics.

[basilh]

In one of the bands I was in, the lead guitarist and myself sang harmony to the lead singer (Who also owned the band)
We nearly got the sack for not singing with him when HE sang wrong words. Of course where and when the wrong words were was different each show !

[Clyde Mattocks]

"I COME TO THE GARDEN ALONE'
'WHERE THE DEER AND THE ANTELOPE PLAY'

[Alan Brookes]

Of course where and when the wrong words were was different each show !

..it doesn't help when you're all singing in Hawaiian...

[Roger Rettig]

My favourite is the 'other' version of The Band's 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' - I think it's Joan Baez, but I'm not certain.

Check out some of the bloopers - the song becomes almost unintelligible. 'Stormont's cavalry...' became '...so much cavalry' (!!!) - for example. There's much more....

RR

[Mark Eaton]

Roger, it's "Stoneman's cavalry!"

General George Stoneman, who later became Governor of California.

[Roger Rettig]

Ooops! I misheard it too!

Thanks, Mark - I didn't know that.

[James Cann]

Ooops! I misheard it too!

Roger, there's a geat recovery line for moments like these:

"Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

PS: Would you happen to know a Jack Cullen of Naples, on Greentree Drive? He's an old friend of mine.

[Roger Rettig]

No, James, I don't know him. Is he a musician?

RR

[Bo Borland]

I worked with a great frontman that was also very witty. He would alter the words all the time, just for my benefit. he had me in stiches every night. A couple examples, the Beatles "Pay For My Chrysler" and Chicken To Ride. Todd Rundgrens "Love Is a Hamster" .

[Eric Jaeger]

The only song I ever accepted an excuse for forgetting the lyrics to is "Desolation Row". How even Dylan could remember eleven minutes of lyrics without a teleprompter is beyond me.

And I've heard exactly ONE cover version in 40 years. Live, by the Grateful Dead. Bob Weir singing. Amazing.

-eric

By the way, Joan Baez also turns Robert E. Lee into the steamboat, instead of the general.

[John Rosett]

From "Rolly polly";
"Betty's gonna be a man someday..."

[David L. Donald]

She'll need a darned good surgeon...

I can say I have heard ONE resident band on this island
get the lyrics right on most standards,
only my band and a few of the hotel acts
or long term foreign bands.

Amazing mis-aprehensions of lyrics in general.
They have lyric books on stage and ALL writen wrong...

[Jerry Erickson]

How about .. Bruce,Bruce,Bruce Wayne shoes....

[Mike Shefrin]

deleted

[Alan Brookes]

When I was a kid I was an Elvis fan, but his accent had me perplexed at times.

"I'm All Shook Up" sounded to me like "Ma Sugar".
"Havin" Us a Ball Tonight" sounded like "Heaven at the Ball Tonight".

But the best one was in the song "Rip It Up"...
"She and I going down by the union hall" sounded like "Shag her down by the union hall". I used to shake my head and say to myself, "That can't be what he's singing..."

Turning to Gene Vincent, almost everyone, including the record producers and other artists recording it afterwards, have misunderstood the song about a girl called Lula who danced to Be-Bop as...

"Be-Bop-a-Lula", which should be "Be-Bopper Lula".

[Bill Cunningham]

Back in the 70's one of my sisters, who was about eight or nine at the time, liked the Elton John song she heard and sang as "The Girl With Colitis Goes By". She had no idea what colitis was, that's just what she heard!

[Chris Bauer]

And now, of course, we have a whole new generation of wannabes singing the Wreckers hit, "Take The Pizza When You Go".