The OED Online twitter feed has been talking about mondegreens today, so I thought I'd blog my contribution since I can't get it down to 140.
I'm lyric-deaf, so I mishear lyrics more often than I hear them correctly. Because I'm used to mishearing lyrics, I tend to recognize when what I think the lyrics are must be wrong, and I try to determine the correct lyrics using logic. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work out properly. For example:
1. The song: You Shook Me All Night Long
What I heard: "She was a fax machine"
What I thought: "That can't possibly be right. The song is clearly sexual, it must be "She was a sex machine"."
Actual lyric: "She was a fast machine"
2. The song: Lookin' Out My Back Door
What I heard: "Memories and elephants are playing in the band"
What I thought: "Memories must be tambourines, but I can't figure out what elephants is."
Actual lyric: "Tambourines and elephants are playing in the band". The elephants are actually in there!
Update: just remembered a better one:
3. The song: Land of Hope and Dreams
What I heard: "This train carries whores and camels"
What I thought: "Why on earth would you have passengers on the same train as livestock? And why would it be so specifically limited to prostitutes? That can't possibly be right. It must be horses and camels."
Actual lyrics: "This train carries whores and gamblers"
1 comment:
Those are like double mondegreens! Another Creedence song has a famous one: "There's a bathroom on the right." ("There's a bad moon on the rise.")
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