I remember I used to like browsing around kissthisguy.com for that.
I have trouble hearing lyrics. Just physically making out the words, especially with all the other sounds obscuring them. Even when we’re not talking about someone who thinks shouting is a form of singing. Or distorting the voice with effects. And I’ve learned that often it’s better not to pay attention to the lyrics. I’ve had too many good songs with catchy music ruined by listening to what they’re actually saying. (Prime example: Meat Loaf’s Anything For Love. “But I’ll never forgive myself if we don’t… go all the way. Tonight. I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” Dude, that’s not love. )
I do have fun with mondegreens, though. Sometimes just deliberately mishearing the words to come up with something fun and new. For example, I commissioned this piece based on one, and it makes me happy.
Has no-one said this yet? Colour me surprised, then, I guess I’ll be the one to do it!
The actual term for a misunderstanding leading from the mishearing of a song lyric is mondegreen. Little fact there for those of you do pub quizzes and the like, in case it ever comes up.
There’s an old Scottish ballad called “The Bonny Earl of Murray” in which a young girl once misheard the line “and laid him on the green” as “and Lady Mondegreen”. Not the first example of someone mishearing lyrics, certainly, but that girl was American writer Sylvia Wright, and she coined the phrase as a result of that mishearing. The word joined the English language officially when it was added to the dictionary in 2000.
For the past 30 years I always thought Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun lyric “When the Working Day is Done” was: “What in the World Can They Ask 'em”.
*Shrug
Jarrod Alonge did a series of misheard lyric videos on YouTube addressing mostly hardcore music. Most of the videos are hard to find but they are seriously funny. I really don’t like hardcore but my kid did so It’s especially funny to me.
Til Tuesday has a song that in the chorus always sounded to me like the girl was saying “Richard Scary”. Which I knew had to be wrong! My coworker said “Naw, she must be saying “This is scary.”
Then my other coworker shouted from the office “No, it’s ‘Voices Carry’! That’s literally the name of the song!”