Twisted Lyrics :

Two from back in college. Back in the days of AM radio and inexpensive record players, it was never easy to decipher lyrics of songs from listening to the records. A friend of mine told me that he thought the first words to "Can't Help Myself" by the Four Tops were "Sugar fried honey crunch" instead of "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch", but the funniest one he told me was the beginning of Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love", where somehow he thought Grace Slick's "When the truth is found to be lies" was "When the turkey's found to be live"! Now that would certainly change the meaning of that song...

There are a number of threads on this topic, the most recent of which is HERE

When the Eagles released "Life in the Fast Lane", I thought they were saying "Back in the Vaseline"

When the song "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" came out, my ex-wife swore up and down that the artist was FRITZ, instead of Prince...

Ha yes!

As a pimply kid I thought Del Shannon sang on 'Runaway'--

" I'm a walkin' in the Rain-to my balls I feel a pain"

D

i was trying to attribute that classic lyric, "Peanuts in blue jeans," when I came across "mondegreens":
http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/wrlyric.html

When I was a teenager and The Beachboys hit "Help Me Rhonda" was getting air time the little kid next door sang along with the refrain of "Happy Honda Hap Hap-py Honda".

http://www.kissthisguy.com/

Archive of misheard lyrics-some of which are painfully funny.

I'm your Venus, I'm your bundle of joy. I remember hearing this line in high school through my car radio as: I'm your Penis, I'm your bundle of joy yes I am!

Bad Moon Risin' -- CCR

I hear hurricane's a'blowin'
I know the end is comin' soon
I hear rivers over flowin'
I hear the voice of rage and ruin

Don't go around tonight
Well it's bound to take your life
There's a bathroom on the right.

.

Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds -- Beatles

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,

The girl with colitis goes by.

.

Wstritt,

Only if I knew I would not have started this thread and would have posted my message in the relevant thread instead. Thank you for the link. :)

Rsbeck: That's beautiful man. I think that's what Lennon really meant.

My favorite has got to be from the time I spent in Spain. At the time, the Rage Against the Machine song "Killing in the Name Of" was very popular and regularly played in the club scene. One of the refrains, over and over, is "and now you do what they told ya." All the Spaniards would scream along and, invariably, they were all screaming "que te chupa la polla." Over and over. (Honestly, it really does sound the same, especially in a loud club.) At the risk of spoiling the suspense for our non-Spanish-speaking friends, roughly, they were all screaming "suck a dick." Over and over....

For me it was Richard and Linda Thompson singing Wall of Death. I thought they were singing "I want to ride on your waterbed one more time." Somehow, that seemed more poignant to me!
Tom

I had my two sons in the back seat of the car and one of them piped up "Play every knuckle animal."
I was stunned, I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked. It turns out he was talking about the Jim Steinman written, Air Supply recorded song "Making Love Out of Nothing At All."
We still laugh about that one.
On another trip my younger son asked, while we were driving through a nice neighborhood "Is itchy mansion around here?"
When we asked what he was talking about he explained "You know from the Gordon Lightfoot song, itchy mansion my name."
The song of course was, "Did She Mention My Name?"
Kids are great for this!!!

From "Smack dab in the middle" done by Ray Charles and also by Ry Cooder, I always heard (and worst, repeated) "pick me a town in any clime" as "pick me a town in decline". Seeing as though the lyrics that follow are "people like a rocking time" it made good sense to me that when things are not going very well in town you might as well rock. With that logic, looking at the decline of numerous American cities over the last decades, there should be quite a few rocking towns stateside!

Rcprince, I have an ongoing thing with my wife about "honey bunch". She claims it has to be "honey bun" as honey cant' be gotten by the bunch. Glad to see we hear The Four Tops the same way! BTW what is the correct expression?

According to my Google search, it's "Sugarpie honeybunch." Your wife's logic is sound, but then again, whoever said Holland-Dozier-Holland had to be logical? I kind of like my friend's version. Now that we have better playback systems, and the clarity (didn't say anything about musicality) of CD, I can actually make out the lyrrics on the CD too.

By the way, I have a friend who plays with upsampling and other tricks to make CDs sound a lot better. He once brought me a burned version of Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" which would lead you to believe that Brenda wasn't the sweet little teenager we thought she was when she recorded that song. I know the lyrics are "Later we'll have some PUNKIN' pie and we'll all go carolin'", but when you listen to his version it sure sounds like the "f" word instead of "punkin'". I played this for my friends at a party and at an audio society meeting, and you should have seen the jaws drop!

Hoping to revive this thread.
CCR:
Don't go out tonight
cuz he's bound to take your wife.
There's the baboon on the right.