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Song lyric gaffes


whitefang

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I ran across a book my daughter gave me for my birthday last year called "'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy(and other misheard lyrics)" by Gavin Edwards. Funny book. One of my favorites is,

"The girl with colitis goes by"(the girl with kalaedescope eyes).

 

Anyone know this book? And do you have similar "mishears" to report?

 

Whitefang

I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left!
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At Woodstock Hendrix sang "while I kiss that guy"- got to love it, messing gently with all them tripping heads...

 

My personal favorite of my own is from "Michelle", and I always sing it that way-

"sunday monkey play piano song, play piano song"

A WOP BOP A LU BOP, A LOP BAM BOOM!

 

"There is nothing I regret so much as my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" -Henry David Thoreau

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Oh man that book is hilarious! The cartoon illustrations make it even funnier.

 

A couple of my favorites: "Reagan rots in the hot sun" ("Breaking rocks in the hot sun" from "I Fought the Law"), and "Olives Have Feelings" ("Our Lips Are Sealed"). :D

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When I was a little tiny kid my sis and I had a little red Mickey Mouse record player and a few singles handed down from my older brother...

A couple were Aerosmith, Dream On/Somebody and Walk This Way/Uncle Salty. Also Grand Funk covering Some Kind of Wonderful, and Led Zep Living Loving Maid/She's a Woman. That was our record collection, we heard those thousands of times...

We had a field day speculating as to what the hell they were talking about... we were sure it was mostly about sex... 6 year olds thinking this. We misinterpreted the lyrics accordingly.

"Chills run up and down my spine" became "Ooh, when my baby touches me, children up and down my spine"

Aerosmith was even more fun...

My sister had elaborate theories about "Somebody" (those riffs sounded killer somewhat slow on the Mickey Mouse turntable, ah vinyl...). Somehow she heard "shavin' on your sabo" somewhere in there and insisted that a "sabo" was some relevant sexual thing... probably is.

We may have been a bit vague on the details, but we got the general drift!

A WOP BOP A LU BOP, A LOP BAM BOOM!

 

"There is nothing I regret so much as my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" -Henry David Thoreau

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There are websites like that too.

 

Growing up, my cousin and I loved the WHO (still do!!!). In the song You Better, he sings "When I say I love you, you say 'You better'..." but I heard "When I say I love you, you say 'Spaghetti'"

Duh!

Also, AC/DC "Dirty deeds and 'The thunder chief' instead of 'they're done dirt cheap.'

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Ted Nightshade! Handed down Aerosmith and Grand Funk? The NEWER Funk, at that?

 

Why, you're just a PUNK! When I was handed down records, they were, if not my Mom's old 78's, or the scant 45's she had like Bill Haley's "Shake, Rattle and Roll", was my step sister's old Carl Perkins, Everly Bros. or Hank Williams (SR.)!

 

But back to the matter at hand. Even in adulthood

I've heard songs with lyrics I just couldn't make out. Even wild guesses eluded me. I've also noticed that songs from the past that I thought I knew all the words to proved me wrong when well mastered CD re-issues came out. Then I discover I had one or two of the words wrong. You too, anyone?

 

Whitefang

P.S. Ted, that "punk" remark wasn't intended as an insult. Mostly an age referral.

I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left!
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This is possibly one of the greatest past times of the current age...

 

When I was a child I remember two lyrics I swore I had right...

The first one's obvious, "Wake me up before you go, Joe (before you go-go)"

 

And, "There's a bathroom on the right (bad moon on the rise)"

 

Needless to say... I was a rather silly kid. Not that that's changed much.

"Bass isn't just for breakfast anymore..."

 

http://www.mp3.com/Addix_Metzatricity

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Originally posted by 20to20:

Hey,

 

What the hell is a 'pompatus of love'...? :confused:

 

Gratefully,

 

Bob Phillips

20to20soundesign

Can't really say what it is but the line comes from a 1950s doo-wop record that Steve Miller quotes.

 

BTW, here's mine : Peter Gabriel singing, "Don't ya know I've got a Chocolate Monkey!"

:rolleyes:

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According to a lyrics search engine site, the correct spelling is "POMPITOUS".

 

And according to Webster's, Funk & Wagnall's, Merriman-Webster's Colligiate and American Colligiate dictionaries, there is no such word.

 

My best guess is that it's a corruption of the word "pompous" or a hybrid of that and "pomposity"

mening "stately; grand; self-important; ostentatious."

 

Whitefang

I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left!
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Originally posted by 20to20:

Hey,

 

What the hell is a 'pompatus of love'...? :confused:

 

Gratefully,

 

Bob Phillips

20to20soundesign

woah, is that the song with "im a smoker, i play poker, i'm a midnight toker" or somthing like that? thats a cool song..who and what was its name again?

i remember seeing those guys on an old recording on TV and man, they looked real square!

Visit my band : www.neonfleacircus.net or www.myspace.com/neonfleacircus
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A buddy of mine and I were talking about people mishearing lyrics, and he was laughing about a guy he knows. A Steely Dan lyric "Is there gas in the car? Yes there's gas in the car." was always heard by this guy as "Get your ass in the car, get your ass in the car!"

 

So my buddy is laughing about that, then he says "What about that other Steely Dan song that says 'If you got a dark spot on your pants give it to my man he'll fix it fast...'" (I had a good laugh at that - the lyric really says 'If you have a dark spot on your - past - give it to my man he'll fix it fast...' ;) )

- Calfee Jones
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Originally posted by Cowfingers:

woah, is that the song with "im a smoker, i play poker, i'm a midnight toker" or somthing like that? thats a cool song..who and what was its name again?

That is the song called "Play Poker" by the Ben Stiller Band.

 

Man, don't you guys know ANYTHING? Jeez!! :D

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Well, when I was a kid, I couldn't figure out what London britches were, and why they kept falling down. Wouldn't a belt have put an end to that problem?

 

But, I see by observing the youth of today, them

falling down London britches are back in style!

 

Everything old is new again!

 

Whitefang

I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left!
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"Why, you're just a PUNK! When I was handed down records, they were, if not my Mom's old 78's, or the scant 45's she had like Bill Haley's "Shake, Rattle and Roll", was my step sister's old Carl Perkins, Everly Bros. or Hank Williams (SR.)!"

 

Yeah, I just got the leavings of the 70's from my older brother... they were pretty recent records at the time... but I got all the old Louis Armstrong and Dixieland, Nat King Cole from the folks... but I wasn't allowed to play them on the Mickey Mouse record player...

A WOP BOP A LU BOP, A LOP BAM BOOM!

 

"There is nothing I regret so much as my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" -Henry David Thoreau

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Originally posted by dirtyrubberduck:

One of my Buddies in college loved the song "Eminence Front" from Roger Daltry's solo album.

I think that was on the Who album called "It's Hard." One can attempt to remember these things, but... it's hard. ;)
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I can't tell you how many radio songs I've been convinced we're saying "fuck". Most times you could make a case that the lyric was "rock", but I wonder... I'm sure that was the official line.

 

I like that "how's about a date"! Mr. Idol was such a crooner...

A WOP BOP A LU BOP, A LOP BAM BOOM!

 

"There is nothing I regret so much as my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" -Henry David Thoreau

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That pompitous or whatever you guys refer to... I have FOREVER wanted to know what the hell he is saying. Pompadous... or something like that... is that a hairstyle? What am I thinking of? A bouffant is a hairstyle but it seems a style like a stereotypical evangelist would wear is a Pompadous. I always figured Miller was singing something like that. That's all I could come up with.

 

For DECADES, I sang the word "blueberry" when The Rascals sang "Groovin'." Isn't that bizarre?

 

About a million people sing "Hang on, Snoopy" instead of Sloopy. (The McCoys)

> > > [ Live! ] < < <

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I thought Scott Weiland from "STP", was singing "Feelin'...Like a Ham N' Mustard Sha-ake..." :confused::idea::D

"Suppose you were an idiot ... And suppose you were a member of Congress

... But I repeat myself."

-Mark Twain

http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/63/condition_1.html (my old band)

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It looks obvious that these things abound. Can we blame it on poor engineering, shitbox record players, or wax in our ears?

 

I don't know for sure, but the singer's got some of the blame, too. If they sang more clearly, these fun gaffes wouldn't occur, and we'd be a little more bored, wouldn't we?

 

And this isn't a gaffe, because I had no idea for YEARS what was being sung, and it didn't sound like anything WAS being said, but,

 

It was years before I found out Elton John, in "Levon", was singing "...in tradition with the family plan."

 

And, I believe that earlier poster(name forgotten) was thinking of "pompadour".

 

Whitefang

I started out with NOTHING...and I still have most of it left!
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John Hammond Jr told one story about a time when he was starting out playing coffee houses in the 60's. He used to cover a Jimmy Reed song called 'I found true love'.

 

The words go: I found true love/one love worth wayyyy-tin' fuhhhrrrr....

 

Unfortunately, Hammond heard/sang the words as: I found true love/ one lovely way to f***

 

He said how an incredulous and pissed off Michael Bloomfield had to set him straight. I can only imagine how some staid coffehouse patron reacted to that one.

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