Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Happy Thanxgiving!

Check out this post over at BAP, re: the "Mondegreening of America."
Are there any song lyrics you have misheard lately?


"All mishearings are poetry." Probably half of every poem I write consists of mishearings . . .

4 comments:

Kelli Russell Agodon - Book of Kells said...

Peter, this is so 1985, but a friend recently sent me the YouTube video of Wham's song "Bad Boys" and all this time I thought the words "cigarettes and late nights" but watching the video I could see the words were "cigarettes and love bites." (who knew?)

I'm the queen of mondegreens because I have really do have terrible hearing.

Oh another favorite from the 80's I tried to convince my mom (I was so sure of this) that the line in Journey's "Whose Crying Now?" was "so many stormy nights, so many Reagan rights" (I said they were taking a political stand on the Reagan admininistration.) She said, "They are saying 'so many stormy nights, so many wrong or rights.'" I resisted.

She finally gave up with me and probably said something like, "think what you want..." I was so persistant. Um, she was so right.

I love mondegreens! They make others so much more interesting!

Pamela Johnson Parker said...

My favorite musical mondegreen is auto-cartographical and betrays my age: "I'm not talking about meridian," for that old 1980s song, "I'd really love to see you tonight." I was so upset when I found out it was "talking about moving in."

As a 7-year-old, I insisted the carol was "Good King Wench-a-Lass."

Word Verification: Ovenzappa!

Peter said...

K, P: Don't feel too bad. I used to think the prayer we said before dinner when I was a kid was "Bless us O Lord and these thy guests." hehehehe

RJGibson said...

Peter: My mom is probably one of the foremost mondegreeners out there. Her best misapprehension was of a band name: Hollow Notes instead of Hall and Oates.