Joe Cocker With Subtitles, For the Clear-Headed
Video Link. Nothing too outrageously rare or new, but one of the funnier "misheard lyrics" videos I've LOLed through lately. "Oh baby, hoggify." If you have others you're particularly fond of, do dump them in the comments. Richard Metzger pointed me to one last week, a Clash Song which was actually about "Pac Man's Brother," I've lost the link but will update the post if I can find it again Here are the Clash's "White Riot" misheard lyrics, from Tara McGinley. (thanks, Earl Ruby, via Wayne's Friends List)
the latest
latest episodes
Brian May of Queen collects these. My (Croatian) wife remembers everyone in Split dancing to Queen's Another One Bites the Dust. Only Croatians heard it as (excuse spelling, any Croatians reading this): 'Radovan baca daska', which translates as 'Radovan chops the tree'. Think of the tune and it sort of fits, actually.
I've always loved misheard lyrics. My wife's friend in college *insisted* that Prince's Little Red Corvette was really "Pay the rent, comment" and that The Cure's Killing an Arab was "Living in a harem." She was only convinced by seeing the songs' titles listed on the album covers. I could kinda see "living in a harem" but "pay the rent, comment?" WTF.
I´m pretty fond of "Scuse me while I kiss this guy" from Hendrix's Purple Haze.
And there are tons of variations on Beck's Loser. One of the best is "Sore from head to toe" instead of "Soy un pendito."
This one for Carmina Burana is pretty hilarious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUm6XUFV8_U
I would like to know what Joe thinks he's saying.
I love to collect misheard lyrics, and have often caught myself hearing something that has nothing to do with the actual lyrics.
I believe this happens the most with languages I cannot speak at all. There is a Swedish song that I initially thought was in English, and actually made up whole English lyrics for it before learning it was in Swedish. XD
@ Bucksplit:
I'm from Croatia, and your translation of the Croatian sentence is somewhat incorrect.
Pretty good. Except I think he may actually be saying some of that.
I'm pretty sure the lyrics to Personality are:
'Cause you've got (personality)
Walk (with personality)
Talk (with personality)
Smile (with personality)
Charm (with personality)
Love (with personality)
An' plus you got a big ol' butt.
A couple of oldies but goodies:
Wishmaster http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ
Not in English, but still funny! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ivw0mA6mg
I was in the mall today, where they were playing some lovely 80s classics. I heard Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days" and remembered that when I was in high school I thought the line that goes:
"And take your baby by the ears and play upon her darkest fears." said " ... play upon her dog has fleas." 'Cause that makes sense.
that was frakkin' hilarious - i lost it about the time Probiotics changed his life LOL
These are generically called Mondegreens.
I recall in college that the Peter Gabriel song "Games Without Frontiers" had a section where backup singers sing "jeux...sans frontières" over and over. One of my friends grew up in right-wing hell, and his mother told him that was a dirty song, because those girls kept singing "she's...so good to lay."
"Officer, he's deliberately whistling dirty songs at me!!!"
And take your baby by the ears and play upon her darkest fears.
That line always creeped me out.
The Joe Cocker made me laugh way too loud for work today. I've always also loved the timeless Elton John: Hold me close young Tony Danza and the classic CCR: There's a bathroon on the right.
I linked these in the German dancing thread today, but they go just as great here and should not be missed:
Benny Lava
The Nipple Song
May He Poop?
Best one I recall, from Bob Dylan's DEAR LANDLORD. The lyric is
"And if you don't underestimate me, I won't underestimate you..."
Misheard by my friend whom I started to be more cautious around:
"And if you don't undress to mate me, I won't undress to mate you."
==
And of course, Dylan's classic,
"The ants are my friend, is blowin in the wind."
The song Song 2 by Blur starts with the following Mondegreen:
I got my head shaved
'Got my HMO changed
It wasn't easy
But nothing is
I once attended a Bruce Cockburn concert with a friend who wasn't really familiar with his music. She enjoyed the show, but she was a bit puzzled about how he was going to kill someone with a lawn chair.
Instead of "If I had a rocket launcher", she heard "If I had a rocking lawn chair".
Woops, somehow Benny Lava got unlinked. All better now.
That Destinys Child (I think) song from Charlies Angels, definitely contains the lyrics
The shoes on my feet
I Farted
The clothes I'm wearing
I Farted
Garbage's "drop dead gorgeous" contains the line:
When I look at you, you're the Gibbon.
"the police" famously released a song about UK news reader 'Sue Lawley'
'Take That' once offered to "Wash your back for good"
Finally, Divinyl's song about having a DIY mad husband clearly states:
When I think about you, I touch my shelf.
That brought tears to my eyes. Some of that he actually seemed to say though, or at least I have no freaking clue what he was saying.
@#3:
"And there are tons of variations on Beck's Loser. One of the best is 'Sore from head to toe' instead of 'Soy un pendito.'"
it's "soy un perdidor". What's a pendito?
Now that was a wonderful thing.
The Rolling Stones' song "Bitch" contained this lyric:
"...salivate like a Pavlov's dog..."
A local band when I was a kid used to sing:
"...Sally baby, the padlocks gone..."
And there was once a conversation where a friend argued that Elvis Costello snuck in the lyric:
"What's so funny 'bout me smokin' herb and standin' here?"
Of course, that might have been the drugs talking though.
This reminds me of Erykah Badu's Haiku inspired by Joe Cocker videos:
I can get thru this
piano player looks high
Can they tell I'm high?
http://joesblisters.blogspot.com/2009/03/badu-haiku.html#links
Muskau with English Lyrics! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH8gtrD4_C4
Russian disco joy. I will say no more.
As a kid, I always thought Kim Mitchell's "Patio Lanterns" was about a female pumpkin named Patty O'Lantern.
http://www.kissthisguy.com
Tons of gems to be found.
Gavin Edwards has put out four books collecting misunderstood lyrics:
http://rulefortytwo.com/books/
i can't sing along to elton john any more without singing "HOLD ME CLOSER, TONY DAAAANNNZZAAA! COUNT THE HEADLIGHTS ON THE HIGHWAAAY!"
When Falco's song Amadues came out, my son was about 12. He would sing "Hot potatoes, hot potatoes"
Ever since, that's all I hear when they play the song.
#3, #20:
Beck sings Soy un perdedor which translates literally as "I'm a loser" in spanish.
Never heard of a penditor or a perdidor!
probiotics changed the way i feel now.
Like that one where they're singing, "Camptown race track five miles long", but it sounds just like, "Get off my back or I'll stab you in the neck."
When I was a kid, I thought the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" was about a woman from New Jersey. ("Oh, children, she's from Pascataway, she's from Pascataway.")
And that The Who's "Eminence Front" was about "livin' in the Bronx".
Really awesome - I like the way the incoherencies actually form complete, albeit non sequitur, sentences, unlike many "misheard lyrics" videos.
One of my favorite performances from Woodstock ... riveting ... Joe proves that the message is *not* in the lyrics.
When I first heard the Sam Cooke song "Another Saturday Night" sung (by Cat Stevens IIRC), I thought the chorus went
"Saturday night and I ain't got nobody;
I got no money 'cause I just got laid."
[wiping eyes] Thanks, Man. I laughed so hard at that, I literally had tears running down my cheeks!
I used to think the Beatles were singing "Lucy is this guy with Linus", which didn't make a whole lot of sense because I knew that Lucy was a girl.
If you're a Whovian, chances are you've already seen this. And if not, you won't find it very funny. But it's still one of the best misheard lyrics videos I've come across: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWqC4KKiVbU
Tenth Doctor + Caramelldansen!
It dawned on me just now how very thin the line is between what Joe Cocker did with this song and, say, what a homeless man simultaneously suffering a bad case of the DTs and a chigger infestation of his underwear would do singing the same song.
Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter is one of the best ever.
I've always thought the opening line to Help Me Rhonda goes:
"Since you left me Rhonda there's been owls a pukin' in my bed..."
My absolute favorite in this "genre" has to be Wishmaster - The Misheard Lyrics. I think it's brilliant MS Paint slides that accompany the lyrics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ
@#3 "And there are tons of variations on Beck's Loser. One of the best is "Sore from head to toe" instead of "Soy un pendito."
It's actually "Soy un perdedor", which means "I'm a loser".
Ok, mea culpa:
KLF - Justified & Ancient
Fishing in the rivers of light
Vision in the rhythms of life
(I still prefer my version -- top)
Murray Head - One Night in Bangkok
Given the overall picture of depravity the song tried to paint, and knowing nothing of it's origin, it seems like his head being over his 'faeces' is understandable!
ok, how can i d/l this so i have a local copy. none of the (2) tricks i know are working. i can get it, but i can't seem to convert it to a .mov or .m4a or anything i know how to use. my flv converters are choking on it. macosx.
the copy on the youtubes ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpjNLjBbVd4 ) has had the audio redacted.
if this is an inappropriate "how do i steal that" question, well then ignore me and delete this.
anyone?
I always liked: "Shamu, the mysterious whale" for "She moves in Mysterious Ways" from "Mysterious Ways" by U2.
There's an old Elton John song with lyrics that I always think are "my hands are numb..."
It always reminds me of that old trick where you sit on your hand until it's numb, then jack off, and it seems like some one else's hand.
As a kid I always thought they were singing "Secret Asian Man", and it made perfect sense since I hadn't yet seen the TV series.
until not long ago, I thought AC/DC made a song about 'dirty Dee and his thunder jeep'. Turns out it was just 'dirty deeds done dirt cheap', still have a picture of a bad arse jeep driven by some filthy dude whenever I hear that song.
When I first heard the Stones sing "Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's a gas," I thought they were singing, "Jumpin' Jack Flash shits again."
Correction: "I've lost the feeling in my hands, when I think of the things I could do with another man..."
Ick.
Oh how I laughed and laughed
Jeez, you guys are cracking me up!
Anonymous, 'dirty Dee and his thunder jeep' made my stomach hurt so much.
"Shamu, the mysterious whale" was awesome, too
The Rascals "Groovin" has a line:
"You and me endlessly."
I've always sung:
"You and me and Lesley."
The more the merrier, I always say.
Variable Rush @15 The song Song 2 by Blur starts with the following Mondegreen:
I got my head shaved
'Got my HMO changed
I always heard it as:
I got my head shaved
By HM OJ
Makes as much sense as the actual lyrics. Same for some of the mishearings I've had of Tori Amos lyrics. For the longest time, I thought one of the lines in Spark was "6:58 Are you sure? Were my stockings here?"
Always liked the old Maxell 'Israelites' ad - 'Me ears are alight....' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxELSzay2lc
As a kid I was also excited by Olivia Newton John advertising an exciting new softdrink with 'Let's get Fizzy-Cool, Fizzy-Cool'.
I am an American living in France for the last 20 years and I have drifted between an obsession for bad French pop music and trying to find great french rock..which I assure you , there is a lot,. it juat doesn's seem to make it very far above the wind screen...
but...this particular piece of contrived mis interpretaion is pretty lame.
excuse me while I kiss this guy is the stuff legends are made of...but this?
My favorite "misheard" lyrics are from a song that has no intelligible lyrics in the first place because it makes use of a constructed language. All the more funny what you can "hear" with a bit of imagination.
Be careful, this is probably one of the weirder videos that YouTube has to offer. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWsFWdqLmNM
(Music is an excerpt from Magma's "Mechanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh")
Maybe I'm showing my (lack of) age as a kid who grew up with computers, but even though I know The Clash are singing "Rock the Casbah," I can't seem to sing anything other than "Lock the Taskbar."
Jimmy Hendrix's lyrics "Ah move over Rover, and let Jimmy take over!" ...always made me think that his girlfriend prefers her dog, and Jimmy gets sloppy seconds. d8^P