• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Misheard song lyrics - Mind blown

Status
Not open for further replies.

ThankeeSai

Member
So this morning I have discovered that every time I have been singing a certain song, there is one line in particular that I have been getting completely wrong. I've heard it 100's of times over the years and is one of my favourites from the 80's.

I was utterly convinced that I was signing it properly and was only corrected by comments in the youtube video I was watching as well as then searching online to see if the comments were accurate.

Anyway, here it is -

Games Without Frontiers - Peter Gabriel

Throughout the song, before and after the verses the line that is said (or so I thought) is "She's so popular". What is actually being said is "Jeux Sans Frontieres"

Mind was blown, lol.

But seriously, listen to the song and tell me it doesn't sound like "She's so popular" (for those who may never have heard it, the first time it is said is about 20 seconds into it).

Turns out a lot of my friends thought the same, but others insist they knew exactly what was being said.

So GAF....What are your worst lyrical faux pas?
 

Volimar

Member
For years my brother sang the song thusly:

"Dirty deeds, thunder jeep!"

rather than

"Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap"
 

bjork

Member
The song Stepping Out by Joe Jackson. I'd always heard it as "do me... in the a-ass, into the light, into the light."

Did you know that those aren't the words?
 

snacknuts

we all knew her
I once thought it was,

"Dirty deeds, Thunder Chief!" I actually prefer that.

This is how a friend of mine in high school always sang it. "Dirty deeds and the Thunder Chief!" I remember this coming up right around the time that Killer Instinct came out, which featured Chief Thunder as a character.
 
Wrapped up like a douche in the middle of the night

Funny story for this one. The song was originally by Springsteen. The line was "Cut loose like a duece/Another runner in the night" Deuce as in a hot rod, a car.

Manfred Mann does a cover and he changes it to "Wrapped up like a douche/Another runner in the night".

Manfred Mann's cover of Blinded by the Light was a number one hit while Springsteen's original went nowhere, and Bruce always tells the story of how the American people voted at the record store....and they chose douche.
 

ascii42

Member
Funny story for this one. The song was originally by Springsteen. The line was "Cut loose like a duece/Another runner in the night" Deuce as in a hot rod, a car.

Manfred Mann does a cover and he changes it to "Wrapped up like a douche/Another runner in the night".

Manfred Mann's cover of Blinded by the Light was a number one hit while Springsteen's original went nowhere, and Bruce always tells the story of how the American people voted at the record store....and they chose douche.

pretty sure Manfred Mann is saying "revved up like a deuce" there.
 

Burger

Member
Billy Jean is not my lover, she's just a girl who thinks that I am the one.

But the jam is not my son.
 

Wiggum2007

Junior Member
Funny story for this one. The song was originally by Springsteen. The line was "Cut loose like a duece/Another runner in the night" Deuce as in a hot rod, a car.

Manfred Mann does a cover and he changes it to "Wrapped up like a douche/Another runner in the night".

Manfred Mann's cover of Blinded by the Light was a number one hit while Springsteen's original went nowhere, and Bruce always tells the story of how the American people voted at the record store....and they chose douche.

The lyric's in Manfred Mann's cover are "Revved up like a deuce".

edit: beaten
 
Slightly off-topic, but there is this one song that I misinterpreted as a whole.
Luka by Suzanne Vega, I always thought it was about some drunk person living in an apartment building.
 

EliCash

Member
Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter

Also one of my favourite lyrics used to be "Charlie Delisle is sitting on top of an avocado dream" from Tom Waits - Kentucky Avenue. I had no idea what it meant but I thought it was amazing. Turns out it's avocado tree, which makes more sense.

"They paved paradise and put up a fucking lie" Big Yellow Taxi is another one...

It happens a lot, I think I just hear what I want.
 

Ricker

Member
There is quite a lot but one quickly comes to mind for me because although we knew he didn't say that,it sure as hell sounds like it and made my younger sister laugh all the time...I am french Canadian so this might not sound obvious for many but I know a lot of people speak french here and might find it weird...

The chorus from Down on the Corner,after they sing:

''Bring a Nickel,tap your feet...you can easily hear it as,Bring a Nickel,
fa pipi '' ;)

Ton of Robert Plant song I either didn't understand what was been said or heard different,like the Immigrant Song for example,half of what he was singing about I didn't fully understand.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
My mate thought that the chorus to "Serve the Servants" by Nirvana was, "surf the serpent, of love", not "serve the Servants, oh no".

I thought "Fake tales of San Francisco" by the Arctic Monkeys had the line, "You should bareback your man tonight", but it's actually, "You should bear that in mind tonight."

There is probably more, I'll post if I remember.
 

ChiTownBuffalo

Either I made up lies about the Boston Bomber or I fell for someone else's crap. Either way, I have absolutely no credibility and you should never pay any attention to anything I say, no matter what the context. Perm me if I claim to be an insider
Might as well face it, you're a dick in a glove.

And first time hearing Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" without knowing the title of the song:

I ain't no Harlem black girl.

No shit Gwen.
 

SKINNER!

Banned
I've been listening to Metallica's Master of Puppets for quite some time and I always assumed the chorus started with "controlling faster" instead of "come crawling faster" :/
 
So, so many of these. So many songs on the radio.

Miss Independence bugged me enough to look it up online. End of the chorus sounds like "goodbye, or you, will love, is true." The hell? It's actually "Goodbye, old you, when love is true."

I swear some of these make the lyrics incomprehensible on purpose.

In Mr. Big's Next To Be With You, I can't imagine how someone could ever decipher the chorus. "Waited on a line of mumble mumble, just to be the next to be with you."

Turns out it's "waited on a line of greens and blues."

Personally I prefer the natural rhyme there, "waited on a line of other dudes."
 

Icomp

Member
A friend of mine always sang "Shot from my heart, is yours to blame, you give love a bad name". It was as embarrassing as it sounds.
 

Double D

Member
"I got some brains down in Africa"

"I chimed in with a haven't you people ever heard of watching a goddamn porno"

Ok maybe these are just lyrics I like to sing but whatever.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
"I got some brains down in Africa"

"I chimed in with a haven't you people ever heard of watching a goddamn porno"

Ok maybe these are just lyrics I like to sing but whatever.
It helps if you post the song, or what the lyrics are meant to be. Otherwise it's kind of pointless, we have your misinterpretation, and that's it!
 

Chuckie

Member
"I got some brains down in Africa"

i-miss-kansas-i-miss-the-rains-down-in-Africa-Wizard-of-Oz-Dorothy-and-Toto.jpg
 

onken

Member
Speaking of Gabriel I was always thought that line in Solsbury Hill was "I told them what the smile on my face meant" but karaoke says it's "I told them not to spy on my basement". Not sure what the real lyric is but I like mine better so I always sing it anyway.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom