A mondegreen, for those who are not familiar with the term, is a mishearing/misunderstanding of song lyrics. According to Wikipedia:
American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, writing about how as a girl she had misheard the lyric "...and laid him on the green" in a Scottish ballad as "...and Lady Mondegreen"
I was listening to the radio the other day, and Uncle Kracker’s cover of Dobie Gray’s Drift Away came on. And even though I know the correct lyrics now, I still mishear them. Here’s the original:
For the longest time, I heard the chorus as:
Give me the Beach Boys and free my soul,
I wanna get lost in your Rock & Roll
And drift away.
The actual lyric is “Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul”. I suspect that part of the reason I heard “Beach Boys” is because my mom is a huge Beach Boys fan, and since I heard the song as a child, it made sense to me.
Another one that I didn’t learn was a mondegreen until a mere ten years ago (when I went looking for the song to buy it on iTunes) is Frankie Valli’s My Eyes Adored You. I just couldn’t understand why iTunes didn’t seem to have a copy of the song; I was searching on the title as I didn’t know who the artist was. Finally frustrated, I googled “my eyes of georgia”, and found to my astonishment that I’d had it wrong all these years.
Another one was planted in my head by the DJ who announced it on the radio — he mentioned what he misheard the chorus as, and since it was my first hearing of the song, I was susceptible to his interpretation of the lyrics. The song is Blank Space by Taylor Swift:
and the bit I was mishearing was part of the chorus: “Got along with Starbucks lovers” rather than the intended “Got a long list of ex-lovers” …. slightly different.
So, what about you? Have any fun mondegreens you frequently (mis)hear to share?
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