One word of warning before you read any further: Once you see the misheard version of some songs, you may never be able to sing along to the original anymore.
Back in the '80s, someone was trying to convince me that Foreigner sang, “Virgin. It’s so virgin.” They were really singing, “Urgent. It’s so urgent.” My argument was basically, “No one would use virgin in a song.” Shortly thereafter Madonna came out with “Like a Virgin” just to prove me wrong.
Of course, someone else misheard the words to “Like a Virgin” and thought she sang, “Like a virgin touched for the thirty-first time.” Of course, the lyrics are “touched for the very first time,” but for Madonna, it makes just as much sense the other way.
When I was a kid, I thought Simon and Garfunkel were singing, “Can you save Rosemary in time?” It seemed logical to me. Then, I learned the actual lyrics; I couldn’t believe the real words were the real words. Saving a girl from some unknown danger sounds a lot more reasonable than singing about a spice rack.
Once, a long time ago, I was adamant that Billy Joel was singing, “You make the rice, I’ll make the gravy, but it just maybe be the tuna fish we’re hungry for.” I wasn’t right, but I wasn’t crazy.
Sometimes the real words are crazier. What does “revved up like a deuce” mean anyway? Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light” (by way of Bruce Springsteen) is hugely misquoted. Modesty prevents me from telling you the most recited lyric, but it has to do with a feminine hygiene product.
Jimi Hendrix never sang, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.” If he did, he would have been popular with a much different crowd.
Children screw up the words to songs all the time. For a good time, when you’re with kids, turn on the radio, play a song, turn it off and ask them what the singer was singing; the results are hilarious. To a young child, “See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen” makes much more sense when listening to ABBA. At Christmas, the same child, who may or may not have anger issues, will sing, “Now bring us some friggin’ pudding.” It seems appropriate, especially since figgy pudding hasn’t been on a menu anywhere for a hundred years. The whole point of the song is stupid, you wish me a “merry Christmas” and now I have to bring you dessert? It doesn’t sound fair.
When Eagles sing “Desperado,” they do not sing, “You’ve been outright offensive for years now.” Though, clearly, it makes more sense than riding fences. How the hell do you ride a fence anyway?
Why wouldn’t someone believe that Gwen Stefani was singing, “I ain’t no Harlem black girl.” After all, I had to ask my niece Brittany what a Holla back girl was, but then her boyfriend called and she had to go before she could tell me.
When David Bowie went down to Suffragette City, some people thought he sang, “That yellow fat chick put a smile on my face.” The real words, “This mellow-thighed chick just put my spine out of place” make much less sense.
If Tony Bennett can leave his heart in San Francisco, why can’t those guys in Toto sing, “I left my brains down in Africa.” Next time I hear that on the radio I am totally singing it that way.
In Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” why wouldn’t we believe he says, “Hold me close, tie me down, sir?” It’s more believable for Sir Elton than it is for Hendrix.
My friend Sandy is the queen of misquoted lyrics. For “Build me up, Buttercup” she thought the lyrics were “I’ll be a xylophone waiting for you.” I guess if you’re singing to a buttercup, why not assume the songwriter can transform into a musical instrument? Actually, it’s “beside the phone waiting for you,” but I like to sing it Sandy’s way.
She and her husband, Bill, sang a Lady Gaga song as “Bunker Face,” unaware it was “Poker Face.” They couldn’t make out many of the words; at one point they discussed “chicken casino” as probable lyrics, which is properly translated into “like a chick in a casino.” Since it is Lady Gaga it hardly counts. She sounds like she’s having an epileptic seizure at the beginning of “Bad Romance.”
Sandy once told me that, when she first heard it, she thought “Karma Chameleon” was “Become a comedian.” More precisely, “Comma, Comma, Comma, Become a comedian.” Advice I have taken to heart.