What song lyrics did you mishear that completely changed the meaning of the song?

I used to think the KISS song went I wanna rock and roll all night... and part of every day.

It's far less hard core that way.

My roommate used to think Jimi Hendrix sang "excuse me while I kiss this guy" until I explained it was "sky".

Although in his defense years later I heard a live version where I'm pretty sure he changes it for a verse or two to "kiss this guy."

Dirty deeds and the THUNDER CHIEF

Probs a common one but when ever Blinded By The Light came on I only heard "woke up like a douche" instead of "revved up like a deuce"

When I was about 10, instead of “smoke two joints”, I thought it was “spoke to Joyce”.

I spoke Joyce in the morning
I spoke to Joyce at night
I spoke to Joyce in the afternoon
it makes me feel alright

I spoke to Joyce in time of peace
and too in time of war
I spoke to Joyce 
before I spoke to Joyce 
and then I spoke some more

I spoke to Joyce when I get up
In the car I spoke to Joyce
I spoke to Joyce 
when I play videogames
and at every 10,000 points 
I spoke to Joyce!

My mom laughed for 5 full minutes when I told her.

Chop Suey:

Why'd you leave the kids upon the table?

I still sing it like that for the absurdism.

I always heard "I see a brand new horizon" instead of "I see a bad moon rising". I feel like my version is waaay more optimistic!

For us Dutch it is a mondegreen to hear "fok die kerstman" instead of "rock the casbah".

In the song Brown Eyed Girl:

Whatever happened

to Tuesday and so slow

Gun down the old man with a

transistor radio

I was picturing someone holding out a radio in front of them, brandishing it at the old man like how you'd wave a cross at a vampire. The old man doesn't like that newfangled rock and roll music, so they're shooting the sound waves at him to scare him off.

(It's "going down the old mine with a transistor radio," but whatever.)

My fave when this subject comes up: “last night I dreamt of some bagels” as the opening line to La Isla Bonita by Madonna

The Decemberists have a rock opera called Hazards of Love and in one song, Annan Water, the main character is trying to strike a bargain with a river to allow him passage across it. It includes the line:

Though my mother cries that if I try I sure will drowned be

For the longest time, I would have sworn the lyric was:

Though my mother cries that if I try I sure will drown in pee

Have a listen and tell me you don't hear that, too.

When the song was new, my dad heard I’m Your Venus played over the school cafeteria speakers, but everyone else knew the song so they didn’t react to it. He went years never understanding the meaning of that song.

My wife was singing "Hello darkness, smile friend" until she met me. When I heard it I was like, "can you sing that back for me one more time?"

I don't know how long we laughed but it was equally funny the next day when we remembered it again.

HAMSTER

Hahaha I always mishear "Rock the Casbah" as "F*ck the Casbah!" Which seems more rebellious and more in line with the spirit of the song.

Edit: It took 5 hours apparently but i remembered some other examples

• Steal Away by Robbie Dupree sounds like he's going "nigga toniiiiiiight" when he is actually saying "Make it toniiiiiiight." You'll think I'm being crude and childish but it really does sound more like the former every single time i listen, and i'm sure this is a universal thing. It is really funny that this happens at the climax of the song. "nigga" usually indicates a man rather than a woman, so it also makes the song "suddenly gay"
• I'm every woman, Chaka Khan = "climb every woman" (i picture an energetic housecat singing this)

Dirty deeds done with sheeps. They're dirty deeds and they're done with sheeps.

Misheard lyrics, also called 'mondegreens'.

I have a friend who thought Sinead O'Connor must've been a mechanic.

Every time she heard the song"Mandinka" she would sing along with it.

And I do love, mending cars

My daughter when she was young: "All the other kids better run, better run, faster than my brother."

I'm not sure this song ever made it out of Canada, but Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by Crash Test Dummies has a verse where a girl in school wouldn't change with the other girls, and when they made her, she had, in what I thought the lyric was, "burn marks all over her body". I assumed the song was about child abuse, and they were cigarette burns. The other verses are about a kid with a shock of white hair from "a car crash" and a kid who always has to come home right after school, so it kinda made sense in a consistent enough way...

Anyway, for basically my whole life I thought that's what the song was about. Turns out the lyrics are "birth marks all over her body", and the point of the song is more about kids being othered for things outside their control.

I still think I prefer my version...

Apparently when I was 3, the song, "If you're gonna play in Texas," by Alabama, came out.

I heard, "If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a parallelogram."

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get rid of my friends

My contribution here is to let those who did not know (like me until recently) that the misheard version of lyrics (or phrase) causing them to have a new meaning is called “Mondegreen"

In the song "Coming Undone" by Korn I thought the line was "i fight my demons with my friends" which is kinda wholesome but its actually "I thought my demons were my friends" which is much sadder :(

Not really misheard lyrics, but more like ignored lyrics... I completely glossed over the middle verse of Object by Ween when it came out and thought it was about a guy who lost his lover and the search party only found her sweater.

It's about a serial killer. The middle verse talks about wearing her skin like a body suit. 🤣

Ella Langley : Choosing Texas

"she's from texas I can tell by the way he's goose-stepping round the room"

Say it Ain't So by Weezer

Instead of "Wrestle with Jimmy" I always hear "rustlin jimmies"

My life has been extraordinary Blessed and cursed at once

It's "blessed and cursed and won". Totally ruined one of my favorite lyrics ever when I figured that out.

Billy Jean is not my lover

She's just a girl that thinks that I am the one

But

The chair is not my size

Missing by Everything but the girl. I thought she sang 'tiramisu, like the dessert mystery'.

You can tell by the way I use my wand, Im a woman-man no automaton.

Stayin Alive circa 2001 on my crappy boombox .

It's an oldie, but my parents had George Benson's Give Me The Night on during a road trip and I was pretty sure he was saying "Give me the knife"

I thought the velvet underground "run run run" was

Run run run run run take your jacket too

Instead of "take a drag or two"

Good advice when it's cold out!

"Sharp dressed man" always heard it as "Shy best man" this may have had a minor counterproductive impact on my behavior when I was a teenager.

Jeff Davis of Who's Line is it Anyway has a story about a friend of his mishearing "reach down, ease the seat back" in Van Halen's Panama as "reach down, ease the seed bag", as in adjusting his nuts. Always cracks me up when I think of that or hear the song

That Pete Seeger song (which isn't really his, but that's the version I heard) has Cuban Spanish lyrics and isn't at all about a One Ton Tomato.

My family sings “More Than a Woman” as “Bald-Headed Woman” and when you hear it, it’s impossible to unhear it.

In the song "Edge of Seventeen" by Fleetwood Mac, the first line "Just like the white-winged dove", I misheard as "one-winged dove" for years

When I was a kid I heard The Go-Go's Our Lips Are Sealed as "Alex the seal".

Doesn't matter what they say

In the jealous games people play

Alex the seal

I thought it was about a sad bullied seal.

LIBERATE! BANANAS!

I don't think Nikki Minage (spelling?) meant to say: "I want you to fart on my young"

Empire state if mind:

New York, Concrete jungle, w et dream, tomato.

From Rush's "Farewell to Kings"...

Bleating at the marketplace, And stopping at the "Y"

Very unusual behaviour for those scheming demons.

When I worked at a grocery store I always heard 'I hope you dance' as 'I want you dead'. The pa speakers were kinda shit and when the song eventually came up on radio on the drive home I was like "ooooooohhh!" out loud in the car by myself because I was wondering what it could possibly be since it was obviously not what I heard it as.

To this day I hear "Diarrhea Jane" instead of "Diary of Jane"

I know the super trooper.

Lights are gonna find me.

That little pause confused me as a kid, not knowing what a "super trooper light" or that a thing like that exists.

Billy Talent's "Viking Death March" is a song about religious hypocrisy, capitalistic exploitation and doing something about it.

I initially understood the chorus as singing "crosses to bend, axes to fall" and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The crosses in churches being torn down could fit with the axes, but you wouldn't bend them so much as break them. The only usage for bent crosses I could think of were Swastikas, but that also didn't quite seem to fit the rest of the song, nor the impression I had of the band.

Later, I figured out that it wasn't "bend", but "burn", which still didn't clear things up: Burning crosses also isn't exactly a leftist symbol, and following up "You preach about love and teach about faith, but all your beliefs are still rooted in hate" with a call to burn crosses just doesn't really track.

It's not a call to action. It's "Crosses still burn, axes still fall". It's calling attention to the fact that these hateful evils haven't disappeared.

What have I become my Swedish friend?

FYi, these are called Mondegreens after a famous song that was mis-heard by pretty much everyone. I think it was Welsch.

Mine is England Dan and John Ford Coley's I'd really love to see you tonight.

Thought he sang, "I'm not talkin bout my linen."

Instead of, "I'm not talkin bout movin in "

Made up a whole story in my mind about how they met in a Laundromat.

I thought "Teen Spirit" was about Imitators and mashed potaters

Ever since I was a kid I thought in Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" he sang "on a stale horse I ride". I figured he had been riding his horse out in the desert a long time, it's all tired, no water.. yeah it's a stale horse. My partner will never let me live it down.

Love, I feel it in my hands, I can tell by the things I could do with another man.

I was embarrassingly old when I figured out nobody would be singing that in the 1970s and looked up the name of the song.

Master where's your blaster

Blinded by the light, revved up like a "douche" another runner in the night

Had no idea what they meant by that

People are Strange by the Doors "Streets are up when you're going down." I.E. "The whole world is happy when you're depressed."

George Thoroughgood's Bad to the Bone. Thought the line was "The head nurse spoke up. She said, leave us alone. " Instead of "Leave this one alone."

I thought, damn, that new born is gonna screw the head nurse. That IS bad to the bone!

I love the Rolling Stones, but no one can understand a word Mick sings. I have alternate lyrics for all my favorite Stones songs - Gimme Shelter, Jumping Jack Flash, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women...

I... Didn't listen well to the flip in Valhallalelluja and misheard the whole rest of the song for like 6 years until I saw the videoclip. If you know, you know. I didn't even hear the word IKEA.

Chevelle - self destructor

*Go fight yourself" I somehow heard "go bite your tongue" Which is a form of suicide requiring extreme will. It made sense that the person in the song is so dead set they'd rather die than fail/admit they are wrong.