Ask Lemmy

There is a famous one here in Germany that everyone gets wrong.
The original line being sung: "Es tobt der Hass da vor meinem Fenster", meaning "Hatred is raging in front of my window".
What everyone hears: "Es tobt der Hamster vor meinem Fenster", meaning "The hamster is raging in front of my window".

Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

Wrapped up like a douche

Actual lyrics

Revved up like a duece

• Blinded by the light

Excuse me, while I kiss this guy! 😘

12 year old me is at the dentist in the middle of getting a cavity filled when Benny and the Jets comes on.

I'm trying not to laugh while the radio keeps saying "She's got electric boobs!"

There's a bathroom on the right.

• why would they sing this?

There's a bad moon out tonight

• oh, that makes sense

Get lucky by daft punk, when the robot voices say 'we're up all night to get lucky' I can't unhear 'we'll rub up a mexican monkey'.
I'm sorry for ruining this song for you.

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her merry chopsticks.

Not mine but one day my buddy's 6 year old asked "what's parking tips?" My buddy being a veteran dad gives him some generic parking advice, doesn't think much of it until later when he hears his kid singing along to the shaboozy song but instead of "everyone at the bar getting tipsy" he's sing about how everyone getting parking tips.

Not originally me but I sure hear it now, in Empire State of mind Alicia keys says “concrete jungle where dreams are made of” which is a pretty shit bar in an otherwise good song. A popular way to mishear it is “concrete jungle wet dream tomato”, which makes only slightly less sense

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

It always sounds like the lady wants some "fuckin' pie."

What prompted the post: I feel silly even saying it, but there was a rap song playing at my gym with female vocals in the chorus singing what sounded like “it’s the batteries of your mom”, which I’m certain are not the correct lyrics.

HAMSTER

A song by Fear factory called Linchpin the intro the singer goes "can't take me apart!" Sounds like "cat, give me your paw!!"

When listening to Bad Moon Rising, instead of "there's a bad moon on the rise" I hear "there's the bathroom on the right"

Oh man, reminds me of kissthisguy.com. Back when the internet was still run by humans.

Tell you one I recently realized: Chattanooga Choo Choo. I don't know who the "original" artist of that one was, it's been a country-western staple for awhile. Came back into my attention recently because I was rewatching Hyce & KaN's Let's Podcast of Railroads Online, and one of several backing tracks is an instrumental version, so the song got stuck in my head. Singing it while doing dishes, I got to a lyric I never understood, and looked it up.

The lyric I heard:

There's gonna be a certain party at the station

Satin and lace, a hustacauphanie face

I...didn't know what "hustacauphanie" meant. My brain did that thing where I assume a word exists I'm not familiar with. Like, you know how sometimes women's skin is compared to alabaster? Hustacauphanie might have been dead people talk for some luxurious or exotic material or...something. So I looked it up. The actual lyric is:

There's gonna be a certain party at the station,

Satin and lace, I used to call 'funny face'

The songwriter managed to pack the entire second act of It's A Wonderful Life into half a lyric. We don't have compression algorithms that good anymore.

From Rock and Roll All Nite by Kiss: I want to rock and roll all niiiite, and part of ev-er-y day!

My childhood best friend absolutely loved this song and sang it out loud ALL the time with these incorrect lyrics, I was totally convinced and would sing along with him. My mom thought it was HILARIOUS and so she never told us lol 😆

(The correct lyrics are and party ev-er-y day)

Ozzy Osborne is famously known for mishearing the lyrics to Jimmy Hendrix’ Purple Haze as “excuse me while I kiss this guy”.

In Belle and Sebastian's "Me and the Major' my brain will simply not hear anything except

"Me and the midget don't see eye to eye"

Which I find funny on a couple of different levels.

Oh I was maybe 22, 23, loudly singing along with Elton John as he belted out "love I feel it in my haaaands, I can tell by the things I would do with another maaaan!" when I realized that probably was not something someone would sing back then. It literally had never occurred to me that he could be singing anything else, and it still sounds like that to me.

Love lies bleeding is the NAME of the song, but I'd never heard it announced or seen it.

Love lies bleeding in my hands

Oh it kills me to think about you with another man

Sex Pistols:

“God save the Queen, The fascist regime, Who made you a moron, And touched your wife’s bum!”

Apparently when I was two or three years old, I insisted the lyric was "If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a parallelogram."

Brian Adams - Summer of '69

Actual lyrics to start the song: I got my first real six-string, bought it at the five and dime

What I always hear, sung so proudly and nostalgically: I got my first real sex dream down at the five and dime

Doja Cat - Woman

"Roomba, let me be your Roomba. Roomba Roomba Roomba."

It's supposedly woman, but even listening very closely it's only very loosely "Wom man" and sounds like "Rumah" or "Wumah."

https://youtu.be/g7X9X6TlrUo?t=18

My mother thought the lyrics to Roberta Flack's version of Killing Me Softly With His Song was "Strumming my face with his fingers" (not strumming my pain).

This is called a "Mondegreen," and there are some examples here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

Linkin Park's When They Come for Me:

try the ketchup motherfucker

In Radiohead's Sit Down. Stand Up, at the end, Thom repeats "The raindrops", but I kept hearing "Power Rangers". I searched for it and found a lot of people in my situation, I was amazed at humans.

“I just called, to ask, I looove youuuu”

It made no sense to me for so long and idk why I always heard that

The hymn Lead on Oh King Eternal sounded like Lead on oh kinky turtle to a very young me.

Oh my fucking god.

So my best friend heard the line or song, not sure, "Making Whoopie" as a kid. He thought the lyric was "they can whoop me" and thought it was an old slave song. I still shit myself laughing at the entire thing.

Michael wants to party all the time - with Eddie Murphy. Thought it was his ode to trans dating.

I used to hear "Honest, Lucille" instead of "Our lips are sealed" from The Go Gos.

When listening to a Michael Patrick Kelly song outside of a running car for the first time, it turned out it wasn't a nerdy song about "Beautiful maths", but just another boring love song called "Beautiful madness":-)

“Bald-Headed Woman” instead of “More than a Woman.”

When I was a kid listening to the oldies station, I heard "Little blue scoop" instead of deuce coupe.

Later my mom actually called in and requested it that way. I think they played the request on air.

Sex and buy lunch! Sex and buy lunch. Sex and buy lunch! Sex. And. Buy lunch.

Also,

We're the redneck kings of funk!

It's not fair to remind meh. Of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to meh! You. You. You. Oughtta know!

Also, I knew I was forgetting the best one. I sang this with my whole heart and soul from the time it came out ~1997 until somebody corrected me ~2020 pandemic:

"I believe in the sand beneath my toes The beach gives a feelin', an earthy feelin' I believe in the faith that grows" ....

"And the four eyed goats can make me cry" right?

Wrong! It turns out it's "And the four right chords can make me cry"