As you may know, the title refers to the origin of the term “mondegreen” for a misheard song lyric. The correct lyric, from an old Scots ballad runs “they’ve killed the Earl of Moray, and laid him on the green.”
I was reminded of this recently while taking a “Taylor Swift lyrics” quiz online. I like her lyrics though it turns out I don’t know much about them — I came in in the bottom 4 percent. One question brought up the song “Blank Space,” about a self-destructive relationship (“I’ll either leave you breathless/Or with a nasty scar.”) and a mondegreen for one of the lines, “Got a long list of ex-lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane.” Turns out I’m not the only one who heard it as “go to lonely Starbucks lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane.” Which never seemed to make sense but I was sure those were the words.
For another example, I spent about 30 years thinking Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets” refers to a woman who’s “got electric boobs” rather than electric boots.
So, anyone got a good mondegreen of their own to recount? Answer in comments.
In Holland we have “mama appelsap”. English lyrics but you can hear Dutch words in it.
For instance in Could you be loved by Bob Marley we hear “Theezakje” (tea bag) and in Billy Jean by Michael Jackson “Dat kind stinkt naar bami” (that child smells like bami – a kind of noodles).
Well, your ‘electric boobs’ are still pretty close to the actual word. As a little kid, I heard that bit as ‘electric screws’ – until my chuckling older brother set me straight.
Well Boobs sounds the same but it conjures a very different image — I was imagining some sort of toy, not flesh and blood.
Electric screws. That’s good.
“She’s got electric boobs! They’re mohair, too!” Which definitely conjures some odd images…
Yes, having made the mondegreen I could never make sense of the song.
I used to think Sting and/or the other Police were Green Lantern fans because of the line in Don’t Stand So Close To Me, “Just like Pol Manning in…” the rest of the words I could not make out but probably referred to some adventure I had not read yet, and when I did read the story I would probably be able to understand the rest of the line.
I don’t know how I discovered he was actually singing “Just like that poor man in the book by Nabokov.”
Dang. Even as someone who knows who Pol Manning is, I don’t think I’d have made that connection. I have been out-nerded.
Then there’s “There’s a bathroom on the right!” for “There’s a bad Moon on the rise!”
Springsteen’s “Blinded By The Light”:
“cut loose like a douche, another runner in the night”
…which I always took to be calling that runner in the night by a derogetory name. Made sense to me, even if it struck me as out of character for Bruce.