My PopWatch compadre Gary Susman recently sent me a video of Joe Cocker singing "With a Little Help From My Friends" at Woodstock, back in 1969. (I’ll take this moment to ‘fess that I had no idea that Cocker was still alive — according to IMDB, he played a bum, a pimp, and a "mad hippie" in last year’s Across the Universe. I smell a tasteless PopWatch item in the making: Stars you thought were dead, but no, just fallen off the radar. ANYWAY.) While I’ve tried to decipher Cocker’s lyrics for years, this video (watch it below) offers up helpful subtitles, with even more helpful illustrations of said lyrics. Of course, it doesn’t help matters that the lyrics are totally WRONG, and quite hysterically so, but I think I prefer "Whoa, I let the river out / and I don’t know why" as opposed to… whatever he actually sang.
This got me thinking: What song lyrics have you repeatedly misheard? Have you ever embarrassed yourself in front of friends? (Check out KissThisGuy.com for inspiration.) I’ll go first. When I was growing up, it seemed like my local radio station had Don Henley’s "Boys of Summer" on every 15 minutes. And I’d dutifully sing along every time I heard it, even though I thought the lyrics were awfully morbid: "Out on the road today / I saw a dead head sticking on a Cadillac…" Ick! (Henley was actually singing "I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac," but this was some years before I knew what a "Deadhead" was. My parents were that good.)
Your turn.
Comments (1-30) of 170 Add your comment
OK, “dead head sticking on a Cadillac” made me LOL out loud.
I generally can’t understand most of what Dwight Yoakam sings, but in the song “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere”, I still hear “I’ve got pickles in my head,” instead of “echoes.”
Everytime I hear “See You Again” I think Miley Cyrus is saying “I feel like I’m bustin’ on you in another life” until I remember that it’s probably “I must have known you”. At least I hope it is.
Someone at work told me they love the new Pussycat Dolls song “When I Grow Up,” especially the lines “When I grow up/I wanna see the world/Drive nice cars/I wanna have boobies.” I had to explain that that last part is actually “I wanna have groupies” but their version fits quite well actually with the Pussycat Dolls’ persona!
When I was a kid I thought Foreigner’s “Urgent” was “Virgin”. Diiiiirty!
Man, Joe Cocker is just the coolest!
I have, my whole life, thought that in the first verse of Billy Joel’s Piano Man, he sang “…it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete, when I worried under man’s clothes.” It always made sense to me, the idea of hiding your worries under your clothes, or whatever. I very recently came to realize that the lyrics are “…when I wore a younger man’s clothes.” That makes so much more sense and is actually much more heartwrenching.
A friend of mine (for reals…it wasn’t me!) wins the prize for this one.
In Destiny’s Child “Survivor”, one of the lines goes “You thought that I’d be sad without ya, I laugh harder”.
She honestly believed that Beyonce was singing “You thought that I’d be FAT without you, I love butter”!!!
Oh and RayT, I thought the same thing about PCD until I read your comment.
I thought the pcd dolls said boobie too oops
Any Rolling Stones song. To this day, I could not tell you what the lyrics to Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ ‘Tumbling Dice’ or Honky Tonk Women are……
Christina A’s “Ain’t No Other Man,” translated in much the same way as the Joe Cocker video you posted.
For many many years i thought Journey sang “I’m going to run to you…with broken arms” (instead of “come to you with open arms) and in my head i had Steve Perry running with two broken arms through a field to that girl from the “Oh Sherry” video. I didn’t know I was wrong until i innocently asked my sis, “So, how’s he running with TWO broken arms?” and she promptly called me an idiot. I was about 18 when i found out the truth. =)
for the longest time i thought eric clapton was singing “way down south” instead of Lay down Sally
Smashing Pumpkins’ “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”: I always thought “Despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in a cage” was “I’m still just ready to cave.” I actually prefer my misheard version. It seems more hopeless, sad, and impotent.
Of my gosh, I always thought the line was a rat in a cage! I find myself very disappointed now.
My mom used to play Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart” on loop for hours at a time. When my brother was in preschool, he swore that the voices chanting “Say that’cha love me” over and over toward the end of the song were saying “Saint Jemimah,” and he constantly wanted to know who “St. Jemimah” was.
If you didn’t understand what Joe Cocker was singing, does that mean you’re unfamiliar with the original version of the song? It’s by this obscure band called The Beatles, from their little-known album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The lyrics are nice and clear on that version.
an old co-worker of mine used to sing “free snow cones” instead of “please don’t go” and I am quite embarassed to admit that I thought “free snow cones” were the correct lyrics until it was pointed out otherwise.
A friend thought OutKast was saying “shake it like a pony white preacher” instead of “polariod picture”
Pearl Jam’s “Smile”. I’ve always thought he was yelling “free cookie dough swirls all around”. And I have no idea what he is really saying. I like my version.
Maybe it’s because of “Mack the Knife” and it’s talk about sharks, I thought the chorus to “The Killing Moon” was “Faith of the gangster whale” instead of the correct “Fate up against your will.” Sorry. I’m hearing impaired. What’s your excuse?
Steve Miller: I thought, until my wife laughed at me a few weeks ago, it was “China love is driving me mad…” not Jungle love. I still think China love is better, Jungle is on the edge of offensive. By the way… I’m 38.
i always thought billy joel played homage to the teenage mutant ninja turtles in his song “we didn’t start the fire.”
needless to say, i was very disappointed when i learned he was singing “trouble in the suez” instead of “turtles in the sewer”
I had a Mickey Mouse Club album when I was about 5, and one of the songs was a duet between a boy and girl Mouseketeer. At one point, I could have sworn the boy said, “and I’ll help you out of your bra…”, but it turns out he said, “I’ll help you with your ALGEBRA”. Hey…I was 5! I didn’t know what Algebra was, but I must have known was a bra was! =)
Boston’s “More Than a Feeling.” I always thought they sang “And I maybe dreaming,” until an unfortunate Rock Band incident. I was singing along with the lyrics on screen and I sang “I be gin dreaming.” Right after it came out, I said out loud “Oh, that’s I ‘begin’ dreaming.” Everyone was laughing so hard we couldn’t get through the rest of the song. My friends haven’t let me live it down.
I’m sad to say that I have a few. The worst one is probably the song “In the House of Stone and Light” by Martin Page. There’s a part near the end where he sings “And when I go, I will op-op-open my eeeeeyeees!” and I swear it sounds just like “And when I come, with a lump of poop in my aaaaaarms!”
Others:
*MJ’s Billie Jean: “The chair is not my son”
*An ex of mine swore that Aretha Franklin was singing “You make me feel like a man, you’re a woman.”
My older sister believed that the song of “you oughta know” had the line of “crossed-eye bear”, instead of the “It’s not fair to deny me the cross I bear that you gave to me”. She innocently asked why would anyone give a cross-eyed bear and then take the bear back. Never can hear the song the same again.
There are many songs I’ve misinterpreted over the years, but the most recent was Daughtry’s “Over You”…..my daughter and I thought that in the chorus he was singing “spinning all the dishes” putting my heart back together, instead of “spending all of these years”. Seriously, listen to it and you’ll agree!!
Michael Jacksons smooth criminal I thought he was singing Annie are you walking instead of Annie are you ok. I wasn’t until Alien Ant Farm came out with there version that I realized what the right lyrics were
The B-52’s Roam –
I always thought I heard “Whoa Nipsy Russell” instead of “Roam if you want to” — and yes, I knew it was ridiculous!
1. Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979″- I couldn’t understand any of the lyrics except for “nineteen seventy nine” so I mumbled through the rest.
2. Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets”- instead of “she’s got electric boots”, I thought it was “electric boobs.”
3. Paula Cole’s “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?”- instead of “where is my prairie son?” I always heard “where is my furry sock?”