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.
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.