Re: "You sexy thing" misheard lyric

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 08:57:47 -0000
Newsgroups: rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1970s
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"ML Starkey" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
news:email-address-deleted...
> >>We should start a strand on all the lyrics that people mess up, it
> >>would be pretty hilarious to see what the come up with-
>
> Those misheard lyrics have a name: mondegreens, with an explanation of
> the term here:
>
> http://www.abc.net.au/classic/breakfast/stories/s741880.htm
>
> My 12 year old came up with another good one for the Steely Dan song
> "Reeling in the Years". Instead of hearing . . .
>
> "are you gathering up the tears, have you had enough of mine?"
>
> she hears:
>
> "are you gathering up the CHEESE, have you had enough of mine?"
> She asks me, while we are in the car and listening to the radio, why the
> singer wants to "gather up the cheese". Once I figured out what she was
> talking about, I laughed so hard I almost ran off the road!
>
> Of course Steely Dan lyrics are rather inscrutable anyway, but that one
> sure gave me a belly laugh.
>
Any songwriters here who've had their *own* lyrics "mondegreened" ?
I was in a club band in the 80s and in one of our songs I had written the
lyric: "The poor and the meek give their lives, the fools and the freaks
will survive". One day I heard our bassplayer's wife singing it as ""The
poor and the meek give their lives, the food in the fridge will survive" ! I
frequently sang it that way thereafter.... :~)
Mike