Posted by: Jack Henry | August 12, 2021

Editor’s Corner: Mondegreens to get you to Friday

Just when I think we are done with mondegreens, someone hears the wrong song lyrics in a new song, or someone writes another book about mondegreens that I have to buy. The first list of mondegreens here is from the book I’ve mentioned several times, Mondegreens: A Book of Mishearings, by J. A. Wines. The second set is from a website called Mingle-Ish.

Artist or Group Original Words Misheard Words
Simon and Garfunkel Like a bridge over troubled water Like a bridge over trouble, Walter
Simon and Garfunkel Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme Partially saved was Mary and Tom

Did Parsley save Rosemary in time?

Elton John Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone Rocket man, burning up the trees on every lawn

Rocket man, running out of fuel and heading home

REM We are agents of the free We are ancient Sophocles
David Bowie Ground Control to Major Tom Clown Control to Mao Tse-Tung
The Beatles Strawberry fields forever Strawberry fields for Trevor
The Beatles The magical mystery tour is coming to take you away The magical mystery toad is coming to take you away
Freddie Fender Wasted days and wasted nights Wave to Dave, and wave to Mike
Glen Campbell He’s a rhinestone cowboy He’s a vile stoned cowboy
From musical, Evita Don’t cry for me Argentina Don’t cry for me, I’m the cleaner
Shakira There’s the man I chose. There’s my territory There’s the man I chose. There’s my Teletubby.
Diana Ross and the Supremes Stop, in the name of love Stop, in the neighborhood.
Duran Duran Straddle the line / in discord and rhyme Stand on the line / in disco and rhyme
Ben Folds Textbook hippie man Texas handyman
Harry Belafonte Come Mr. Tally Man Come Mr. Taliban
Savage Garden I want your face, yeah, all around me I want your face hair all around me
Artist or Group Original Words Misheard Words
The Pretenders Gonna use my sidestep Gonna use my sausage
Tina Turner You’re simply the best, better than all the rest You’re simply the best, better than an hour’s rest
Justin Bieber ‘Cause I just need one more shot at forgiveness ‘Cause I just need one more shot, half a Guinness
Aretha Franklin ‘Cause you make me feel like a natural woman ‘Cause you make me feel like a rash on a woman
Alanis Morissette It’s not fair / to deny me / of the cross I bear that you gave to me It’s not fair / to deny me / of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me
Abba You can dance / you can jive You can dance / you can die
Olivia Newton-John Hopelessly devoted to you I hope the city voted for you
UB40 Red red wine, stay close to me Red red wine, steak lobster meat
The Bangles It doesn’t matter that I have to feed the both of us employment’s down It doesn’t matter that I have to feed the buffalo some parmesan

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/


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