Say What?

We’ve all been there, singing along with Elton John on the radio:

“Hold me closer, Tony Danza. Count the head lice on the highwaaaayyyy….”

Right?

But the song is Tiny Dancer, and they count the head lights on the highway.

Mishearing lyrics is as common as listening to music – and popular music is full of garbled lyrics open to guesswork. Does anyone really know (or understand) Springsteen’s (or Manfred Mann’s cover) Blinded by the Light? For years I swore Dolly Parton said Jolene had Ivorish skin and eyes of Bilbo green. Made no sense, but try as I might, that’s what I heard. Other people swear The Beatles are singing about the girl with colitis going by, Creedence Clearwater Revival wails about being “Stuck with an old diaper pin,” or “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

Mishearing lyrics like that is called a Mondegreen, a term coined by Sylvia Wright in 1954, when she insisted the lyrics to “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray” were not “laid him on the green” but “Lady Mondegreen.” If you continue to insist your misheard lyrics are correct, even when given the correct ones, it’s called a mumpsimus (in case you needed a new word today). Of course, sometimes the misheard lyrics are just more fun to sing (such as headlice on the highway), and you sing it that way anyway.

Mondegreens aren’t limited to modern music. One of the more common ones is hearing “Gladly the cross-eyed bear” for the line “Gladly the cross I’d bear” in the hymn Keep Thou My Way. Mondegreens are made by our own brains by substituting things that make more sense to us, whether by word or experience. If you don’t know the actual word, your brain substitutes one it already knows that is similar. If you’ve got no experience with something, you might automatically substitute something you do know: the folksong Golden Vanity talks about the lowland, lowland sea, but if you’re from Appalachia, and have no idea what a lowland sea is, the words became lonesome sea. Thankfully more of us are familiar with head lights than head lice.

Some mondegreens were so popular and universal that the bands themselves started singing them that way. ELO’s Don’t Bring Me Down is almost universally sung as “Don’t bring me down. Bruce!” but the word was originally groose, which was a nonsense placeholder word during the writing that was liked so much, it was left in the final song. Eventually they, too, sang it as bruce. Jimi Hendrix and John Fogerty also embraced and sang their own mondegreens.

Mondegreens bleed over into books – Vivian Walsh’s book, Olive, the Other Reindeer plays on misheard lyrics of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and A Monk Swimming by Malachy McCourt is taken from the misheard prayer line, amongst women. The Lonely Planet travel guides are taken from the misheard lyric lovely planet from Joe Cocker’s rendition of “Space Captain.” Ed McBain has a mystery novel, Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear.

Here are some of the more common mondegreens in modern music. Check out the songs, and listen for yourself. Can you hear both versions? What are some lyrics you mishear all the time?

Purple Haze, Jimmy Hendrix: I want to kiss this guy, is really, I want to kiss the sky.

Lodi, Creedence Clearwater Revival: Stuck with an old diaper pin for Stuck in Lodi again.

Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater Revival: There’s a bathroom on the right/ There’s a bad moon on the rise.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, The Beatles: A girl with colitis goes by/ A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin: And there’s a wino down the road/ And as we wind on down the road.

Blinded by the Light, Bruce Springsteen: Wrapped up like a douche with a Corona in the night/ Wrapped up like a deuce, another runner in the night.

Higher Love, Steve Winwood: Bake me a pie of love/ Bring me a higher love.

Dancing Queen, ABBA: See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.
/See that girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen.

Joy to the World, Three Dog Night:  Joy to the visions that the people see/ Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea.

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, R.E.M.:  Calling Jamaica/ Call me when you try to wake her (Wait – it’s NOT Jamaica?)

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana: Here we are now, in containers/ Here we are now, entertain us

Blank Space, Taylor Swift: Got a lot of Starbucks lovers/Got a long list of ex-lovers