I'd Rather Be Doing This Than The Wash!

Do you know what a mondegreen is? Wikipedia says it's the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, in a way that yields a new meaning to the phrase.

As I've said in a previous post, I love words and I get a really big kick out of mispronunciations, especially of mispronunciations in the words of songs. It just tickles my funny bone.

Well, this morning I was talking to my daughter. She just loves music and was telling me that I should follow John Mayer on twitter. He was in the studio working on his new album and some of the tweets were very interesting. For some reason we got onto a conversation of artists slurring the lyrics of their songs so badly as to make them unintelligible. She had been watching a VH1 retrospective and asked me if I knew of the 60's group Iron Butterfly. I did not, so she went on to tell me about a song that they had recorded entitled "In A Gadda Da Vida" which really should have been entitled "In The Garden of Eden", but the soloist was so drunk he completely slurred the words and the group liked it so much they kept that as the title. I laughed so hard I cried. I could not believe it, so I went to YouTube to see for myself and, there it was, in all it's glory. It was the 60's after all, wasn't everyone high?

That led me to do some more internet research and I found that there was really a word associated with these mispronunciations (mondegreen). I was blown away. When I was younger, there were days when I spent hours pouring over the phone book to find funny names, like "Mary Christmas", so these types of things really get my attention.

Sometimes people don't enunciate well, leading to these funny mondegreens and sometimes I think people are just not listening. Anyhow, I'm including a few funnies I found on the internet.

Some singers are worse than others but here are some funny ones I found on www.popculturemadness.com:


Sounded Like: You left, you picked your behind, and I kissed it a thousand times - (Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself)
Should Be: You left your picture behind and I've kissed it a thousand times

Sounded Like: There's a bathroom on the right" - Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
Should Be: There's a bad moon on the rise"

Sounded Like: "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" - Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
Should Be: Excuse me while I kiss the sky"

Sounded Like: "Play that f__king music right boy - Wild Cherry
Should Be: "Play that funky music white boy".

Sounded Like: I get knocked out..." Chumbawumba - Tubthumping
Should be: "I get knocked down..."

From the Bible:

Sounded Like: Surely Good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life - Psalm 23
Should Be: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of the days of my life

From an interview:

In a 1992 interview, Bill Clinton was asked who his favorite musician was. He answered Thelonius Monk. The interviewer asked him "Who's the lonliest monk?

There are even books written about mondegreens. If you're interested, look up books by Gavin Edwards (Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy, When A Man Loves a Walnut and He's Got The Whole World in His Pants).

You know, I really should be doing the laundry but this is much more fun and....that's right, there's always tomorrow!

Happy laughing.