Rock the Casbah misheard as Rock the cash-bar. I thought it was a song about people drinking and being punished for drinking. In my defense, I was 4, and sadly I knew what a cash-bar was.
I used to think the KISS song went I wanna rock and roll all night… and part of every day.
It’s far less hard core that way.
I have to admit, getting a rock n roll nap in is pretty good.
🤣
My roommate used to think Jimi Hendrix sang “excuse me while I kiss this guy” until I explained it was “sky”.
Although in his defense years later I heard a live version where I’m pretty sure he changes it for a verse or two to “kiss this guy.”
You’re correct, he started occasionally singing “kiss this guy” live after someone pointed the mondegreen out to him and he found it really funny.
That’s such a popular one that there’s a misheard lyrics site named kissthisguy.com
Another popular one is There’s a bathroom on the right=There’s a bad moon on the rise.
When I was about 10, instead of “smoke two joints”, I thought it was “spoke to Joyce”.
I spoke Joyce in the morning I spoke to Joyce at night I spoke to Joyce in the afternoon it makes me feel alright I spoke to Joyce in time of peace and too in time of war I spoke to Joyce before I spoke to Joyce and then I spoke some more I spoke to Joyce when I get up In the car I spoke to Joyce I spoke to Joyce when I play videogames and at every 10,000 points I spoke to Joyce!My mom laughed for 5 full minutes when I told her.
makes it sound more like a love song
Probs a common one but when ever Blinded By The Light came on I only heard “woke up like a douche” instead of “revved up like a deuce”
I heard, “Wrapped up like a douche,” which always went well with misunderstanding the lyric after it, “Another rumor in the night.” (Correct line is “Another runner in the night.”)
I only knew about ‘deuce’ as a synonym for poop, when I first heard the song, which made it very confusing.
Turns out it’s a pretty versatile word.
My wife was singing “Hello darkness, smile friend” until she met me. When I heard it I was like, “can you sing that back for me one more time?”
I don’t know how long we laughed but it was equally funny the next day when we remembered it again.
Dirty deeds done with sheeps. They’re dirty deeds and they’re done with sheeps.
I always thought it was Dirty Deeds and the Thunder Chief. Thought the guy repeating it was a Native American beating a drum.
It’s Dunder Chief.
To be fair, I think there is a parody version that has those lyrics.
I’m not sure this song ever made it out of Canada, but Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by Crash Test Dummies has a verse where a girl in school wouldn’t change with the other girls, and when they made her, she had, in what I thought the lyric was, “burn marks all over her body”. I assumed the song was about child abuse, and they were cigarette burns. The other verses are about a kid with a shock of white hair from “a car crash” and a kid who always has to come home right after school, so it kinda made sense in a consistent enough way…
Anyway, for basically my whole life I thought that’s what the song was about. Turns out the lyrics are “birth marks all over her body”, and the point of the song is more about kids being othered for things outside their control.
I still think I prefer my version…
Oh, it made it out of Canada!
Great song, it definitely had airplay in both Europe and the US.
Man, that was everywhere back in the MTV days!
If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get rid of my friends
Not that the real lyrics are much better. “Get with my friends” means different things to different people.
Ha! That came on in the supermarket the other day. Serendipitously I was in the herbs & spices aisle at the time!
Apparently when I was 3, the song, “If you’re gonna play in Texas,” by Alabama, came out.
I heard, “If you’re gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a parallelogram.”
HAMSTER
A DENTIST
My contribution here is to let those who did not know (like me until recently) that the misheard version of lyrics (or phrase) causing them to have a new meaning is called “Mondegreen"
The term Mondegreen is itself a mondegreen.
In the song “Coming Undone” by Korn I thought the line was “i fight my demons with my friends” which is kinda wholesome but its actually “I thought my demons were my friends” which is much sadder :(
When the song was new, my dad heard I’m Your Venus played over the school cafeteria speakers, but everyone else knew the song so they didn’t react to it. He went years never understanding the meaning of that song.
Hahaha I always mishear “Rock the Casbah” as “F*ck the Casbah!” Which seems more rebellious and more in line with the spirit of the song.
Edit: It took 5 hours apparently but i remembered some other examples
- Steal Away by Robbie Dupree sounds like he’s going “nigga toniiiiiiight” when he is actually saying “Make it toniiiiiiight.” You’ll think I’m being crude and childish but it really does sound more like the former every single time i listen, and i’m sure this is a universal thing. It is really funny that this happens at the climax of the song. “nigga” usually indicates a man rather than a woman, so it also makes the song “suddenly gay”
- I’m every woman, Chaka Khan = “climb every woman” (i picture an energetic housecat singing this)
Billy Jean is not my lover
She’s just a girl that thinks that I am the one
But
The chair is not my size
