Rebecca Sparrow
by REBECCA SPARROW
Bless you, Karl Stefanovic. This week the Today Show host made me feel a little less like the Mayoress of Loser Town.
Karl and the divine Lisa Wilkinson were discussing one of my favourite topics: misheard song lyrics. And I’ve gotta say – the mistakes they mentioned in the segment were utterly horrendous (which made them brilliant) and left me feeling like I could join MENSA.
I mean, who knew that apparently millions of people think Pat Benatar is singing ‘hit me with your pet shark’ rather than ‘hit me with your best shot’? WTF people? It doesn’t even make sense. For starters, a pet shark? You haven’t even thought that through. And who gets ‘hit’ with a shark. Surely the word should be ‘slap’?
Next there was Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. Twenty-years on and uncool parents everywhere still think Kurt Cobain was singing about being in a container. (Think: Here we are now, entertain us rather than Here we are now, IN CONTAINERS.)
Really, that five minute Today Show segment, left me feeling slightly vindicated – or at least less alone – since about two years ago I got caught singing the wrong lyrics to a song. I was trying to look cool at the gym while running on the treadmill. Trying to look hip in front of Jason my trainer who had the looks of The Commando and the personality of, well, The Commando.
And I found myself attempting to sing along to some cool-ass-gangster-rap-hip-hop-yo-yo-wassup-dawg song as I shuffled along on the treadmill like Cliff Young. And somehow I ended up singing the words. “Like a cheese stick, like a cheese stick” to a song that apparently is not dairy-focused. The song is called “Like a G6”. Allegedly. I think that sounds ridiculous. I mean, what the hell is a G6? My trainer however thought this was HYSTERICAL.
Oh how we laughed at my mistake. Well, he laughed. I made a mental note to send him an email virus.
“Alex the Seal!”
But it got me thinking about misheard song lyrics. A quick scan of my friends and it seems I’m not alone in screwing up words. Here are just a few of their mistakes:
- Cheap Wine and A Three Day Roast (Cheap Wine and A Three Day Growth by Cold Chisel)
- Save the Whales (Sail Away by Enya)
- Turn the Heater On (Turn The Beat Around by Gloria Estefan)
- We’re Gonna Get Dressed For Safe Sex (We’re Gonna Get Dressed For Success by Roxette)
- Alex The Seal (Our Lips Are Sealed by The Go-Gos)
- Our Father And Mark and Kevin (Our Father Who Art in Heaven, The Lord’s Prayer)
- Take your pants off and make it happen (Take your passion and make it happen – Flashdance)
- And one friend’s five-year-old is convinced ABBA’s Dancing Queen is “Dancing Bean. Dancing Bean. Feel the touch of your tangerine.”
So now I don’t feel quite so stupid. Well, I still feel stupid but I’m in good company. And at least I know the words to Smells Like Teen Spirit. I think.
Have you misread song lyrics before?
Comments
268 Comments so far
My son sings “I’m livin on a sexy aeroplane”!!
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for years i thought it was ‘cheap wine and a three legged goat!’
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Was it Tori Amos singing about “vegemite toast tonight, its gotta be big”. I’m proud of an American who can go big on the vegemite
My partner told me the lyrics once – it’s actually quite crass and I prefer my version better
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My son used to sing the Spice Girls (I think) I need somebody with a human touch as I need some money for a hamburger lunch….. so so cute
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Maroon 5. Moves like jagger.
One friend thought the lyric was: I’ve got a moose vagina!!! (I’ve got the moves like jagger)
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I thought it said ‘I’ve got to lose my jacket!’ Very amusing dance moves ensued when the girlfriends realised what I was singing…
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Boyfriend sings “I’ve got to remove my jacket”
Likes it better that way!
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My mother used to sing “I’ve got them moves like that”… She is a serial incorrect song lyric offender!
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Always thought it was ‘Kiama’….instead of ‘I never’ in ‘Mr Brightside by the Killers….
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My sister used to sing ‘I’m not that silly little gherkin still in love with you’ (from ‘I will survive’), and ‘you make me feel like a match or a woman’ instead of ‘you make me feel like a natural woman’.
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Hahahahahaha. ‘Hit me with your pet shark’ is gold.
I love misheard lyrics!
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Love this Rebecca! Mine was Skyhooks’ Horror Movie – “Horror movie right there on my TV” and I thought it was “How will you be right there on my TV”
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I used to sing ‘Round the furniture’ in Silent night!
Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright, round your furniture…. mother and child!
Sounds better I think..
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My lovely mum thought that the words in Lady Gaga’s Poker Face were
Cherry Pie, Cherry Pie
Instead of, ‘Can’t read my, Can’t read my’
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My 2 year old used to sing “All the singlets, now put your hands up” to Beyonces’ “All the single ladies (put a ring on it)”.
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A G6 is a Gulfstream G650 which is a pretty common choice of private jet for billionaire globetrotters, upwards of $60m plus on-road costs. Little more aspirational that baked goods, funny.
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I used to think the words to “I’m your venus, I’m your fire, your desire” were actually “I’m your penis, I’m you fly, ah, you vagina”. And years later when it was on tv for the Venus shaving ad I was mortified at the over-sexuality of it all… then I realised..
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“I wear goggles when you are not near” for Macy Greys “my world crumbles when you are not near”
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For ages I thought it was ‘I walk cobbles when you are not near’.
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I think one of the best examples of this is the scene in Bridgette Jones’ Diary when she is in the Thai prison and they are singing “Like a Virgin – f***ed for the very first time!”
I cant seem to get those words out of my head now anytime I hear that song!
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Well it makes a lot more sense in Bridget’s version…
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All the singlets. All the singlets…from my then 3 year old for “all the single ladies”
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My sister though the Bernard Fanning song “Wish you well” was
“Why’d you give up on miso soup?” (Why’d you give up on me so soon?)
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Thats hilarious
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Just remembered another one! When my eldest cherub was about 4 the song ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ became ‘now the trucks don’t work’ , sang earnestly from her car seat…
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My two faves that I’ve heard over the years;
‘There’s a bathroom on the right’ (Bad moon on the rise)
and
‘Slow movin Walter, the Fire engine guy’ (Smoke on the water)
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my 6 year old daughter sings “You can dance, you can try…” instead of “you can dance, you can jive” whenever she sings Dancing Queen!
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“Like a cheese stick, like a cheese stick.”
My cheeks hurt from this one.
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Shawn Mullins – Shimmer
My old boss heard “Sharing with us what he knows” as “standing with a sweaty nose”.
Forever and ever afterwards, everytime I hear that song I think of a creepy stalker with excessive sweating issues.
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The latest Florence Welch song Sweet nothing, sounds like “I’m living on sexy gherkin”….Its really “I’m living on such sweet nothing” Trust me, Youtube it!
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Jen, whenever I hear this song I hear “You’re giving me sexy elephants!” What the??..lol
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YES! Took my kids and I ages to work out the real words, I thought sexy gherkin too, hilarious!
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thought this was ‘you’re giving me sexy lovin!’
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Hahaha Jen it so does!
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i thought it was ‘you’re giving me sexy lovin’
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Too funny Rebecca! I’m shocking when it comes to this!
I also have issues with Our lips are Sealed – I thought it was “I’m Cecile”.
Another one that caused issues for me as a child was Mary Poppin’s Feed the Birds “Feed the birds, puffins are birds, puffins, puffins, puffins are birds”
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I thought it was “i need to see you!’
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I though it was ‘I love cecile…’
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Or ‘Alex the Seal’
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sorry double post
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Most recently it was a line in Diana Krall’s song Temptation that we use in dance class all the time. I suddenly realised I had been singing it to myself as “everything is made from cheese” the line is “everything is made from dreams”. How did I get cheese from dreams? All I can think is that because the next line is about honey I was in a foodie mind.
I also though “its too late to apologise” by Timbaland was “its too late honey child”.
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Sitting on top of the hay, instead of sitting on the dock of the bay!!
I always struggled with Australian anthem as a child!
Australians all let ostriches…
our home is girt by sea… la la la
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Or…
“Australians all let us ring Joyce”
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My brother told me the national anthem was:
“Australians all eat sausages for breakfast, lunch and tea,
With golden syrup and tomato sauce,
Our home is KFC.
Yum, yum, yum, yum. yum, yum, yum…” etc et al.
When I got to school, I was set straight.
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I just choked on my sandwich!!!! Gold!!!
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I remember my son singing along to Beyonce’s “All the single ladies” with the words “i’m a cigarette, i’m a cigarette”. He was probably 3 or 4 at the time and I still laugh when I hear that song.
I am notorious for getting the lyrics wrong, i just tell everyone I must be a great lyricist since I can make my words fit and rhyme with the music!
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I thought “She’s got Betty Davis eyes” was “She’s got better days aside!” for a long time.
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OH MY GOD ME TOO!!!!! I am not alone!!
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Working from home today and sitting at my dining table with the door open and I laughed so hard at “Cheese Sticks” that my neighbour heard and came over to see what I was laughing at!
Thanks, Bec!
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As a kid I used to sing loudly ‘All the boys think she’s a spaz, she’s got Betty Davis eyes’. LOL
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“Every time you go away….you take a piece of meat with yooooouuu”
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Miss 3 sings ‘ I gotta move the dragon’ (I got the moves like Jagger).
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I used to sing the line out of David Bowie’s Modern Love “puts my trust in God and Man” as “puts my trust in garden man.”
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I thought it was ” I got my first real sex dream ” when Bryan Adams actually sings ” I got my first real 6 string ” in Summer of 69 !!
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Oh my! me too! I once wrote it on facebook, and my friend commented “gives a whole new meaning to “played it til my fingers bled”…… ;D
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Gold!
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Hilarious post, Rebecca! I have one that I still to this day sing wrong (auto pilot – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) and my little sister has a good one too!
Red Red Wine by UB40 – I thought he was singing to his one true love, Rae. As in, “Rae, Rae, Why? Stay close to me, Don’t let me be alone, It’s tearin’ apart, My blue, blue heart.” Then a friend called it the Alchoholic’s Anthem – a reference I did not understand and took issue with. A few seconds into my angry rebuttle of such a misguided label for the song and she just cracked up, lost the plot – couldn’t even explain my mistake to me for five minutes because she was laughing so hard.
The second one is curtesy of my little red-headed sister when she was five years old. Eurythmics — Thorn in My Side – It goes: “Thorn in my side, You know that’s all you’ll ever be, So don’t think you know better, ‘Cause that’s what you mean to me…”
Instead of the following:
“I was feeling complicated. I was feeling low. Now everytime I think of you, I shiver to the bone…”
Well, my little sister thought it was something else: “I was feeling constipated. I was feeling low!” When we questioned her years later, she was convinced at the time that the thorn in her side must have made her physically sick and that was why she was feeling so low when she thought of him. HA! We still sing it to her because it’s such a crack up.
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In the really quick jazzy version of “Happy Birthday To Ya”, I thought it was “Happy Birthday Junior”
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” In our church
Even downtown,
It’s so scary….”
Voices Carry, by ‘Til Tuesday
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Back when the Vengaboys were on the radio, those tunes were so awful and catchy you would inadvertently find yourself singing along. One of my friends got caught out pretty much inventing the lyrics to Shalala – “Shalalala…every night in the morning”. How she got ‘every night’ out of another round of ‘shalala’, I’ll never know, but it was our theme song for the rest of the year – with those lyrics!
I’m glad someone else has misheard the Roxette song…I always thought it was ‘get dressed for some sex’, and was always confused, because I thought you took your clothes off for that!
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All time favourite – My 5 year old son singing “I’m sexy and I know it”, but saying “I’m a taxi and I know it”. God bless his little cotton socks!!!
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My sister who would sing “All you want to do is ride around salad” instead of “All you want to do is ride around Sally”. We still pay her out.
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As a person who mishears lyics ALL the time, this post makes me laugh so much!
My biggest misheard lyric was the song, “I believe in miracles” .. and I used to sing “I believe in Milko” ..
Goodness me.
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My Mum also sang this in the car, so did us kids… until my brother was like 13 and corrected the whole family. hahaha
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The Eurythmics – Sweet dreams are made of cheese
hehe
Always have a giggle at that one.
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As a small child I was convinced that Elvis was singing ‘ A Marsha Cup’, not ‘I’m all shook up.’ What the heck is a marsha cup? Is it like a diva cup?!
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Hold me closer Tony Danza (Tiny Dancer, Elton John)
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count the head lice on the highway…
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There’s a little boy I used to babysit for who sings “Your socks are on fire!!!” instead of “Your sex is on fire” for the Kings of Leon song.
I told a bunch of my friends and since then (this was in… 2008) we have all committed to pointing to eachothers ankles and loudly singing YOUR SOCKS ARE ON FIRE whenever we hear the song.
Another is Britney Spears sings “do you want a piece of me?” – I thought she said meat. “do you want a piece of meat?” yes pls, I’m starved!
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I played Glycerine by Bush for my boyfriend, and he thought Gavin Rossdale was singing “Kiss the Rain” So cute.
Since Mum grew up in a pre-internet age, she said no one knew what the hell the girl in B-52′s was shouting in “Love Shack” I had to look it up for her and it was “Tin roof! Rusted!”
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Thankyou! I have always wondered what that shout at the end of Love Shack was!
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And at the end of The B-52s ‘Rock Lobster’ he sings ‘Here comes a bikini whale’.
How do I know this? Because my Year 1 daughter made a poster on her favourite song and I had to google it because I had no idea what he was saying!
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We used to think they sang “Rotten Oyster” instead of “Rock Lobster”
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“I don’t understand the point of fingers’ when it should be “All of us stand and point our fingers” Black Fingernails, Red Wine- Eskimo Joe. Major FAIL!
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I heard this on a radio station. During an Eskimoe Joe interview a listener rang up and asked Cav why he sang “I don’t understand the point of fingers.” He was so confused. He said “I’m a graphic designer. I use my fingers all the time! I assure you there’s definitely a point to fingers!”
Perhaps Cav needs diction lessons too.
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