Music Origins

Mondegreen Mondays

randydafoe21 Comments
Rush with “Tom Sawyer” (1981)

I was disappointed to learn that the song “Tom Sawyer”, which was one of my favorite “Monday songs” and the inspiration for this blog title, does not include the words “Monday Warrior”. Apparently it is “Modern Day Warrior”. Too late, I’m not changing it ;).

Sylvia Wright wrote an essay for Harpers Magazine in 1954. In it she explained the term she coined. As a child she misinterpreted some of the words from the Scottish ballad “The Bonny Earl of Murray.” When she heard the line “laid him on the green,” Sylvia thought it was “Lady Mondegreen.”. The term would be popularized by Jon Carroll, a San Francisco columnist.

Filling in gaps when we can’t figure out words is something our brains do. When it comes to popular songs there are some commonly known ones out there and often the interpretation is pretty funny. Sometimes much of the song becomes a bit of a Mondegreen like The Kingsman’s version of “Louie, Louie” that became a huge hit in 1963.

But it’s also a personal thing, we listen to songs and fill in words ourselves when we can’t understand the lyrics. Sometimes our creation fits the song and other times not, and we may never know the right words. Often we all hear the same thing, even though it is not what is being said. Hence the popularization of the Mondegreen. also known as oronyms.

So I would like to explore this phenomenon and talk about some of the more famous ones and if you tip me off as to one of your personal mondegreen’s, I may write about that as well. So let’s just stick with some real/popular ones to begin with. Or are they? When researching these I ran across some that make you wonder, ok someone made that up and is taking people along for the ride. Some of them may be – the words sound like something else, but does anyone actually hear it that way? Some it seems just make for a good meme.

There are other songs where we don’t mishear the lyrics, we just can’t make them out. In this case we can’t necessarily substitute a word or words. An example of this for me personally is Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets”. In this case we have a word that some have misheard, combined with a word I could not replace, so I just kind of mumble if I was singing along.

The line is:

She’s got electric boots, a mohair suit.

I think we can use our imagination to figure out the misheard word here. But what about the “mohair suit”? I could not make out what he was saying, even if I did, I would have no idea what a “mohair suit ” would be. In my mind it sounded something like “a mo ha sue”.

That said there are the obvious ones. So let’s get them out of the way shall we and then see if this idea of mine “has many eggs” (has any legs)? Leave the writing to the professionals Randy.

The Jimi Hendrix song he wrote and released in 1967 “Purple Haze” has some of the most famous misheard lyrics.

“Excuse me while I kiss the sky” was often misheard as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” (s’Excuse me, it’s sometimes written).

The Bruce Springsteen song “Blinded by the Light” that he released on his debut album “Greetings from Asbury Park” in 1973, contains a well known mondegreen. The song was covered by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in 1976 and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977.

The line often heard was “Wrapped up like a douche”. The actual line is “Revved up like a deuce” As is a deuce coupe car ala The Beach Boys song from 1963 “Little Deuce Coupe”.

And in the case where the singer himself sang the mondegreen once while explaining it, as a joke mind you. John Fogerty wrote and sang the lead in the CCR song “Bad Moon Rising” released in 1969.

Often heard was “There’s a bathroom on the right”. The real line is “There’s a bad moon on the rise” which based on the song title, maybe we should have figured that out.

I have several more popular ones and maybe one or two of my own but if I get any tip-offs on your private misheard lyric I may include that one as well. So we will see how many Mondegreen Mondays I can squeeze out.

For more on music you can check out Lines by Leon.

21 thoughts on “Mondegreen Mondays”

  1. While “mondegreen” is a new word to me, I suppose you could say the entire start of my music journey was a mondegreen when it came to lyrics. As an eight-year-old born and growing up in Germany, I didn’t understand one word of English. And yet, I cheerfully sang along for example to Carole King’s “Tapestry,” one of the vinyl records my 6-year older sister has at the time; or I guess I should say, I mondegreened along! 🙂

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  3. Yeah, theres one in particular but I’ll wait and see, how it pans out. I’m not the only one to get it wrong I think. On a lighter note I swear as a wee kid I heard ‘Ding Dong The Bitch Is Dead.’ One of those ‘six year old kid does a double-take and nearly chokes on his popcorn’ moments.

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  4. Ho, Monday Warrior! Great post, lots of fun. On some of those really obvious mis-hearings (or mis-singings?) it’s odd that producers didn’t pick up on them and remedy in the studio. Of course now they can do it more easily. Their brains were probably programmed to hear what they knew the lyrics said.

    For what it’s worth, I used to be pretty convinced Geddy was singing about the start of the traditional work week, too, and I fully support you on this hill.

    And in case you didn’t yet know about it, this long-running site may be of aid in your Monday-green research: https://www.kissthisguy.com

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  5. Great fun post…I wish I would have done it…I had Tom Sawyer ready to post today by Rush…but I put it off for The Beatles instead.
    I think Elton has the most songs with misheard lyrics…him and The Stones.

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  6. I always thought it was ‘Monday Warrior’ too. I’m frequently surprised when we put on one of the TV music stations that throw the lyrics onto the right side of the screen. Sometimes I go ‘OHH! That’s what he’s saying’. Other times I think ‘I like my version better’

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