Let's Hear it for the Mondegreens #MusicMovesMe

It's Monday and it's time for music!

Let's introduce the Music Moves me bloggers:  We blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please! Otherwise, your post may be removed, or may  be labeled "No Music".)   Our head host is Xmas Dolly, and our co-hosts are Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and, last but not least, me.

Every other week, we have a theme.  On alternate weeks, we can blog on any music theme we want.  Today is a theme week, and it was chosen by lil' old me.  

Today's theme is:  “Misheard Song Lyrics”.  For instance, a song lyric you’ve misheard or is commonly misheard  i.e. Credence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising (“there’s a bathroom on the right”) .  Let’s keep it family friendly, folks!

Did you know that misheard lyrics have an interesting name.   Mondegreens:  "a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of a song"?  The origin of this expression apparently was from an article written by a woman, Sylvia Wright , who misheard a lyric of an old Scottish ballard "The Bonnie Earl of Moray".  She wrote about this in a 1954 article in Harper's Magazine.  (If you are a subscriber, you can download a PDF of the article).

Here is the lyric she misheard:

Ye Hielan's an' ye Lowlan's
O, where have ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Moray
And lain him on the green... [Ms. Wright misheard this sentence as "and Lady Mondegreen"]
(the full lyrics can be found here).

I like the Lady Mondegreen version.  Poor lady!

The rock music songbook has lots of misheard lyrics.  Shall we explore some? (incidentally, it is too bad I asked that we keep it clean, because there are some hysterical misheard lyrics that....aren't.)

Let's start with a misheard lyric, from Elton John's 1971 early hit  Tiny Dancer. 

No John isn't singing "hold me closer, Tony Danza".  Tony Danza is 72 now but I bet many women would still like to be held close by him.  But moving on....

Next up, the Rolling Stones, not singing "I'll never leave your pizza burning".

Correct lyric from "Beast of Burden":  "I'll never be your beast of burden".  Know what?  I'd rather have the singer safeguard my pizza than be my beast of burden.

Next, one of my favorite ABBA songs, Dancing Queen, in which they do not sing "See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen".

Is this a song about mistreating dancers?  No, the lyric is really "See that girl watch that scene, digging the dancing queen."  Now that's better!

Do "My friends in Iowa crack the corn?"

Not really.  Here's Lorde's hit song "Royals" and the real line "My friends and I, we've cracked the code."

Let's try the lyric "I've recovered from your love of cake." 

No, in the song Take on Me from A-Ha, it's  "I'll be coming for your love, OK".  Funny thing is, I've misheard this same line as having something to do with cake but not exactly the same way.

One more.  In this song, Genesis is not singing "She sees the hat, I'm busy don't touch it".

So here's Genesis and  Invisible Touch, where she "seems to have an invisible touch". No hats were touched during this song.

And that's a misheard wrap!

Join me again next Sunday (Sunday, not Monday) for another episode of Music Moves Me.  As a reminder, during the month of April, some of my music posts may be on Sunday because of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, but I'll still be around either way.