Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
(I am adding this parenthetical note after the fact: see my post about mondegreens—the official name for misheard song lyrics—which apparently are not eggcorns).
I wonder if any eggcorns are ever begotten of mis-heard song lyrics.
I’ll list a few here, and others can string along with their own posts.
Personally, I’m not sure this effort is going to turn up anything that
is relevant to eggcorns, so take it for what it’s worth: amusement.
Even so, I think the four below are real gems.
From the website: http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=4047324
That somehow reminded me—okay, this is a misheard lyric, screw it—of the argument I got into with my then-gf in which I insisted, adamantly, bewildered that anyone could possibly think otherwise, that the Sting lyric was “I’m an idiot, I’m a little idiot, I’m an Englishman in New York,” because how could it be anything else? —Tep (te…), November 27th, 2003.
my sister thought the lyrics to ‘islands in the stream’ ny d.parton & k.rogers were really ‘highlands industries’
diddy —sazabob (scamp…), December 3rd, 2003.
I used to think the song ‘Return to Sender’ was ‘Return to Cinder’ and that Elvis was making the profound fatalistic comment that, although his baby won’t reply to his letters, we come from dust and shall return to dust, so what the hell difference did it make? —Jerry the Nipper (jerrythenippe…), December 4th, 2003.
When I was around 4 or 5 years old, i thought the Billy Joel song “For the Longest Time” was actually a monologue being delivered by a confessor to “Father Longenstein.”
“I haven’t been there, Father Longenstein.” —Tripmaker (tripmaker…), January 25th, 2006.
Last edited by jorkel (2006-09-23 09:14:59)
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They aren’t really eggcorns. Our household favourite is:
The hot dogs go on
(The heart does go on—from Celine Dion’s song). I cannot hear it on the radio without hearing the wrong words.
And while it’s not a song lyric:
...and to the republic, for Richard Stands.
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Funny that – I was thinking the same thing about misheard lyrics being, at the very least, close cousins of eggcorns. I do hope that eggcorn elitism and pedantry don’t become too firmly entrenched – I don’t even care if an amusing or enchanting example fails to meet the examiners’ criteria. I want to see it anyway.
Telly Savalas sang a song once with the line ‘If a man with only half an eye could see right half through you’ and my ear was utterly unable to pluck the ‘real’ words from the sounds he made. I confess I don’t really want it to.
And my daughter as a toddler insisted that the Cat Stevens line ‘First cut is the deepest’ was really ‘First come is settee-bugs’. More please.
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Misheard song lyrics are not eggcorns, but mondegreens.
See, for example:
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By the way, my own experience with a mondegreen was the Blues Brother’s 1979 version of “Soul Man” (originally by Sam and Dave in 1967). I thought the refrain was “I was SO MAD.” This misheard lyric really captured my imagination since it lent an emotional, storytelling feel to the song—and I envisioned each stanza to be part of a long, woeful saga. I was so utterly disappointed when I found out the real refrain was “I’m a soul man”. (All apologies to those who like the song just the way it is, but I was SOOO MAAAAD!)
Last edited by jorkel (2006-10-01 18:43:54)
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I heard an interview with the Dixie Chicks, where Martie Maguire said she had been singing the lyrics to “The long way around” on their latest album with the line “I opened my mouth and I hurt myself” instead of “I opened my mouth and I heard myself”.
Martie is listed as one of the four composers of the song. She said she was a bit surprised when she found out the real words the singer Natalie wrote. Martie thought her words made sense. Natalie replied, “What do you think I am—a cutter?”
Please see http://p069.ezboard.com/fthedixiechicks … 1057.topic for more details.
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My mondegreen: When I was a kid, I was sure that “Angel of the Morning” went like this:
Just call me angel of the morning, angel,
Just brush your teeth before you leave me. . .
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My younger brother had a great mondegreen when he was little.
Rod Stewart’s song “Passion” has the refrain:
“Somebody somewhere
In the heat of the night
Looking pretty dangerous
Running out of patience”
My brother heard it as,
“Somebody somewhere
In the heat of the night
Looking for his underwear
Running out of places.”
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One famous one is from “Bad Moon Rising”—don’t know where I heard it, but “There’s a bad moon on the rise” was misheard as “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
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I’m very fond of the verse in ‘Away in a Manger’ which for many young children goes:
I love Thee, Lord JesusMakes a lot more sense if you’ve never heard of ‘nigh’.
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Can’t stand gravy. Intead of Contant Craving by K.D Lang.
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My mother has one of the best misheard lyrics I’ve come across:
“Oh, big ‘ol Chad and Lionel, don’t carry me too far away”
instead of:
“Oh, big ol’ jet airliner, don’t carry me too far away”
from Jet Airliner by Steve Miller
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Mondegreen fans might be interested to know that there are a number of websites that specialize in collecting mondegreens. I’ve provided a few addresses below. “Kissthisguy.com”—named after a particularly famous mondegreen from a Jimi Hendrix song—seems to be the largest. There’s also a lively “misheard lyrics” page over at “amiright.com.” And for many years, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll ran occasional columns on mondegreens; a collection of his mondegreen columns can be found at the last address offered below.
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I’ve mentioned these elsewhere on this site, but my two favorite mondegreens are probably “The ants are my friends, they’re blowin’ in the wind†(Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”) and “I see a Renoir and I want to paint it black†(The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black.”)
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When I was a kid “the Man from Laramie” was a huge hit. One line had “danger was this man’s Specialty”
I didn’t know what it was, but for years I wanted a Special T too.
My daughter came home from one of her first assemblies in Thornton Hough church singing
“give me joy in my heart keep me crazy” then praying “our father in charge of heaven”- very logical
Last edited by bart (2006-10-08 07:10:45)
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I mishear song lyrics in an eggcorny way all the time and I always have an airtight, reasonable, context-sensitive and illustrative explanation for them in my mind.
My favourite is from the Elliott Smith song King’s Crossing. Before I got a chance to see it written down, I always heard the lyric:
Open your parachute and grab your gun, float down like an omen, a setting sun.
as…
Open your parachute and grab your gun, flowing down like an omlette, a setting sun.
...which I thought was extremely beautiful, and clever for the following three reasons:
First for the comparison of a vividly yellow, runny, wobbly omlette, to a waving, shimmering setting sun.
Second because it’s a song about doing heroin and the sense of release and melting into total relaxation that the drug creates is pretty well captured by the image of cracking a runny egg.
Third, because I thought it was also probably a reference to those old anti-drugs adverts, where they cooked and destroyed eggs in various ways to represent the effect on your brain of different substances.
Even though I know the correct lyrics now, I still sing my version in my head!
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Terry Wogan (an antique BBC radio DJ) always reckoned that Abba sang “When I called you last night from Tesco” rather than “When I called you last night from Glasgow”.
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