A Bit Mixed Up

Have you ever been singing along to a song in front of your friends when you learn that the lyrics you thought you knew weren’t quite right?

I can remember in high school singing along to Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby” and when she says, “Baby Baby, I’m taken with the notion to love you with the sweetest of devotion”  I instead belted out “love you with the  sweetest talk of ocean.”  My friend looked at me and laughed and asked what I just sang.  “Sweetest talk of ocean” I replied, “Why?”  It never occurred to me that it didn’t make any sense.  To this day when I hear the song it is hard for me to hear anything but “Sweetest talk of ocean”  

Another high school lyric gone bad was Better Than Ezra’s “Good”  I can remember belting out “It was good livin’ with you warthog” in front of some of my youth group friends instead of “It was good livin’ with you (wahow).”  I even remember asking why they are singing about living with warthogs.   This of course was met with much laughing at my expense (as was much of my high school experience, but that is another point for anther time).

I think it is funny how I would just sing what I thought I heard never even considering how little sense it made or that perhaps I heard incorrectly.  It also troubles me that I would sing in public so often as I do not have a good singing voice. 

Recently Scott was singing Jingle Bells with the kids and had an epiphany as he sang one of the lines.  He always wondered what a “sopen sleigh” ways, assuming it was a certain type of sleigh used in sleigh riding.  It wasn’t until this January that he realized it was a one horse open sleigh.

The last misheard lyric I will share with you is another recent one.  I had given the kids a Go Fish CD for Christmas and as I was jammin to the Mom song I thought one of the lines was kind of odd.  While praising mothers, the song says,

“You’re the boss, the driver, The ultimate survivor    A doctor, a cooker  Your man thinks you’re a looker”

Only I heard, "“your man thinks your a hooker”

At first I just went with it.  I even repeated the line to Scott to which he just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Well I wouldn’t put it exactly that way, but…”

But then I got to thinking,  “I hope my son doesn’t ask me to explain what a hooker is.”   Which made me take pause and listen again as this was a CD by a Christian band targeted to preschoolers.  Surely they don’t want little kids singing about their moms being hookers. I was so relieved when I listened again a few days later and heard it correctly.  I think I even wrote as my face book status that night “Crystal is laughing at herself”

What about you?  Have any misheard lyrics you’d like to share in the comments below?  They are often good for a giggle or two.  When checking the correct lyrics for one of the mentioned songs I stumbled across a site entirely devoted to misheard lyrics.  A few had me laughing out loud.  I’d love to hear yours.