h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I made the same mistake your mother made, Orcus. In the '80s, I worked with a woman called Miss Bell (known as ding dong bell by an really annoying customer.)She and I were sitting waiting for a computer (I did say this was the '80s) and she was singing that Billy Ocean song under his breath. I turned to her and said "Well, there's no need to take that tone! I'll let you go first on the computer"
She asked what I meant, and I charged her with having been singing
"Oh, go and get stuffed, go on, get going" so she could have the machine to herself.

Does mis-understood count?

In Blue Jay Way, which I've heard a million times, there is the opening line: There's a fog upon L. A. / And my friends have lost their way / We'll be over soon they said / now they've lost themselves instead. Until about 2 days ago, while singing it in my head, I always thought that the freinds were dead (we'll be over soon; we'll be terminated soon) and the next line, corus and, to be frank, the entire song made no sense!

Or there is that Guns'n'Roses classic where they want you to:
'Take me down to paradise City where the girls are green and the grass is pretty'

Not mis-heard, or misunderstood, it just gets mixed up in my brain and pops out of my memory that way

Wasn't that place in a Star Trek episode once?

Was reminded of one at the weekend ...

Take That singing Back for Good - is it just me or does "a fist up your emotion" sound a little painful?

For years I thought the Beach Boys were asking us to
'Bob bob bob, bob bob around' instead of singing about Barbara-Ann

I also thought Kenny Rogers had Four Hundred children and a crop in the field when he spoke to Lucille.

you mean he didn't????

No, he had 400 children and a crap in the field.

Can you imagine the queue for the bathroom in that house?

Another Queen one from me I'm afraid.... One Vision... I could have sworn they were singing "Fried Chicken"

Freddie did indeed sing "fried chicken" at the end of One Vision

Actually, they are. It's right at the end. Freddie sings something like 'Give me an arm. Give me a leg. Give me ... Fried Chicken'. I think it's Queen fooling around. They had to put up with 'Spare him his life for his pork sausages' (Bohemian Rhapsody), so they thought they'd have a bit of fun.

And even after being told what Madonna is singing in 'La Isla Bonita', I'm still mis-hearing it. It now sounds like 'Young girls with eyes like pesetas'.

I went around singing 'La Isla Bonita' *all* *day* Saturday after reading this hilarious thread! (My son was unwrapt as I went through the supermarket groaning loudly about "young girls with eyes like potatoes..."

There's also the other Madonna song which appears to be a love song to a famous TV comedian and ornithologist...

"Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, put your hands all over my body..."

"Shout" by Tears for Fears.

There's a line that starts, "And when you've taken down your guard..."

It sounded better to me when I thought they were singing "And when you take a dump, you're God!"

My son's mishearings are mostly quite surreal, and he stands by them vociferously: the Queen song '39' (one of my all time favourites says "In the year of 39, came the ship in from the blue.." (I think!), but Jimmy heard it as
"In the year of 39, came the shift in from the gloom"

Heard another one this morning - Shania Twaine has a song about how women like to be treated and it sounds like keeps saying 'if you wanna touch her ass' on one of her tracks when on reflection I suppose she meant if you want to touch her, ask.

One that's always puzzled me:

On the fade-out to Summer of '69, one of the last things you hear Bryan Adams sing, quite distinctly, is "Me and my baby in a 69"

Surely he was too innocent for that?

B

Used to think that Madonna's hit single Papa Don't Preach was actually 'Poppadum Street'.

And it does sound like it. It does I tell you.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who, as a youngster, kept hearing a piece of music called the 'London Derriere'.