Parse and Brown

You have all misheard lyrics before I am sure. You sing it one way for a long time and then one day you see the lyrics written down, or a friends laughs at you and tells you what they really are.

In my case, even when I find out the real lyrics, I tend to sing the ones I made up anyway. Back when I was in high school, Alanis Morisette came out with a new CD. I bought it and stuck it in my CD player on the way home. A song came on and I laughed as I listened to her sing, You live, you nerd, you love, you nerd, you cry, you nerd, you loo-oose, you nerd... Yep, so I figured out very quickly that the actual lyric was LEARN, since the person next to me in the car pulled out the words, but it sure was funny at the time, and everytime it comes on the radio, I still sing 'nerd.'

Christmas time brings one of my favorite lyric blunders. When I was little I sang along to all the songs whether I understood them or not. In the song Winter Wonderland, I always wondered about the toasty snowman, since it says, In the meadow we can build a snowman. Then pretend that he is parse and brown. I always imagined a toasted marshmallow snowman, since I didn't really know what 'parse' meant. Something like this, but not so creepy.

I still sing the song incorrectly, but I don't think anyone can tell.

Happily, my children are following in my footsteps. I listened to Ivory sing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' the other day. She sang the line, Good tidings we bring, to you and your king. I tried to tell her the line was 'kin' and what it meant, so she changed it to 'kid.' But she eventually went back to her original lyric because she liked 'king' more. And who am I to tell her differently.

I remember another one that makes me laugh. There is a song called 'Lucille' by Kenny Rogers. Tyler would sing me the chorus sometimes. Then one day I heard it on the radio and turned it up because I recognized it. This is what I heard, You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, With four hundred children and a crop in the field. I knew it couldn't be 400 children, so I came home and told Tyler and he laughed while he told me it was 'hungry' children. Yeah, that makes WAY more sense.

You are welcome to leave a comment with some of your favorite mistaken lyrics. I'll leave you with a few I found on the internet.

Beach Boys "Fun Fun Fun" / "We'll have fun fun fun till her daddy takes the tuba away"

Madonna "La Isla Bonita" / "Last night, I spent all my pesos." 

Bon Jovi "You Give Love A Bad Name" / "You give love a brand name"

Abba "Chiquitita" / "Take your teeth out, tell me what's wrong"

K D Lang "Constant Craving" / "God save gravy"

Til Tuesday "Voices Carry" / "Bush is scary"

Elvis Presley "Return to Sender" / "Big Bird descender"

Beach Boys "California Girls" / "I dig a french bikini on a wild albatross" 


Ace of Base "All That She Wants" / "All that she wants is another bagel" 


Kim Carnes "Bette Davis Eyes" / "She's got 30 days to die" 

And we'll end with this classic.

Merrilee Rush "Angel of the Morning" / "Just cross my feet before you leave me"

Merrilee Rush "Angel of the Morning" / "Just smash my jeep before you leave me"

Merrilee Rush "Angel of the Morning" / "Just brush my teeth before you leave me"

Merrilee Rush "Angel in the Morning" / "Just cash my check before you leave me"

If you want to check out many others, go here.

Happy mis-singing.