Mondegreens (1954-) - Midunderstood or Misheard Lyrics to Songs

[DonRocks]

Everyone knows about "'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy" in Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze," but very few people know what this type of mistake is called. 

Believe it or not, it's called a "Mondegreen," and was coined in 1954 by American Writer Sylvia Wright, when she misunderstood the lyrics to the medieval Scottish Ballad, "The Bonnie Earl o' Moray."

This is where it gets really funny. Quoting from Wikipedia:

---

In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl o' Moray". She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl o' Moray,

And Lady Mondegreen.^[3]

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green." Wright explained the need for a new term:

"The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original."^[3]

Her essay had already described the bonny Earl holding the beautiful Lady Mondegreen's hand, both bleeding profusely but faithful unto death. She disputed:

"I know, but I won't give in to it. Leaving him to die all alone without even anyone to hold his hand—I WON'T HAVE IT!!!"^[3]

There's something wonderfully Wollstonecraftian about Wright's romantically defiant refusal to accept the actual line as The Actual Line, and I don't blame her a bit - her interpretation is better!

[MC Horoscope]

John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival had some funny pronunciations. I swore he sang Swedish a Hiker (WTF?) when he meant Sweet Hitchhiker.

Then there's this: "There's the bathroom on the right." (There's a bad moon on the rise).

[Al Dente]

The girl with colitis goes by.

[DannyNoonan]

Bingo jet had a light on.

[DonRocks]

Yesterday afternoon, I experienced what is perhaps the ultimate Mondegreen.

My mind was jumping from subject to subject, and somehow I found myself thinking about Elvis Presley - specifically, "Hound Dog" (which, incidentally, is nothing more than a cover version of the song originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton in 1952).

Anyway, I watched a video of it, and walked away from my computer. I had first heard Presley's "Hound Dog" at least 50-years ago, probably closer to 55-years ago (I had older siblings) - essentially, it has been with me for my entire life.

And then, I thought to myself, "What exactly does 'crocking' mean, anyway?" I realized that, despite having heard this song probably 1,000 times in my life, I had no idea what it meant for a hound dog to be "crockin' all the time."

Well, I went back to the computer, and did a search on it, and to my horror, I had gotten the words wrong for my entire life - over half a century! I was so certain that the lyrics were "crockin' all the time" that I never once considered that they weren't, and I'd always passively assumed that "crockin'" was some obsolete term for "complaining."

If anyone can top this story, please do, because I sure as hell can't.

[DonRocks]

Marshall Tucker Band, "Heard It in a Love Song" - my entire life, I thought it was, "I was born a wrangler and a rafter and I guess I always will."

Ten-minutes ago, I said to myself, "What the hell is a 'rafter?'"