Misheard Lyrics for non-Eagles songs

[NOLA]

One of my all-time favorite songs, "Let Her Cry," by Hootie and the Blowfish:

What I heard:

"She said there's the one I love the most, this life's not far behind."

What it really is:

"She says Dad's the one I love the most, but Stipe's not far behind."

(The band was good friends with REM at the time, so it was their nod to Michael Stipe.)

Boy, was I way off the mark!

[secret squirrel]

I've got another one.

Al Stewart - Year of the Cat

which incidentally has possibly the best first lines of a song ever:

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came

I had all these right but later on I was happily singing:

To the rhythm of the new Fonteyn

Ok - I know it doesn't make much sense but I thought it was some allusion I didn't quite get. The words are actually much more prosaic.

In the rhythm of the new-born day

SS
xx
http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2014...-casanova.html

[NightMistBlue]

I had all these right but later on I was happily singing:

To the rhythm of the new Fonteyn

Ok - I know it doesn't make much sense but I thought it was some allusion I didn't quite get. The words are actually much more prosaic.

In the rhythm of the new-born day

SS
xx
http://sshh-sshh.blogspot.co.uk/2014...-casanova.html

I like our version better (I've also always thought it was "the new Fonteyn," though I didn't think about how to spell it). His enunciation sounds nothing like "of the new-born day."

[FWIW]

I love when old threads are revived! As a newer member, there is still so much material that I haven't read. It's great when it's easy to catch up.

Some nonsensical lyrics that a friend heard in "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd.

She was certain they were singing "No ducks of hazard in the crossroads." instead of "No dark sarcasm in the classroom." I still remember those misheard lyrics over 35 years later.

[Freypower]

I like our version better (I've also always thought it was "the new Fonteyn," though I didn't think about how to spell it). His enunciation sounds nothing like "of the new-born day."

Here is another person who thinks it's 'the new Fonteyn' - prima ballerina assoluta Dame Margot Fonteyn, who was one of my childhood heroines. I've never heard it as anything else. The rhythm of a dancer.

[LuvTim]

Here is another person who thinks it's 'the new Fonteyn' - prima ballerina assoluta Dame Margot Fonteyn, who was one of my childhood heroines. I've never heard it as anything else. The rhythm of a dancer.

SS, I just have to jump in on this one, because I, too, have always heard it as "the new Fonteyn," and, just like FP, I felt like it made perfect sense, as this ethereal figure of whom he's singing would understandably move with the grace of a dancer. I always just presumed this to be a reference to Margot Fonteyn, so much so that I've never even looked at the lyrics. Huh.
With all due respect to the writer, I'm with NMB, I like our way better.

[NightMistBlue]

I'm not as cultured as ya'll, I didn't know there was a prima ballerina by that name. It just sounded like he was saying "Fontaine" but I never stopped to wonder what it meant or how it was spelled Appalling lack of curiosity.

For years, I thought the first line of the Bee Gees' "Run To Me" was "if ever you got brain in your heart," - I still think that's what it sounds like. I took it to mean: be wise in your emotional decisions, that kind of thing. But it's actually "if ever you got rain in your heart." It's such a pretty metaphor, I borrowed it for one of my own songs.

[NOLA]

Another fave song, "Tangled Up in Blue," by the great Bobby D.:

What I thought I heard:

"Splitting up on the docks at night"
"Where I was lucky enough to be employed"

What the lyrics really are:

"Split it up on a dark sad night"
"Where I happened to be employed"

But, given the fact that Dylan often mumbles his lyrics while singing in his signature nasal tone, it's no big surprise I misheard them.

[Jonny Come Lately]

NOLA, I used to think it was 'docks' in Tangled Up In Blue too, until quite recently in fact! The thing is that our incorrect version does make lyrical sense - indeed the line after the employment lyric is 'working for a while on a fishing boat outside Delacroix', so it wouldn't be the only water reference in the song, while in the very next song, Simple Twist of Fate, we have the guy who 'hunts her down by the waterfront docks'.

One lyric that I used to get wrong from the album which I have no excuse for (because it makes no sense) is that in Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts I really did think for a while that he sang 'Rosemary combed her hair and took a cabbage into town'! Blood on the Tracks is one of my all-time favourite albums, absolutely top-notch songwriting across the board whether on the more emotionally direct songs like Idiot Wind and If You See Her Say Hello or the more enigmatic ones like Shelter From The Storm.

With Bob Dylan, I think it's the combination of nasal voice (which I personally like - it's a perfect fit for many of his songs, particularly the dry/bitter/sarcastic ones) and the fact that he uses images and words that relatively few other artists would think to use means it's easy to mishear his lyrics. I think you can sometimes hear him sing something that isn't right but whereas it would normally sound 'wrong', you do wonder if these lyrics are correct especially once you take his vocals into account.

[Freypower]

Another fave song, "Tangled Up in Blue," by the great Bobby D.:

What I thought I heard:

"Splitting up on the docks at night"
"Where I was lucky enough to be employed"

What the lyrics really are:

"Split it up on a dark sad night"
"Where I happened to be employed"

But, given the fact that Dylan often mumbles his lyrics while singing in his signature nasal tone, it's no big surprise I misheard them.

I never head anything but 'split up on the docks at night' and 'was lucky just to be employed' or 'what luck it was to be employed'. The first line can be contested, but no matter what the printed lyrics say, he does not sing the word 'happened' at all.