Top 25 Misheard Lyrics by Nick and Jesse

Morepork (Ninox novaeseelandiae)

When I was googling for an old misheard lyric from my childhood, I found this old list of a top twenty-five misheard lyrics. Merely because the list existed only cached, I thought I should put the list up in full. Moreover, when I did have a look at the cached page, I thought the misheards were funny and interesting enough to be worth blogging.

The list below originally came from two young me (in their picture) who give their names only as “Nick” and “Jesse”.

25) Beyonce – ‘Single Ladies’

• “I’m missing a leg Sue”

24) Green Day – ‘21 Guns’

• “twenty wine gums”

23) UB40 – ‘Please Don’t Make Me Cry’

• “peas on toast”
• (instead of “please don’t go”)

22) Australian Crawl – ‘Boys Light Up’

• “when the boys line up”
• I always heard it that way as a child, along with “I was heading for my Mukden home” at the song’s beginning.
• Mukden is an old Manchu name for the Chinese city of Shěnyáng, and I always knew it made no sense after the line following

21) Robbie Williams – ‘Candy’

• “liberate your sons and daughters the bush is high and in the hole is water”

20) The Corrs – ‘Breathless’

• “make me breakfast”
• Nick and Jesse’s listener’s daughter requested this song every morning

19) Rod Stewart – ‘You’re In My Heart’

• “you’re in my breath, pure alcohol”

18) Red Hot Chilli Peppers – ‘Californication’

• “feel my fanny for an occassion”

17) National Anthem

• “in the bones of love we meat”

16) Adele – ‘Set Fire To The Rain’

• “set fire to Lorraine”

15) George Michael – ‘Faith’

• “Got to have fanta, fanta, fanta”

14) Elton John – ‘Bennie And The Jets’

• “She’s got magic boobs, her mum’s got them too”

13) The Commitments – ‘Mustang Sally’

• “mustard and salad”
• Shelly said a colleague thought “Mustang Sally” was “Mustard and salad”. She was singing it once and I cracked up and had to correct her

 12) The Police – ‘Every Breath You Take’

• “My poo hole aches”
• “When I was little (about five) instead of saying my poor heart aches, I thought it said.... Omg... how embarassing!”

11) Beyonce – ‘Single Ladies’

• “I'm a singlet”

10) One Direction – ‘One Thing’

• “Shout meow to the sky, you’re in my crib tonight. You keep making me reek, yeah frozen in Cadbury”

9) Split Enz – ‘Poor Boy’

• “What more could a morepork do”
• as opposed to “What More Could A Poor Boy Do”

8) Rihanna – ‘Diamonds’

• “She ain’t white like a diamond”

7) Village People – ‘In The Navy’

• “Swing the lady”

6) Sandi Thom – ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker’

• “I wish I was a prawn cracker!”

5) Bob Sinclar – ‘Love Generation’

• “Feed and hug little Asians”

4) Robbie Williams – ‘Angels’

• “I need protection to cover my erection”
• instead of something about love and protection

3) Gin Wigmore – ‘Black Sheep’

• “I’m a trash heap”
• Miss five-year-old not interpreting “I'm a black sheep” correctly?

2) Bruno Mars – ‘Locked Out Of Heaven’

• “Yeah your sex tapes made in paradise”

1) ACDC – ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’

• “Dirty deeds done to sheep”

Although I have no recollections of hearing them as those words given above, the misheard lyrics of ‘Faith’ and ‘In the Navy’ do sound a little like the real thing. The one of ‘Boys Light Up’ has extremely solid memories within my childhood, whilst the one of ‘You’re in My Heart’ (as I have noted earlier actually about Rod Stewart’s love of soccer) can easily be made sense of from the rhythm. I do wonder if anybody who realise the song is about soccer would think soccer is “pure alcohol” and/or that because of low scoring and ties it is dozy or some similar adjective?

Some of the lyrics were listed by Nick and Jesse as “Warning – naughty” – I have chosen to include them minus such notes. The one of ‘Every Breath You Take’ is a little funny and understandable, though everybody should know the proper word “anus” from younger than I did. I often have aches in my bowel due to a diet too heavy in sugar and I tend to accept them, but whether I would have accepted bad anus pains as a child I doubt gravely!