We are approaching Mondegreen season. Do you have a mondegreen?
The best thing about mondegreens is that we generally cannot tell if we ourselves are afflicted -- that's the fun of it.
A mondegreen occurs when we hear a poem or a song, and misunderstand the lyrics. We can go for years happily singing our own words, never realizing that they are not 'correct'. The word 'mondegreen' itself was coined by a woman who suddenly realized that she had been singing a song incorrectly since she was a child. Her version sounds plausible:
Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
They hae slay the Earl of Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.
But actually the last line was supposed to be:
And laid him on the green.
In church circles, one of the most famous mondegreens came from the child whose favorite hymn was: "Gladly the cross-eyed bear". The rest of us know this better as: "Gladly, the Cross I'd bear".
Other favorites are heard in the Lord's Prayer, which occasionally pleads "lead us not into Penn Station"
Christmas Carols always have great mondegreen possibilities. After all, we usually sing them first as a child, we are more likely to hear then first rather than reading the words, and they are only performed seasonally.
This may actually explain why Good King Wenceslas is so unpopular. I wouldn't like him either if I thought that
"Good King Wences' car backed out
On the feet of heathens"
I mentioned mondegreens to my boss, and he immediately contributed one from his wife. They attend a seasonal event where the Morris dancers sing 'Lord of the Dance'. She was looking forward to it, and mentioned that she really liked the dancing tree song. Apparently it took them a while to figure out that they were singing:
"I am the Lord of the Dance, said He"
but she was hearing:
"I am the Lord of the dancing tree".
There is a wonderful collection of Christmas mondegreens you can look up, if you are interested.
But the most fun will be if you submit comments with your own mondegreens.
5 comments:
There are a whole bunch of mondegreens, simply referred to as "misheard song lyrics" (and not necessarily from Christmas songs) at
http://www.amiright.com/misheard/
I think my favorite is "There's a bathroom on the right" from the lyrics "There's a bad moon on the rise" in Creedence Clearwater's "Bad Moon Rising." I recall as a kid trying to figure out the words "Sont les mot qui vont trés bien ensemble, trés bien ensemble" in "Michelle" by the Beatles. Not knowing any French at the time or even realizing the words weren't in English, the best I could figure out was: "Some say monkey goin' play piano, some play piano, some."
I misheard the French words for jingle bells, and instead of singing about colorful clothes and white noses (blanche nez), I thought it was blancmange (since I had never heard that word spoken, but only read it in Little women, and didn't know that the 'c' was silent). So in effect I was singing about colorful clothes and custard pudding, which fit rather well, I thought.
ok when i was a kid i thought the words in the Lords prayer. lead us not into temptation was "Lead a SNOT into temptation!!!Imagine my surprise when i could finally read!!
Oh and the song by the bee gees, more than a woman i thought they sung bald headed woman!!!
Sue, when I was 3, I had a friend who used to pick his nose a lot, for whom your version of the Lord's Prayer would have been totally appropriate.
here is a monde-thing from a song written by William Michael Albert Broad (aka Billy Idol), it is from the song "Eyes Without a Face" (1983). The whole song makes little sense anyway. Since most of the song is performed in English, I guess I wasn't expecting a lyric sung in a different language which probably fueled my misinterpretation:
Les yeux sans visage eyes without a face
A female vocalist sings the part in italics in the background, and Billy Idol sings the lyrics in bold.
I thought the French part was something like 'Less you sands (something)--'.
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