<\/p>\n

Somewhere in a parallel universe lives a Karma Comedian, a Cheerio Girl, and a one-winged dove. Dirty deeds are done by Thunder Chiefs, and Tony Danza holds us closer\u2026so close<\/em>. This is the Land of Misheard Lyrics, and it is a silly, silly place. Yet it is a place we are all familiar with, having suffered varying degrees of humiliation during our visits there.<\/p>\n

For this installment of Only Noise, I reached out to my friends and fellow music journalists to ask: what lyrics have you tragically misheard in the past? And oh, how the gems rolled in. Some misinterpretations were almost universal in their familiarity. Take one colleague\u2019s aural rendering of a Manfred Mann mega hit: \u201cThe best one has to be \u2018wrapped up like a douche,\u2019” she said. \u201cI thought those were the lyrics to ‘Blinded By The Light’ for half my life.\u201d I\u2019m still convinced that\u2019s what he\u2019s saying, personally. In fact, if you played that song through text dictation, I bet five dollars the \u201cdouche\u201d version would end up on your phone.<\/p>\n

Some misinterpretations directly correlated to the age of the listener. For instance, a friend of mine admitted: \u201cI used to think, as a child, that Prince’s \u2018I Would Die 4 U’ was \u2018Apple Dapple Do.\u2019\u201d Another pal misheard ABBA during \u201cTake a Chance on Me.\u201d \u201cI used to think, when I was a kid, that the lyric \u2018Honey I\u2019m still free\u2019 was \u2018Olly oxen free.\u2019\u201d And perhaps my favorite instance of pop-music-through-the-ears-of-a-child: Madonna\u2019s chart topping smash hit about a balanced breakfast: \u201cCheerio Girl.\u201d Madonna wasn\u2019t wrong (she rarely is) when she sang, \u201cWe are living in a Cheerio world\/and I am a Cheerio girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar such nonsense insisted that Steve Miller was not in fact singing \u201cOh, Oh big ol\u2019 jet airliner\u201d in \u201cJet Airliner,\u201d but rather, “Bingo Jed had a lina,” whatever the hell that <\/em>means. Who is this \u201cBingo Jed\u201d anyhow? Some kind of gambling tycoon at the local retirement home? And what in God\u2019s name is a lina<\/em>? Only parallel universe Steve Miller can tell us.<\/p>\n

The Land of Misheard Lyrics can be goofy, for sure, but it is also a realm of longing, proven by groups such as TLC, who once pleaded, \u201cDon\u2019t go, Jason Waterfalls!\u201d And we must never forget the picturesque isolation painted by Stevie Nicks when she sang, \u201cJust like the one-winged dove\/Sings a song\/Sounds like she\u2019s singing\/Ooo, ooo, ooo.\u201d Those \u201cOoos\u201d were merely the painful cries of a newly one-winged bird. Now she\u2019ll have to apply for bird disability, and I don\u2019t even know if that\u2019s a thing.<\/p>\n

If sad and silly are high rollers in the Land of Misheard Lyrics, then absurdity is king. Remember when Mick Jagger swore he\u2019d never be \u201cYour pizza burnin\u2019,\u201d or when \u201890s dance sensation Eiffel 65 confessed: \u201cI\u2019m blue and I beat up a guy\u201d? Me too. Or what about the time all those \u201cDirty Deeds\u201d were done by \u201cThe Thunder Chief\u201d? Or how \u2018bout that darn Karma Comedian, who was perpetually coming and going, for six choruses and a bridge? Ugh. Comedians<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just the PG side of things. Some folks heard lyrics that Freud would have a grand old time picking apart. Take Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds\u2019 love ballad, \u201cSweetheart Come,\u201d which a fellow music writer heard as, \u201cSweet Hot Cum.\u201d To be fair, I don\u2019t blame her for thinking that. I mean, have you ever listened to the lyrics of \u201cStagger Lee\u201d? Pervy-ness abounds in the Land of Misheard Lyrics, where Ziggy Stardust can be found \u201cMaking love to an eagle,\u201d and Sir Mix-a-Lot likes \u201cBig butts in the candlelight.\u201d Not fluorescent. Not incandescent. Specifically, only <\/em>in candlelight. To Sir Mix-a-Lot\u2019s nonexistent point, candles are<\/em> the sexiest light source.<\/p>\n

My personal best example of misinterpreted lyrics occurred at age 10, upon the release of \u201cJumpin\u2019 Jumpin\u2019\u201d by Destiny\u2019s Child. \u201cLadies leave your man at home,\u201d Beyonc\u00e9 and the other three sang, \u201cthe club is full of ballers and their COCK is full grown.\u201d Say huh? How did this get past the FCC? I wondered. Did my mom, from whose car and therefore radio we were listening to such filth hear what I heard? Furthermore, if the club was full of ballers, and \u201ctheir\u201d cock was full grown, did that mean that these ballers possessed one, collective cock? The peoples\u2019 cock? I needed answers. All I knew was one thing: you can\u2019t say \u201ccock\u201d on the radio! Or could you? Was this profanity Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s fault? Or the DJ\u2019s for not bleeping out the \u201ccock\u201d word? Or was it as the great Jimmy Buffett once sang: \u201cSome people claim that there\u2019s a walnut to blame\u201d? We may never know.<\/p>\n