Monday, March 22, 2010

Mis-sung lyrics.

My 3 year old son may watch too much TV or maybe just has an exceptional ability to remember songs from kids shows. (I'm going with option B)  Lately he's been been singing the "Bob the Builder" and "Thomas" title songs... non-stop.  Its pretty cute really!  The cutest part is he mixes up the lyrics because he mis-hears them or doesn't know what word they are trying to use.   In the Thomas song, which is playing in my head on a continuous loop, the lyrics go "... shunting trucks and hauling freight.."  he cheerfully sings "... shutting trucks and falling freight...".  Explaining to him the real lyrics does not help since he is a stubborn boy, like his mother, and is confident that is the way it should be sang.  

He comes by these lyric confusions honestly.  I am famous for them.  When I was in elementary school we were taught Oh Canada.  I proudly came home from school and sang earnestly about "true pastry love" when the lyrics actually go "true patriot love".  Maybe I'm just patriotic for pastry.  Although I was only 6 or 7 yrs old at the time, I have yet to live this down.  My father still reminds me of this more than 20 years later. (oh man, I'm getting old!)

I'd like to say that once I got older I got better with song lyrics, but this just isn't the case.  Fast forward 15 or more years and I'm singing along with the Gypsy Kings while driving with my boyfriend of a couple months.  He looks at me and asks what I'm singing with a look of confusion.  Puzzled, I reply that I'm singing " The millennium... "... uh he says the song is called "Bamboleo" and its sung in Spanish.  Are you sure, I say, doubting his knowledge of the CD that he owns.  He gives me the "you're crazy" look.  I try to listen more carefully, but to me they are still singing about the millennium and then switching into spanish... of course since I don't speak Spanish "millennium" could be the same in both languages.  In order to not make a further fool of myself I switch to singing along under my breath.  Happily, my mishearing lyrics must've been an endearing trait since we have now been married for 7-1/2 years.

There are countless songs which are commonly misheard.  I've seen the funny emails circulated and here is a website with the top 100 misheard lyrics.  

Which lyrics have you misheard and/or mis-sung?? 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Shan, love today's blog...

    I've heard the following CCR song mis-sung: "There's A Bad Moon On The Rise" to be "There's a bathroom on the right". And of course, poor Jimi being misquoted as "...while I kiss this guy" instead of "...while I kiss the sky". Sorry Hendrix, people who are high can not discern what you are trying to say, but they love you anyway.

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