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Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy: The Science of Misheard Song Lyrics

69 points| benbreen | 11 years ago |newyorker.com | reply

54 comments

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[+] caseysoftware|11 years ago|reply
At Clarify.io we're working in the automatic speech recognition space and the stuff the systems come up with are hilarious. There are so many sets of syllables that make sense different ways. It's amazing that it doesn't happen to humans even more.
[+] kaybe|11 years ago|reply
You should make a blog post about that.
[+] stevenspasbo|11 years ago|reply
Jimi actually replaced the actual lyrics with that a few times, one of which can be heard on the Jimi Hendrix Experience Box Set. Spotify link: spotify:track:5YxfZTUX7sZ5JyYvEsesxB
[+] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
Was going to say that this was perhaps a bad example. Many song writers make deliberate use of homophones.
[+] mpthrapp|11 years ago|reply
I've always liked "Wrapped up like a douche" (Revved up like a deuce) in Blinded by the Light.
[+] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
I always heard it as "ripped off like a douche," which sounded very indecent, even though it makes no sense at all. Yes, "Blinded by the Light" as performed by Manfred Mann's Earth Band is my all-time longest-misheard song. I finally looked up the lyrics. "Revved up like a deuce" doesn't mean anything to me, which is why I never heard the song that way, but now at least I know what the songwriter (Bruce Springsteen) intended.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_by_the_Light

[+] werdnapk|11 years ago|reply
Here's a skit from an old Canadian comedy show about this song (apologies for the quality, but the original aired sometime in the early 90's I believe).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9_3nQFNy-w

Mark McKinney's (from Kids in the Hall) younger brother was part of this group. Every time I hear that song, I remember this skit.

[+] grubles|11 years ago|reply
"Wrapped up like a douche. Another boner in the night."
[+] dghughes|11 years ago|reply
Yeah that one always throws me and I always forget to look up what it's supposed to be and then when I hear it again I forget, repeat.

By the way I will forget this comment too.

[+] michaelchisari|11 years ago|reply
I still can't hear "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift without hearing "Starbucks lovers" instead of "list of ex-lovers".
[+] sreyaNotfilc|11 years ago|reply
I just listened to this song on Youtube. Never heard it before, so I tried listening very carefully. I still cannot make out "list of ex-lovers". So strange that I cannot make out the correct phrase even after listening to that part over and over again.
[+] auganov|11 years ago|reply
Oh no :-( Was always wondering what "Starbucks lovers" meant....
[+] adpirz|11 years ago|reply
I thought that's what she was saying! Like a modern take on "star-crossed lovers". Weird.
[+] TallGuyShort|11 years ago|reply
I always misheard Fallout Boy's "Going Down". They say "a loaded God complex, cock it and pull it", but I always heard "loaded gun complex", due to the context of cocking a firearm and then pulling the trigger.
[+] dredmorbius|11 years ago|reply
My personal favorite isn't quite a mondegreen, but a lyrics shift. I've long swapped "Waking Up is Hard to Do" for the original "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" in Neil Sedaka's song. Years later on NPR's "Wait Wait", he said that he'd rewritten the song with the same words for his grandchildren.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1270438...

[+] ScottBurson|11 years ago|reply
The interesting thing to me about this one is a line from the chorus that I always heard as "Comma comma down dooby-do down down", which of course makes no sense whatsoever. Somewhere along the way I saw an alternative transcription, "Come-a come-a down...", which I thought was much more plausible, as "comedown" is a word that would make sense here. But I just checked a couple of the lyrics sites, and they say "Comma comma"!
[+] Rusky|11 years ago|reply
Similarly, lyrics in a language you don't know. Someone did this to the entire Duck Tales theme song in Finish: http://youtu.be/Xm8WmiKj5go

"your school's stupid, your school's bwaha"

[+] cottonseed|11 years ago|reply
My favorite is Alanis Morissette: "Of the cross eyed bear that you gave me".
[+] te_platt|11 years ago|reply
I lived a couple of years in Brazil and a couple of years in Chile and counted myself fluent in the language when I could comfortably understand the songs on the radio. This article makes me think the difference between fluent and native speaker is being able to make good sense out of misheard lyrics.
[+] thret|11 years ago|reply
I think this is the best youtube compilation of misheard lyrics (there are a lot to choose from).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nVvRwrgsGU

Personal favourite: I got string on my face, the smell of fat chicks just put my spine out of place.

[+] mrlyc|11 years ago|reply
My sister always sang "But I'm only a cross-eyed octopus" instead of cockeyed optimist.
[+] smoyer|11 years ago|reply
My sister produced my all-time favorite - "I flew the bat-plane" by The Eagles.
[+] RoboTeddy|11 years ago|reply
"how to wreck a nice beach you sing calm incense"

puzzle: the above is the title of an academic paper. figure out what the thesis of the paper is!

solution: http://goo.gl/4Gx7da

[+] girvo|11 years ago|reply
I got the first part, but the latter half didn't fit for me, that's just an artifact of my accent however, "calm" and "com-" are very different for me :)
[+] johnmaguire2013|11 years ago|reply
I knew someone who, years ago, while singing along to "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" proclaimed "I wish someone would pillow fight me" instead of "I wish someone up there would find me"