A brilliant and very funny presentation of misheard lyrics
Back in the very early 80s, I was the drummer in a power trio. Our singer was my best buddy Charlie, the most shy and introverted person you’d ever meet. But after three Trailer Park Boys-sized triple rye-and-cokes, he turned into a monster.
As the singer, he was obviously responsible for transcribing the lyrics to all the covers we did, and dutifully kept a notebook with the words to all the songs. One day, before a gig, I idly flipped through it and chanced upon the lyrics to “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, which we did Van Halen-style. The
Girl you really got me goin’
You got me so I don’t know what I’m doin’
Yeah, you really got me now
You got me so I don’t know what you weigh
This is what he’d been singing for every show we did. When I asked him about it, Charlie just shrugged his shoulders. “No one ever complained,” he said.
This is an example of a mondegreen, the term given to misheard lyrics. The word was coined by Sylvia Wright in 1954 based on her misinterpretation of an old Scottish ballad. It happens all the time. I know someone who insisted that the chorus to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” went “Hold me close, Tony Danza.” No, really.
The other thing about mondegreens is that the human brain can be prone to suggestion. If I tell you that a lyric says something, however wrong, that’s what you’ll hear. Check out this evidence.
