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.
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
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.
A "deuce" was a two-seater hot rod (cf. "Little Deuce Coupe" by the Beach Boys). I suppose it's now archaic slang. But I'm still puzzled, because Springsteen's original lyric is "cut loose like a deuce" and I have no idea what that means.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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"!
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.
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 :)
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"
Theres an interesting story about Bob Dylan offering the song Lay Lady Lay to the band Everly Brothers, but they misheard the part where he sings 'lay across my big brass bed' and rejected the song.
Do you pronounce "sadist" with a first vowel as in the word "saddest"? I usually hear the word "sadist" pronounced with the first vowel of the word "latest," but I've actually never looked it up.
Here are some of his classic pieces on mondegreens:
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/JON-CARR...
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/JON-CARR...
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/JON-CARR...
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/JON-CARR...