# Lyrics You Misheard



## Zedcars (Jun 8, 2021)

For over 25 years since I first heard Kiss from a Rose by Seal, I thought he was singing the following lyrics:

In verse 1:
“Love remained a drum that’s not high enough to fill”

I thought there was like an oil drum or something that he was trying to fill up but it was just too damn high to reach! 

Actual lyrics:
“Love remained a drug that's the high and not the pill”

Chorus:
“Baby, I can pay you to a kiss from a rose on the grave”.
and…
“Now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grave”

Apparently he sang “grey” at the end of those lines. All these years I’ve had an image of a grieving lover sitting by his deceased girlfriends’ grave and it’s been wrong!

Verse 2:
“Baby, to me you’re like a grown up dictionary can’t he die?”

Yeah, makes no sense. What the hell is a grown up dictionary? 

He actually sang:
“Baby, to me, you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny”.

There are a few other places where I misheard like when he says “greying tower”…I thought it was “grand tower”.

Are there any song lyrics that you’ve misheard which completely changed its intended meaning? I think a lot of good lyrics can get lost in the mix which is such a shame.


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## Loïc D (Jun 8, 2021)

Being a foreigner, a lot.😂
The worst one being probably Money For Nothing. When I read the actual lyrics I was very surprised.🤣


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## Martin S (Jun 9, 2021)

ditto about the foreigner thing…

Being a native Dane, as a young kid of the 70’s, the English language was a bit of a mystery to me. However, that didn’t stop me from yelling from the top of my lungs : “TI-LOP-TUU,YEAH-YEAH-YEAH” whenever I heard that Beatles classic on the radio


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## rudi (Jun 9, 2021)

Yes, a fascinating phenomenon. It's even got a name: "mondegreen".
There is a fascinating article about what causes it to happen, and some more examples:









Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy


The science of misheard lyrics and the “mondegreen,” a misheard word or phrase that makes sense in your head, but is, in fact, entirely incorrect.




www.newyorker.com


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## R. Soul (Jun 9, 2021)

This woman does it best.
She has quite a few videos, but I think this is one of the top ones.


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## Dirtgrain (Jun 9, 2021)

"Livin' Lovin' Maid," by Led Zeppelin

First line: "With a purple umbrella and a fifty cent hat."

How I have always heard it: "With a pebble operator and a fifth in hand."


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## Haakond (Jun 9, 2021)

This could be a fun thread!
I remember listening to "Psychosocial" by Slipknot. 

The first part of the song goes like this:
I did my time, and I want out
So effusive, fade
It doesn't cut

What I heard:
I did my tie, and I went out.
So abusive hair,
It doesn't cut


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## FlyingAndi (Jun 9, 2021)




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## cygnusdei (Jun 9, 2021)

Shania Twain, I'm Gonna Getcha Good. The lyrics is supposed to be "There's no need to be alone when you find that someone", but it sounds like "There's no need to be alone when you find _the tower_". Actually, in the video her lips did mime "the tower" all three times!


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## doctoremmet (Jun 9, 2021)

Nirvana - All Apologies

Actual lyrics: find my nest of salt / everything is my fault

I heard: *for my next assault* / ....

"All in all is all we are", I still think it should have been "All alone is all we are"


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## Markastellor (Jun 9, 2021)

The one that baffled me for years was the Manfred Mann's Earth Band Version of "Blinded by the Light". It was a number one hit back in 1976....which I know dates me. If anyone heard the hook in that one (which was repeated over and over) and understood what the words were without anyone explaining it to them....I applaud you. By the way I know what the lyrics actually are now if anyone wants to know.


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## Simon Lee (Jun 9, 2021)

I thought the chorus was “shower the horse I’m done” on this track 🤣🤣🤣


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## wilifordmusic (Jun 9, 2021)

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no


Oh Wait, those are the correct lyrics.


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## PaulBrimstone (Jun 9, 2021)

The famous one: Paul Young. Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you. The snare doesn't help.


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## Zedcars (Jun 9, 2021)

wilifordmusic said:


> MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
> All the sweet green icing flowing down
> Someone left the cake out in the rain
> I don't think that I can take it
> ...


I am actually really fond of this song. Yes, I realise it is very cheesy and strange, but I like it.


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## Noeticus (Jun 9, 2021)

Mannfred Mann's Earth Band's, "Blinded By The Light"

I heard it as...

Blinded by the light
Cracked up like a douche, another roamer in the night.

The Real Lyrics:

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.


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## gtrwll (Jun 9, 2021)

FlyingAndi said:


>



I thought about this video as well when I saw the title of this thread. Oldie but goldie 😅


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## cuttime (Jun 9, 2021)

Markastellor said:


> The one that baffled me for years was the Manfred Mann's Earth Band Version of "Blinded by the Light". It was a number one hit back in 1976....which I know dates me. If anyone heard the hook in that one (which was repeated over and over) and understood what the words were without anyone explaining it to them....I applaud you. By the way I know what the lyrics actually are now if anyone wants to know.


I don't care what anyone says, but he was NOT saying "Revved up like a deuce".


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## cuttime (Jun 9, 2021)

I always thought the part of the "I Am the Walrus" chorus used the words "koo-koo-ka-joo", only to find out, to my chagrin, that in fact, they were saying "Goo goo g'joob". Apparently Paul Simon misheard this as well.


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## Gaffable (Jun 9, 2021)

There is a website devoted to the subject of misheard lyrics:
Kiss This Guy - The Archive of Misheard Lyrics

The website has an entry for Seal's "A Kiss From A Rose":
"A Kiss From A Rose" Funny Misheard Song Lyrics


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## AndyP (Jun 9, 2021)

Paul Young:

What I heard:

Every time you go away you take a piece of meat with you

Original:

Every time you go away you take a piece of me with you

Edit: PaulBrinstone already posted it.


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## SteveC (Jun 9, 2021)

Queen - We are the champions


And bak me steaks 
I've made a few

Original:
And bad mistakes
I've made a few


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## Chris Harper (Jun 10, 2021)

I didn’t actually hear it this way, but someone else told me they did and now I hear it in my head and laugh every time I hear the song:

“Hold me closer, Tony Danza
Count the headlights on the highway”


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## Polkasound (Jun 10, 2021)

One day I was looking at a fellow bandleader's lyrics for Achy Breaky Heart, and after _"Oh tell your Aunt Louise, tell anything you please..."_ the line he had written was,_ "...a silver redded nose I'm not okay..."_





In Wish Me a Rainbow, the line that comes after _"Wish me red roses and yellow ballloons..."_ is wrong on all the lyrics sites, and all of the bands I play with still sing it wrong. The way the line came out on the recording, it sounds like it starts talking about slacks and ends up talking about shoes, but that's incorrect.



Spoiler: Click to read the correct lyrics



"... myself already knows I'm not okay..."
"... and black sequins whirling to gay dancing tunes..."


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## Noeticus (Jun 10, 2021)

I heard "And you come to me on a submarine", and not ""And you come to me on a summer breeze" in...


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## Haakond (Jun 13, 2021)

I remembered this video today


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## JohnG (Jun 13, 2021)

My daughter used to mistake Donna Summer's "I need some hot stuff baby this evening / Gonna get some hot stuff baby tonight"

She sang, "I need some pas-ta baby this evening". Her favourite food.


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## Rob (Jun 13, 2021)

A friend of mine heard this singer in a jazz club in Holland sing, instead of "she gets too hungry, for dinner at eight" "tickets to Hungary..."


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## givemenoughrope (Jun 13, 2021)

Sigur Ros babbling <<< Melvinese


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## TravEllerZero (Jun 15, 2021)

Fire in the Head by The Tea Party. My brain turned:

See how this love stays divine

To:

See how these slugs taste divine.

I even called the radio station and asked who sang the slug song they just played. Fortunately they were able to tell me after they stopped laughing.


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## Markrs (Jun 15, 2021)




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## LauraC (Jun 15, 2021)

For years I thought Stevie Ray Vaughan was singing:

“Let’s go shopping”

I was so disappointed to finally realize it was:

“It’s a cold shot babe.”

Maybe he still liked to shop, anyway?


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## chillbot (Jun 15, 2021)

There is an ambulance-chaser lawyer named Jacob Emrani in Los Angeles that advertises nonstop on AM radio, if you've ever listened to AM radio in LA you can probably sing his jingle.

Anyway I've been hearing this for 10 years and it was only this year I discovered it was not the law offices of "Jacob and Ronnie".


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## ControlCentral (Jun 15, 2021)

Markrs said:


>



beat me to it


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## Rex282 (Jun 15, 2021)

_I want to thank you_ falettinme be mice elf again


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## AcousTech (Jun 15, 2021)

cuttime said:


> I don't care what anyone says, but he was NOT saying "Revved up like a deuce".


You are correct. Manfred Mann's Earth Band did NOT say "Revved up like a deuce". However, Bruce Springsteen, who wrote the original lyrics, very much DID write it that way:









Blinded by the Light - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## Jazzaria (Jun 15, 2021)

So technically there aren't underlying lyrics to this one, but I always think of this whenever I use one of those choir-libraries-that-randomly-selects-syllables:


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## cuttime (Jun 15, 2021)

AcousTech said:


> You are correct. Manfred Mann's Earth Band did NOT say "Revved up like a deuce". However, Bruce Springsteen, who wrote the original lyrics, very much DID write it that way:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I never heard the tape azimuth explanation. Not sure I'm buying it.


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## Wally Garten (Jun 15, 2021)

cuttime said:


> I always thought the part of the "I Am the Walrus" chorus used the words "koo-koo-ka-joo", only to find out, to my chagrin, that in fact, they were saying "Goo goo g'joob". Apparently Paul Simon misheard this as well.


Yeah, really changes the whole meaning of the song....


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## AcousTech (Jun 15, 2021)

cuttime said:


> I never heard the tape azimuth explanation. Not sure I'm buying it.


I’m with you. That does seem a little sketchy. I think they just blew it.


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## darkogav (Jun 15, 2021)

I recall this..

"I got his shoes, you got 'em too"


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## Wally Garten (Jun 15, 2021)

There's a great David Bowie song that, if you haven't seen the name written down, sounds a lot like "Something gets in it! Ahh, something gets in it! Ahhh, wham bam thank you ma'am!"


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## Polkasound (Jun 15, 2021)

Just think how bad it must be for the latest generation. We had a few lines in a few songs to figure out, but with the whole Indie Girl movement which involves intentionally mispronouncing vowels and omitting consonants, people today have to decipher entire songs.




Fakers... I gave you eye-da-dye, ayou gamey games, lauf...
Figerz... I know ein cryin, cuzza haint juss ownt change, lauwe...





I num no tares in my boy, ah, ran up puh boy I like ih, I like ih, I like ih...
Dough matter how, what, when, who, trys it we uh hivyten, we vytin, we vypeh
Cuh, lay, out, eva windess radon down....


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## Zedcars (Jun 16, 2021)

Yep, as amazing as they are The Rolling Stones are pretty hard to decipher sometimes


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## Zedcars (Jun 16, 2021)

Gaffable said:


> There is a website devoted to the subject of misheard lyrics:
> Kiss This Guy - The Archive of Misheard Lyrics
> 
> The website has an entry for Seal's "A Kiss From A Rose":
> "A Kiss From A Rose" Funny Misheard Song Lyrics


I see I was not alone in thinking it was “ grown-up dictionary”.

“Kissed by the nose on your face”??


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## bartveld (Jun 16, 2021)

Martin S said:


> ditto about the foreigner thing…
> 
> Being a native Dane, as a young kid of the 70’s, the English language was a bit of a mystery to me. However, that didn’t stop me from yelling from the top of my lungs : “TI-LOP-TUU,YEAH-YEAH-YEAH” whenever I heard that Beatles classic on the radio


I'm from Holland and I'm pretty sure they sang "SLAVYU YEAH-YEAH-YEAH”.


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## cedricm (Jun 16, 2021)

Orinoco Flow by Enya:
She sang
"Sail away, Sail away, Sail away"

and I sang
"C'est Noël, c'est Noël, c'est Noël"

To be fair it was on FM radio and I'm almost deaf from one ear


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## José Herring (Jun 16, 2021)

Noeticus said:


> Mannfred Mann's Earth Band's, "Blinded By The Light"
> 
> I heard it as...
> 
> ...


For sure. I had to google that a few years ago. Growing up I always heard, " What up like a douche, like a rudder in the night.


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## Jaap (Jun 16, 2021)

Wind of Change by the Scorpions

I had no idea what they where singing at the start when I was young and when it was released in the 90's, so I sang for years something like:

Follow da masquan
Down to ko pikan

While it should be:

Follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park


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## bill5 (Jun 17, 2021)

Bee Gees "You should be Dancing" - I never knew or tbh cared what that nonsensical-sounding gibberish (to me) after those words was - then one day a few of us looked it up out of curiosity/boredom. 

Elton John's "Rocketman" - same.

As a kid I partly mucked up one of the most famous in CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" - no, I didn't think he said "bathroom," but I did think it was "bad moon on the right." Which I figured was some symbolism or something lol. 

Finally in Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" near the end where the line is "is there gas in the car?" I thought was "is there gastric high?" and I wondered what a gastric high was. Kinda


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## Michel Simons (Jun 17, 2021)

I kind of sort of misheard "tripping over each other" as "slipping ovary channel". I am Dutch and the singer Australian. So that's my excuse.


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## Zedcars (Jun 17, 2021)

Michel Simons said:


> I kind of sort of misheard "tripping over each other" as "slipping ovary channel". I am Dutch and the singer Australian. So that's my excuse.


Lol. What song is that from?


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## dzilizzi (Jun 17, 2021)

Markastellor said:


> The one that baffled me for years was the Manfred Mann's Earth Band Version of "Blinded by the Light". It was a number one hit back in 1976....which I know dates me. If anyone heard the hook in that one (which was repeated over and over) and understood what the words were without anyone explaining it to them....I applaud you. By the way I know what the lyrics actually are now if anyone wants to know.


Wait, you mean the song doesn't have a coffee break? 

I just looked at the lyrics. The chorus I had pretty close, but truthfully, I could only figure out bits and pieces of the verses. 

I am a singer, so a lot of times I sing along with karaoke tracks. There's one for Heart's Crazy on You that has a screwed up line that doesn't even make sense - "And you don't need no woman, you're doing fine..." should be "And you don't need to wonder..."


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## dzilizzi (Jun 17, 2021)

cuttime said:


> I don't care what anyone says, but he was NOT saying "Revved up like a deuce".


Revved up like a deuce is actually what I thought he was saying. It's the roller in the night I always got wrong.


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## dzilizzi (Jun 17, 2021)

Polkasound said:


> One day I was looking at a fellow bandleader's lyrics for Achy Breaky Heart, and after _"Oh tell your Aunt Louise, tell anything you please..."_ the line he had written was,_ "...a silver redded nose I'm not okay..."_
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And carousels whirling to gay dancing tunes is what my sheet music says.


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## Polkasound (Jun 18, 2021)

dzilizzi said:


> And carousels whirling to gay dancing tunes is what my sheet music says.


That is an official alternate lyric. Some artists sing "And black sequins whirling..." and others sing "And carousels whirling..." Both are correct, but it unfortunately propagated on lyrics sites as "And caress us whirling..."


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## Stringtree (Jun 18, 2021)

A guy in the office was overheard singing "just like a one-winged dove..." and it led to a lot of lost time and people doubled over at their desks as it was explained to him the bird was okay, just melodious.


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## FireGS (Jun 18, 2021)

cuttime said:


> I don't care what anyone says, but he was NOT saying "Revved up like a deuce".


Came here to say that. Still sounds like something about being a douche in the middle of the night.


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## Michel Simons (Jun 18, 2021)

Zedcars said:


> Lol. What song is that from?


I believe it was Oh The Drama by Projected Twin.


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## Wally Garten (Jun 18, 2021)

Stringtree said:


> A guy in the office was overheard singing "just like a one-winged dove..." and it led to a lot of lost time and people doubled over at their desks as it was explained to him the bird was okay, just melodious.


Well, gosh. All this time I thought that was the lyric!


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## dzilizzi (Jun 18, 2021)

Wally Garten said:


> Well, gosh. All this time I thought that was the lyric!


Yeah, me too. It's not my favorite Stevie Nicks song, so I never bothered to check it out.


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## HeliaVox (Jun 18, 2021)

Whenever a DJ would spin The Bucketheads The Bomb at a party, he would sing at the top of his lungs "Pecan Pudding in My Pie-ie-ie" He was so crestfallen when I told him the real lyric.


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## Tom Auger (Jun 22, 2021)

Zedcars said:


> For over 25 years since I first heard Kiss from a Rose by Seal, I thought he was singing the following lyrics:
> 
> In verse 1:
> “Love remained a drum that’s not high enough to fill”
> ...


Ha! I'm guilty of some of the same. 

I once heard an interview with Seal and Trevor Horne where Seal said he specifically obfuscates his lyrics so people will put their own interpretation on them <shrug>. This was in the context of his self-titled album (specifically, "Crazy")


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Jun 22, 2021)

Please make her die, please make her die!..


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## ControlCentral (Jun 29, 2021)

" 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy..."
no one??


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## dzilizzi (Jun 29, 2021)

ControlCentral said:


> " 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy..."
> no one??


Wait! Those aren't the words???? 

Well it makes more sense than kissing the sky.


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## MaxOctane (Jun 29, 2021)

For years I couldn't figure out how the Red Hot Chili Peppers scored such a big hit with lyrics like


> _Under the fridge downtown, I could not get a snuff._


I misheard Britney Spears as:


> _Hit me babe just want more slime_


I thought the lyrics to Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio were:


> _Been living most our lives, living in a hamster's enterprise_


And I finally figured out that I'd misheard Norah Jones too


> _Don't know flies, eyes didn't slum._


But I guess we've all misheard Jimi Hendrix, right?


> _Extrude bees, mind sly miss dull fries!_


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## kgdrum (Jun 29, 2021)

dzilizzi said:


> Wait! Those aren't the words????
> 
> Well it makes more sense than kissing the sky.


I guess we didn’t have the same recreational pursuits growing up,kissing the sky totally made sense in my 🍊 sunshine infused world………..🌤🌈💥


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## toddkreuz (Jun 29, 2021)

Markastellor said:


> The one that baffled me for years was the Manfred Mann's Earth Band Version of "Blinded by the Light". It was a number one hit back in 1976....which I know dates me. If anyone heard the hook in that one (which was repeated over and over) and understood what the words were without anyone explaining it to them....I applaud you. By the way I know what the lyrics actually are now if anyone wants to know.


you should def watch this.


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## Leon Portelance (Jun 30, 2021)

When I was a teenager. I thought CCR was singing ‘there’s a bathroom on the rise.’


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## Zedcars (Oct 31, 2021)

OMG, I just found out Enter Sandman lyrics are...

"Exit light,
Enter night"

All this time I thought it was:

"Exit life,
Enter knife"!!

Like I thought he was saying he wanted to kill his son with a knife. 

When I listen now it still sounds like "life" and "knife" to me.


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