Sometimes, misunderstood lyrics make a song better

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BY JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star

In the Genesis song “Invisible Touch,” there’s a lyric that goes: “She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah!”

Or does it? They could be singing:

“She lets her hair down, baby don’t touch it!”

[+]Enlarge

Olivia Newton-John's and John Travolta's song "You're The One That I Want" has caused some lyrical confusion. (AP File)

Olivia Newton-John's and John Travolta's song "You're The One That I Want" has caused some lyrical confusion. (AP File)

or

 “She seems a halfwit, easy on the top shelf!”

or

 “She sees the hat rack, she’s going to touch it!”“

It does kind of sound like that,” said writer Gavin Edwards in a phone interview. “You have to be in the right frame of mind. Maybe the person was thinking about hat racks that day and that’s how they heard it.”

Edwards would know: He’s heard more than his fair share of misheard lyrics.

He published a book about them called “’Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy” in 1995 and recently released a 2007 day-to-day calendar based on the book.

Both refer to the often-misinterpreted Jimi Hendrix lyric “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” from “Purple Haze.”

Misheard lyrics, or, as Edwards calls them, “mondegreens,” are front and center again thanks to a recent Cingular commercial featuring new phones that allow you to download songs for ringtones.

The featured song is The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah,” another favorite for misheard lyrics. A young man sings “Lock the Cashbox” but is corrected by his friend who tells him it’s “Stop the Catbox.”

On Edwards’ Web site, www.rulefortytwo.com, he explains “mondegreen” was coined by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 magazine article.

As a child, young Sylvia had listened to a folk song that included the lines, “They had slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen.”

As is customary with misheard lyrics, she didn’t realize her mistake for years, Edwards writes. The song was not about the tragic fate of Lady Mondegreen, but rather the continuing plight of the earl: “They had slain the Earl of Moray/And laid him on the green.”

In his essay,  Edwards said a mondegreen tends to be about primal concerns: food, sex, animals, etc. But another explanation is that “rock singers don’t sing very well,” he said.

“Articulation doesn’t seem to be a requirement,” he laughed.

A good misheard lyric will last for years and redefines how we hear the song, Edwards said. Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” is a great example.

As are songs by the Beatles, Nirvana and Michael Jackson. They are the top three artists with misheard lyrics on Charles Grosvenor Jr.’s Web site, www.amiright.com.

He created “amiright” in 1996, a year after he formed www.inthe80s.com, a site about 1980s music, movies and TV. Visitors to the site would write and ask for song titles, providing him snippets of lyrics.

“They would be really wrong,” said Grosvenor, a Web developer in Massachusetts. “It happened enough, I thought I would have a little fun with it.”

Today, there are 94,622 misheard lyrics on his site, which also features song parodies, band name origins and more. Grosvenor plans to publish his own misheard lyrics book this fall.

In addition to bands, “amiright.com” lists the top songs with misheard lyrics. They are:

1. Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light”

2. Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

3. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Scar Tissue.”

“Sometimes I look at one and I think, ‘How did they get that from that?’” Grosvenor said. “The fun in misheard lyrics is it’s very easy to hear anything.”

Like hat boxes.

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.

A few favorites

These are some the favorite misheard lyrics suggested by contributors to www.amiright.com, which used them for a T-shirt.

The actual lyric is printed below the misheard one, along with artist and song title:

“Alex the seal”

“Our lips are sealed”

— Go-Go’s, “Our Lips Are Sealed”

“Lock the cash bar”

“Rock the Casbah”

— The Clash, “Rock the Casbah“

“The sound of Simon”

“The sound of silence”

— Simon & Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence”

“Eyes shut, the sheriff”

“I shot the sheriff”

— Bob Marley or Eric Clapton, “I Shot the Sheriff”

“Who let the hog shout?”

“Who let the dogs out?”

— Baha Men, “Who Let the Dogs Out”

“Gangster’s pair of dice”

“Gangsta’s Paradise”

— Stevie Wonder or Coolio, “Gangster Paradise”

“Goodbye, normal genes”

“Goodbye Norma Jean”

— Elton John, “Candle in the Wind”

“Hit me with your pet shark”

“Hit me with your best shot”

— Pat Benatar, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”

“But the chair is not my son”

“But the kid is not my son”

— Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean”

“Hello Douglas, my old friend”

“Hello darkness, my old friend”

— Simon & Garfunkel, “The Sounds of Silence”

“I’m the God of Velveeta, baby”

“In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby”

— Iron Butterfly, “In-a-gadda-da-vida”

“She’s in an invisible hut, yeah”

“She’s got an invisible touch, yeah”

— Genesis, “Invisible Touch”

“There’s a bathroom on the right”

“There’s a bad moon on the rise”

— Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Bad Moon on the Rise”

“Here we are now, mashed potatoes”

“Here we are now, entertain us”

— Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

“Searchin’ for my log shaker and saw”

“Searchin’ for my lost shaker of salt”

— Jimmy Buffet, “Margaritaville”

“Thirty thieves and the thunder chief”

“Dirty deeds, and they’re done dirt cheap”

— AC/DC, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”

“It’s just a sprinkling for to make wings”

“It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen”

— Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven”

“I’ve got shoes — they’re made of plywood”

“I’ve got thrills — they’re multiplyin’”

— Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta, “You’re the One That I Want” (Grease Soundtrack)

“Somebody’s done somebody’s song wrong”

“Somebody’s done somebody wrong song”

— BJ Thomas, “Another Somebody’s Done Somebody Wrong Song”

“Somebody better push a bag into your face”

“Somebody better put you back into your place”

— Queen, “We Will Rock You”