'Scuse Me While I Kiss this Guy!
Don't you just hate it when you're singing a song and the artist gets the words wrong? Well... you've just been mondegreened! :)
'Mondegreen' is a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of another word or phrase that we hear. The term mondegreen is usually applied to misheard song lyrics or lines of poetry, but can also refer to other types of speech.
Sylvia Wright, an American author, coined the term after a phrase she recalled mishearing as a young girl. According to Wright, she believed the first stanza from the 17th century ballad “The Bonny Earl O’Moray” featured two unfortunate aristocrats:
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where have ye been?
They have slain the Earl O’Moray
And Lady Mondegreen.
The correct phrasing of the fourth line is actually “Hae laid him on the green.”
While Wright gave us a name for this phenomenon in 1954, people have been misinterpreting or mishearing words in ways that give new meaning to phrases since the beginning of speech.
Here are a few more examples:
- "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" (for the famous Jimi Hendrix 'Purple Haze' lyric, "Excuse me while I kiss the sky")
- "Every time you go away/you take a piece of meat with you" (for " . . . take a piece of me with you," from the Paul Young song "Every Time You Go Away")
- "The ants are my friends" (for "The answer, my friend," in "Blowing in the Wind," by Bob Dylan)
- I’ll never leave your pizza burning" (for "I’ll never be your beast of burden," by the Rolling Stones)
- "The girl with colitis goes by" (for "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes," in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," by the Beatles)
- "You’re the cheese to my pizza mine" (for “You’re the key to my peace of mind," from Carol King's "Natural Woman")
So, what's your favorite mondegreen moment? ;)