What lyric from a song have you misconstrued for a decade or longer?

John105

John105

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The most classic is Hendrix’ “Purple Haze,” where some folks thought he said, “Excuse me, while I kiss this guy.”

But with Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land,” for three decades, I thought it said, “Stopped in Charlotte, bypassed rocket and we never was a minute late.”

Only in 2023 did I learn it’s “Rock Hill,” not rocket. 30+ years of singing it wrongly. 😂
 
In "Desperado" by the Eagles, I thought (for 40+ years!) that the lyrics were: "Why don't you come to your senses, Come down from your fences, oh renegade" and then a few years ago I learned the song on the piano and I discovered (on the sheet music) that it actually ends as "Open the gate" and not "oh renegade". I was totally blown away I had it wrong for so long.
 
PF52 said:
In "Desperado" by the Eagles, I thought (for 40+ years!) that the lyrics were: "Why don't you come to your senses, Come down from your fences, oh renegade" and then a few years ago I learned the song on the piano and I discovered (on the sheet music) that it actually ends as "Open the gate" and not "oh renegade". I was totally blown away I had it wrong for so long.
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Great song, even if the lyrics are wrong.
 
I always thought Dina Ross was singing Im coming UP, not I'm coming OUT.
 
I had just started re-dating my girlfriend (now wife) back in the early 90's when Guns & Roses was getting into their heyday, and we were in the car and "Paradise City" was playing on the stereo, and I started singing along to it "take me down to the very nice city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty" and she looked over at me and turned the stereo down and said "What did you just say?" and I repeated the lyrics and she started laughing and called me a dumb-dash-dash-dash and I just looked at her and said "What....." and she was giggling and said "PARADISE CITY, not VERY NICE CITY!" and spent the next three miles laughing and unpolitely letting me know that song had been out for three or four years now and how did I not know the title of the song or the lyrics, since they played that song nonstop on the radio. I felt pretty stupid and didnt really have a good answer for that......

UncleDave said:
I always thought Dina Ross was singing Im coming UP, not I'm coming OUT.
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Wait WHAT? Now I feel *really* stupid.

I swear on my life I just now googled that and had no idea she was saying out, not up. I quit. I blame my tinnitus, I hear everything weird after working the flightline too many nights without proper ear protection....
 
CCR Sweet Hitch Hiker.

Never new the name of the song, though i hear it a million times on the AM radio.
I always thought the lyric was Swedish Hitchhiker not Sweet hitch-a-hiker.

Well, I guess she could be both :)
 
from Elton Johns best song - Someone Saved my Life Tonight - I never really new the lyric, I though he was saying: Trina Donna Lott you should have really been there, not the actual, ' Prima donna, lord, you should have really been there ... '

I saying to myself, "what kinda name is Trina Donna Lott - who is this chick?!"
 
I though Peter Gabriel's "Game Without Frontiers" the lyrics sounded like: She's so %@6#d in the head,
where it was actually French, "Jeux sans frontières"
 
AC/DC Back in Black
"now I'm back on track and I'm needing a...
Knowing this would not be allowed on the radio, I knew this was probably not right.
But I was a teenager so that's what I went with.
 
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