Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza and Other Misheard Lyrics for Your Listening Pleasure

As the Ramones so memorably didn’t sing, “Twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go…I want a piece of bacon.” Substitute ham, and you’ve got yourself Collective Cadenza‘s History of Misheard Lyrics, Opus No. 13. The classically trained performers are nothing if not game. The visual aids are ridiculously on message. The goal? A one-take musical compendium of pop’s most commonly misapprehended phrases. (Prior projects include subjecting “What a Wonderful World” to sixteen musical genres and a lovely History of Lyrics That Aren’t Lyrics.)

With all the current debate over the real world worthiness of expensive college educations, it’s reassuring to see recent Julliard grads helping themselves to the crown once sported by Mr. Jaws and Dr. Demento.

And now, readers, it’s your turn to shake it like a polar bear ninja. Was your favorite aural fail acknowledged above? Or will you be using the space below to demand its inclusion in a follow up?


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Comments (22)
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  • Clown says:

    In 2Pac’s California Love, I always thought “California… knows how to party” was “California… no doubt about it”.

  • uriel walker says:

    Of course I eventually learned that Chaka Khan was not singing “Climb Every Woman”.

  • Toomuchrock says:

    Billy Jean. “Billy Jean is not my lover but the chair is not my size.”

  • alana says:

    Brick House was the most disgusting song. “Sho’ nuff her knockers fall clear to her knees.” GRRROSSSS!

  • Gwyn says:

    What Jerry Garcia actually sang in the Grateful Dead song “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” was “Get yourself a powder charge, seal that silver mine.”

    I heard “Get yourself a pound of chocolate.” I didn’t know how you could seal a mine with that, but it sounded like the typical Jerry diet, so I just went with it.

  • Judy says:

    “Bessie says you oughta know that Sweet Sue can share”. (Precious and few are the moments we two can share.)

  • Judy says:

    And the reference in the clip reminded me that I thought, when I first heard it, that “More Than a Woman” was “Four-Letter Woman”…

  • Mike Lewis says:

    My sister always sang “But I’m only a cross-eyed octopus” instead of cockeyed optimist.

    My own mondegreen came from thinking that Herman’s Hermits sang “She’s a muscular boy. A complete impossibility.”

  • Steve says:

    Gotta have Hendrix, ” ‘scuse me while I kiss this guy”

  • Rohan says:

    Ain’t no Hall-of-Fat girl …

    I didn’t actually think those were the lyrics. I just couldn’t work out what she was really saying.

  • paul says:

    Grim poodle basher – Brimful of Asha

  • Dan says:

    The Clash: “Rock the cash bar”

    Michael Jackson (Billie Jean): “But the chair is not my son.”

  • Karla says:

    “Let’s drink pop!” – The Ramones, “Blitzkrieg Bop”

  • Debbie says:

    Childhood me before knowing what a Margarita was … “Looking for my lost chain saw.”

  • Richard says:

    My Swedish girlfriend’s daughter sings Nick Cave’s “sweet dot com”

  • augustine says:

    My friend mistook “Lord I was born a ramblin’ man” for “Lord, I was born and raised in Maine.”

    I mistook Blind Melon’s no Rain “you know I like to keep my cheeks dry today” for “you know I like to keep my chi inside of me”

  • Sharon Gibson says:

    Odyssey’s Lillian Lopez’ Native New Yorker wistfully wonders “…And oh, where did all those yesterdays go (yesterdays go)
    When you still believed love could really be like a Broadway show (like a
    Broadway show) You were the star, when did it close?”

    I took the last line as, “You were the star, without any clothes…”

  • MK Norton says:

    Friend thought Eric Claption’s “Forever Man” was “Four-Letter Man”

  • MK Norton says:

    Friend thought Eric Clapton’s “Forever Man” was “Four-Letter Man”

  • Toby says:

    My sister used to love singing about the cross-eyed bear in church when she was little (The cross I’d bear)

  • sara petty says:

    “Goin’ to the chapel, Leonard. Gonna get married.”

  • Colleen Tucker says:

    Thought the guy was carrying a “Hefty bag of homefries ah, ah, ah, ah ah,ah love” in Train’s Drive By.

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