Misheard Lyrics That Have Left You Puzzled- Page 2

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 11/5/06 at 10:38pm

What about the "You're really not a b!tch" in POTO?

[mauriposa]

Posted: 11/6/06 at 1:53am

When I was a kid and saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat(my first show), I always thought that they were singing "I had good time" instead of "Ahead of your time" at the end of the first Act and was really confused because the show didn't end there.

[theminutepast]

Posted: 11/6/06 at 9:47am

Thoroughly Modern Millie, "Forget About the Boy":
The line is supposed to be, "Now me and Mr. Wrong are through" but I always just hear "Now me and Mr. Wrong are roo"

Am I miss something? I don't hear a 't' at all when she sings.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 11/6/06 at 10:38am

Not sure if I ever really "misheard" any of the lyrics, but it took me FOREVER to learn most of INTO THE WOODS without gettting tounge-tied and MASQUERADE from PHANTOM OF THE OPERA when I was a child. LA VIE BOHEME from RENT still trips me up

Updated On: 11/6/06 at 10:38 AM

[keatonbynumbers]

Posted: 11/6/06 at 10:58am

For the longest time, I thought I had misheard a line in "This Jesus Must Die" from JCS. When Caiaphas sings "One thing I'll say for him, Jesus is cool," I thought it was hysterical because I didn't get it. Like, he wants Jesus dead, but he can't help but admit what an awesome guy he is? So, then, one day while I was listening to it, I decided that he was saying "Jesus is GOOD" which made so much more sense to me. So for YEARS, I figured it was "Jesus is good," and that I had gotten it wrong before.

And then I was listening to it in the car one day with my boyfriend, and I explained to him my little slip-up, and he was all, "Well, it IS 'Jesus is cool'. He means, you know... level-headed?"

Either way, though, Caiaphas is cool.

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 11/6/06 at 11:02am

I've never understood the words in the last line of the title tune of "Reefer Madness"

Save the country
Reefer Madness!
Madness Madness madness madness
Reefer...(blah blah blah blah)
MAAAAADD!1

Or in "The Orgy" in "Reefer Madness"

So come on Jimmy, on on Jimmy
Reefer...what?

It sounds like blow but that makes NO sense.

Also, in any recording of "Cabaret", I've never been able t understand the girls when they sing "though I'm still as pure as mountain snow" in "Don't Tell Mama". It just sounds like gobblygook to me and I never knew what it was until i did the show.

[ChiSquared62]

Posted: 7/9/07 at 11:14pm

In "All That Jazz", I always thought the line "She's gonna shimmy 'til her garters break" was "She's gonna shimmy 'til her DAUGHTERS break"...no, it didn't make sense to me either.

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 7/9/07 at 11:24pm

I just wanted to say that I don't usually have a problem understanding musical theatre lyrics, but I can't listen to a pop song on LITE FM without struggling to figure out at least a few phrases in each song. Sometimes, I honestly thought that singers were saying something really dirty when they were actually saying something totally different.

[munkustrap926]

Posted: 7/9/07 at 11:44pm

I remember listening to the opening of Cats and hearing "Hallelujah and jellicles cry," and i finally looked up the lyrics to find it was, "Hallelujah! Angelical choir!"

[Actinggbugg474]

Posted: 7/9/07 at 11:54pm

Speaking of pop songs ..

I thought Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You" said:

"I try my best just to f**k it: everything"

Obviously it's:

"I try my best just to forget everything."
Updated On: 7/9/07 at 11:54 PM

[broadwaybaby086]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 12:13am

Re: Reefer Madness, I think the first line is "Reefer's made 'em crazy barking mad." Or blazing, instead of crazy, which would be witty. HA.

The second one is "Come on, Jimmy, come on gimme reefer love."

It took me a while to figure the second one out, and I'm still unclear about the first.

[Sondheim Geek]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 12:36am

Julian, I'm too lazy to look if someone said this, but Sondheim didn't think that it was "Mighty Fences are Down". He did tell a story at his lecture at the 92nd Street Y (1971) about the child of the producer of Anne Get Your Gun, who thought that was the lyric.

...I shouldn't know this

[ThoroughlyModern]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 12:43am

I had a professor who swore the lyrics to “Tiny Dancer” were “Hold me closer Tony Danza”.
Updated On: 7/10/07 at 12:43 AM

[littlelotte64]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:06am

"I had a professor who swore the lyrics to “Tiny Dancer” were “Hold me closer Tony Danza”. "

I totally knew a bunch of people who thought this and when Tony Danza was in The Producers we ran by the stage door when he was signing autographs singing extrememly loudly: "Hold me closer, Tony Danza". It was funny.

[Julian2]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:13am

"Julian, I'm too lazy to look if someone said this, but Sondheim didn't think that it was "Mighty Fences are Down". He did tell a story at his lecture at the 92nd Street Y (1971) about the child of the producer of Anne Get Your Gun, who thought that was the lyric."

Oh ok, that could be. I read my version in "The Grand Tour", not sure of the author. I would look on Amazon, but my computer is being kind of spazzy. I'm pretty sure I read it write, but maybe he got his facts wrong.

[Kringas]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:14am

"I had a professor who swore the lyrics to “Tiny Dancer” were “Hold me closer Tony Danza”.

So did Phoebe on friends.

I never understood the thing with Neverson Babies. If you can't get a line and what you think it might be clearly makes no sense, wouldn't you just assume you couldn't understand it?

[ashbash1990]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:31am

In Out Tonight, I always hears "Lovers and babys" which always made sense to me... Mimi had emotional scars from the lovers, and physical scars from the babys, so when my friend set me straight, i was a little surprised...

[WhyNotTodd]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:37am

On the Wicked OBCR... the lyric "all helpful urges should be circumvented" from No Good Deed... up until recently I always sang it as "all help-flurges should be circumvented" because I had no idea what it was until my friend heard me sing it like that and proceeded to correct me after a good laugh.

[Becky]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:39am

I've had this site bookmarked forever:

http://www.bennytour.com/neverson/neversonbabies.htm

This thread made me go look and see if it's still there. A *lot* of misheard Rent lyrics.....although some of them have to be made up. I can't imagine some people seriously thinking they heard some of that stuff.
Updated On: 7/10/07 at 01:39 AM

[MotorTink]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:49am

I'm a freak, and usually listen to the recording while reading the lyrics (via the booklet and/or internet), that way I get it all straight from the beginning.

[neelyohara]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 1:56am

For the longest time, I thought that "And I'll want nothing else 'til I die" in The Wizard and I was "And I'll walk on these hills 'til I die." I also thought that "It's up that I fell" in As Long as You're Mine was "It's stuff that I felt," which I knew had to be wrong because I thought that was a really stupid lyric.
And though I know the real words, I will never be able to listen to The House We Live In without hearing "March, march, march to my old woman" instead of "March, march, march to buy your war bonds." I seriously could not understand that for months. Even when I saw the show and watched Christine sing it, I still swear that's what she's actually saying.

[Salad_Fingers85]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 2:00am

I have 2....

In "A Whole New World" when Jasmine sings, "Every moment red-letter" I always thought it was "Every moment gets better" which made more sense to me

In that one song when the guy sings (descriptive hey?) "To pave paradise to put up a parking lot" I always thought that he said "To pave paradise to put up a f**k in life" which also made sense, I just couldn't figure out why they didn't need to censor it for the radio.

Okay, so neither of those are Broadway but whatever

[B3TA07]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 2:11am

EVERY SINGLE WORD in "Merano" from Chess.

[danstudney]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 2:26am

Well, I can answer your Reefer Madness question... It's "Reefer's made us crazy, barking mad."

One from me: All I Ask of You from Phantom of the Opera. I never heard the overlapping "pick-up" note that Raoul sings when Christine sings, "Say you love me"

"You (being the pick-up note)
Know I do.."

So I always thought it was weird, since it sounded to me like,

Christine:
Say you love me

Raoul:
No, I don't.

Which makes the least amount of sense ever in the middle of a love song.

As I recall, they cleaned it up a bit for the movie.

[danstudney]

Posted: 7/10/07 at 2:31am

Oh, yeah. I also have a particularly funny pop music one. Ben Jelen (who I adore, especially for covering Wicked Little Town) in "Come On"

Without you, I'll never feel the love inside of me

I thought was

Without you, I'll never feel the lovin' sodomy

(or maybe it was just wishful thinking)