Misheard Lyrics That Have Left You Puzzled- Page 8

[redmustang]

Posted: 10/18/11 at 3:06pm

In Bosom Buddies from Mame:

Correct lines:

Orphan Annie and Sandy
Like Amos and Andy

I heard : Or Fannany and Sandy

For years, I wondered who Fannany was.

[mybigsplash]

Posted: 10/18/11 at 3:24pm

In Wicked,

I swore for nearly 5 years that the line in "What is This Feeling" was:

"Poor Galinda, forced to reside with someone so disgusting... yet fine, we just want to tell you we're all on you side."

Actual Line:
"Poor Galinda, Forced to reside with someone so Disgustingified"

Obviously, how stupid of me, I should have known that it was some random made up word.

Updated On: 10/18/11 at 03:24 PM

[NoName3]

Posted: 10/18/11 at 3:26pm

It was Moss Hart, the director, who was hospitalized with a heart attack while Camelot was out of town. Lerner was also hospitalized during that time, but for bleeding ulcers.

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 10/18/11 at 3:48pm

Noname, thanks for the clarification. I love hearing the tales of out of town drama that surround the making of that show. The image of Moss Hart being wheeled out of the hospital as Lerner was wheeled in is chilling to contemplate. (Ok, noname, please tell me I got THOSE details right.)

[NoName3]

Posted: 10/18/11 at 5:53pm

I don't remember that one, guiteau, but it certainly sounds plausible. Interesting that when Hart was finally able to return to finish shaping the show, well after the New York opening of course, two of the first things he cut were Fie on Goodness and the song containing my misheard Camelot lyric, Then You May Take Me to the Fair, with its description of Lancelot as a gallant bag of noise and nerve.
Updated On: 10/18/11 at 05:53 PM

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 10/18/11 at 8:13pm

Wait, "That gallant bag of noise and nerve" isn't the real lyric?

[NoName3]

Posted: 10/19/11 at 12:06am

Gallic bag.

[Nettik]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 10:03am

I keep forgetting to post this one from TOMMY.

The first time I heard "Twenty-One" I was certain that the lyric was "I had no reason to be open after midnight" instead of "I had no reason to be over-optimistic."

I can just picture one of the fast food chains using that one.

[jayinchelsea]

Posted: 11/13/11 at 10:09am

As a kid, I had learned the words to "Stranger in Paradise" but understood him to sing "Somewhere in space I hang suspenders," rather than "suspended". Listen, I wore suspenders as a child, so it made perfect sense to me! My husband still thinks that's cute...

[promisespromises2]

Posted: 9/28/14 at 6:05pm

I was going to make a new thread but found this one!

I have two to add:
SITPWG: Sunday In the Park With George (OBC) when Bernadette sings "One more Su…" I always thought she sang "remorse" and just pronounced it as "ra-morse".

Evita: For some reason I always thought Patti was singing "I got ideas" instead of "I got out here" in Buenos Aires. I still like my version better, haha.

[Feste]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 12:16am

When I was a kid, before actually listening to the South Pacific cast album, I read the song title as "Cockeyed Optometrist" - I imagined a character giving out glasses who couldn't see well himself.

[Speed]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 12:40am

Turn down the mountain! Jump scream and shout! You can say what you want, I'm not walkin out! Ha! Pull up the river! Push drag and kill! I'm not gonna leave you, there's no way I will!

Not, Bway but...

She's got electric boobs! Bananas too! A nun nuh nuh Aye-eeee!

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 12:54am

In Buenos Aires in Evita- "Just a little touch of star quality" to everything but that haha

[beilis32]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 1:41am

I can never figure out this one part of Sweeney Todd: In the second half of "Kiss Me" Johanna says"
"I'll take my reticule" and Antony says I'd never think you a fool,but a reticule *something something* side. . What the heck is going on at that part...also if the line in Worst Pies is not "what a coarse enterprise" what is it? I love it when lyrics mess with my head!

[chewy5000]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 4:44am

Ha, I too had assumed it was "what a coarse enterprise", but after checking the libretto, it is actually "wot I calls enterprise"

[promisespromises2]

Posted: 9/29/14 at 5:15am

^OH. I always thought it was "What of course, enterprise".

[gypsy101]

Posted: 12/1/14 at 7:13am

I'm usually terrific at hearing musical theater lyrics (as opposed to pop lyrics) for the simple reason that on Broadway cast recordings, the lyrics are being written by someone who usually wants the audience to know what is being said; pop lyrics not so much. But one that confused me to no end was "If I Didn't Believe in You" from The Last 5 Years, Jamie says "without some new tsuris to push me yet further from you." For a few years, I definitely knew that I had no clue what was being said, but I never bothered to look it up. Some nudesaurus? Like a naked dinosaur? I was puzzled for a very long time.

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 12/1/14 at 2:44pm

In "Suddenly Seymour" Seymour sings "He purified you" when he's doing that echo thingy with Audrey. Everyone kept on telling me in rehearsals that it was "He will provide you." I checked the script and I had been doing it right, yet in the reviews after the show, they said I was fantastic, but sang the wrong lyrics in "Suddenly Seymour." I was so upset that everyone had been hearing the wrong lyrics.

[Fantod]

Posted: 12/1/14 at 3:07pm

For me it's not so much mishearing lyrics as it is when I try to sing a song that I liked back to myself, and I make up lyrics that almost make sense, and I don't listen to the song again for a while but I sing it to myself sometime, and I end up thinking that the lyrics to that song are my weirdly made up ones.

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 12/1/14 at 3:47pm

"just a little touch of star quality" from Evita

[TheBoyFromNC]

Posted: 12/1/14 at 8:32pm

I 100% thought it was "what a coarse enterprise" as well.
I may not change how I sing it.

I also heard "nudesaurus" in If I Didn't Believe in You for a while.

And in Just Another Day from Next to Normal:
actual line: If they say we're not, then **** 'em
I heard: If they say we're not that normal

And I would think "You're not normal, Diana!" until I bought the libretto a few months ago. I was probably just projecting the title of the show onto the lyrics.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/1/14 at 8:36pm

I probably already posted this, back in the day, but in ZORBA, in "Life Is."

I thought "Hungry for the pilaf in someone else's pot" as sung in Greek accented English by the great Lorraine Serabian, was "Hungry for the feel of someone else's butt."

Honestly.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 12/1/14 at 9:24pm

^^^^^^
Glory be, I'll never hear the original lyric again!

[Fan123]

Posted: 12/2/14 at 3:15am

I almost did a double take the other day when I thought I heard Julie Andrews singing about her menopause. Figured out pretty quickly that the real lyric is "my manner poised" ('Before I Gaze At You Again', Camelot.)

I also used to hear "I'm loved by a WITTY, wonderful boy" in 'I Feel Pretty'. I don't hate Tony, but it was a bit puzzling because witty he is not.

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 12/2/14 at 6:56pm

Someone may have posted this in the 8 years that this thread has been running, but "The Phantom of the Opera's" concept album (labeled as the "Highlights" album) has different lyrics in several songs than the final versions. In "Think of Me," the concept album had a line that said, "What a change. You're really not a bit, the gawkish girl that once you were." The first few times, I thought the late Steve Barton was singing, "What a change, you're really not a bitch..."

The original "Les Mis" album has a line in "Lovely Ladies" that sounds, when sung in a Cockney accent, like "She's the one so berrare." I could not ever puzzle it out. I finally saw the lyrics, and the line is "She's the one sold her hair."