WOODSTOCK

One last post about Woodstock just because I think it's funny.

Misheard Lyrics: Joe Cocker "With A Little Help From My Friends" at Woodstock.

                  With A Little Help From My Friends original lyrics

What would you do if I sang out of tune?

 Would you stand up and walk out on me?

 Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song

 I will try not to sing out of key

Oh baby I get by

 (Get by with a little help from my friends)

 All I need is my brother

 (Get by with a little help from my friends)

 I say I want to get high with them

 (Get high with a little help from my friends)

 Whoah, yeah

 (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

What do I do when my love is away?

 (Does it worry you to be all alone?)

 No, no.

How do I feel at the end of the day?

 (Are you sad 'cause you're on your own?)

 I tell you I don't even say it no more.

(Get by with a little help from my friends)

 Gonna get by with my friends

 (Get high with a little help from my friends)

 Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm gonna try

 (Try with a little help from my friends)

 Keep on getting high oh, oh

 (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

(Do you need anybody?)

 I need someone to love

 (Could it be anybody?)

 All I need is someone

 Know just where I'm going, yeah

 Somebody knows what I'm showing

Baby

(Get by with a little help from my friends)

 Said I'm gonna make it with my friends

 (Try with a little help from my friends)

 Oh, oh I'm gonna keep on trying, yeah, yeah

 (Get high with a little help from my friends)

 I'm gonna keep on trying, now babe

(Would you believe in a love at first sight?)

 I'm certain it happens all the time, yeah

 (What do you see when you turn out the light?)

 I can't tell you, but it sure feels like mine, now

(I get by with a little help from my friends)

 Don't you know I'm going to make it with my friends?

 (Try with a little help from my friends)

 I promised myself I'd get by

 (Get high with a little help from my friends)

 Said I'm gonna try it, but not too hard

 (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

(Do you need anybody?)

 Whoah

 Yeah, yeah, yeah

 (Could it be anybody?)

 Oh, it's gotta be somebody

 Gonna treat me right

 Somebody take me there now

 Oh yeah, yeah

(Get by with a little help from my friends)

 Said I'm gonna get by with my friends

 (Try with a little help from my friends)

 Oh yes, I'm gonna keep trying now

 (Get high with a little help from my friends)

 Keep on trying with my friends

 (Get by with a little help from my friends)

 Oh, ain't nothing gonna stop me anymore

 (Try with a little help from my friends)

 I'm gonna keep on trying now

 (Get high with a little help from my friends)

 I'm getting high

 I'm gonna make time, no no

 (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

 Gonna get by with my friends

 Oh, I'm gonna get on by

 Yes, I'm gonna get on by, yeah

 Gonna take 'em all along with me

 I'm gonna take 'em all along, yeah, yeah

 Yeah, yeah

I'm doing this in every way I feel it in the morning sign

 Oh, I'm gonna take my friends along with me
 I get by with a little help from my friends

Misheard Lyrics

This post is about misheard song lyrics also called mondegreen.

Mondegreen is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘A misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing, esp. of the lyrics to a song.’

On Wednesday, June 9, 2010 I also made a post about it:

MisheardLyrics (just for my Dutch readers)

It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song. American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen", published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954. "Mondegreen" was included in the 2000 edition of the Random House Webster's College Dictionary. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added the word in 2008. The phenomenon is not limited to English, with examples cited by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in the Hebrew song Háva Nagíla ("Let's Be Happy"), and in Bollywood movies.

A closely related category is soramimi—songs that produce unintended meanings when homophonically translated to another language.

The unintentionally incorrect use of similar-sounding words or phrases in speaking is a malapropism. If there is a connection in meaning, it can be called an eggcorn. If a person stubbornly sticks to a mispronunciation after being corrected, that person has committed a mumpsimus.

Etymology

In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl o' Moray". She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, 

and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

     Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

     Oh, where hae ye been?

     They hae slain the Earl o' Moray,

Sylvia Wright

     And Lady Mondegreen.

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". Wright explained the need for a new term:

The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought 

up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.

Her essay had already described the bonny Earl holding the beautiful Lady Mondegreen's hand, both bleeding profusely but faithful unto the death. She disputed:

I know, but I won't give in to it. Leaving him to die all alone without even anyone to hold his hand --
I WON'T HAVE IT!!!

Other examples Wright suggested are:

•  Surely Good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life ("Surely goodness and mercy…" from Psalm 23)
•  The wild, strange battle cry "Haffely, Gaffely, Gaffely, Gonward." ("Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward," from "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

Examples in Songs

The top three mondegreens submitted regularly to mondegreen expert Jon Carroll are:

1.  "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear (from the line in the hymn "Keep Thou My Way" by Fanny Crosby and Theodore E. Perkins, "Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I'll bear") Carroll and many others quote it as "Gladly the cross I'd bear."
2. There's a bathroom on the right (the line at the end of each verse of "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival: "There's a bad moon on the rise")
3. 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy (from a lyric in the song "Purple Haze," by The Jimi Hendrix Experience: "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky").

Both Creedence's John Fogerty and Hendrix eventually acknowledged these mishearings by deliberately singing the "mondegreen" versions of their songs in concert.

Misheard Lyrics (just for my Dutch readers)

The first time I did hear Lady Gaga's song "poker face" I did hear her singing "poke her face"

And it seems I was not the only one.
Rapper Kid Cudi's single "Make Her Say" contains a vocal sample of the acoustic version of "Poker Face" from The Cherrytree Sessions EP. The song was originally entitled "I Poke Her Face" but was changed to make it more acceptable for radio. It features Kanye West, who also produced the track, and Common, as well as scratches from DJ A-Trak. West expressed that he was a fan of Lady Gaga and was interested in the song, after seeing Gaga perform a different version of "Poker Face" on the internet. This led him to sample "Poker Face" in "Make Her Say". According to West, they changed the intermittent bisexual theme of the song while taking the sample.

Last week thirty thousand listeners of the dutch radiostation 3FM did vote on their favourite Mama Appelsapje.
A Mama Appelsap is a song from a different language, in which Dutch phrases can be recognized.

Best way to watch and listen to the video is to turn off the Flash Player on the bottom ][ of this page by clicking the II button ]

thanks to Raoul Hattink for this compilation