Words & Stuff

My latest Mondegreen: ’Cause we’re living in a world of food Turns out the line (from the Bee Gees song “How Deep Is Your Love”) is really “’Cause we’re living in a world of fools.”

Called Canon customer support just now for a camera question. Their automated phone-answering system wanted to know how to direct my call, and I thought it said “You can just sing your answer.” I imagine it really said “say your answer.” But I like the way I heard it better.

In the English version of the song “Madeleine,” as performed in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, there’s a couplet that I always thought went like this: Madeleine’s my Tisiphe; She’s America to me. I’ve been listening to the song, now and then, since the mid-’80s. I had a vague recollection […]

I thought I just heard Maddy Pryor sing “I will bring you a cabbage with wheels of wind.” Turns out it was really a carriage.

Listened to James Gordon’s song “Small Town Prairie Gigs” this afternoon. One of the verses is about meeting townsfolk; I was surprised at the line that went like this: Sometimes we'd take their tails back home with us… …but then I realized that of course he’d actually sung tales. I guess it still counts as […]

In Taylor Swift's song “Innocent,” I heard a line as “Lost your parents on a tightrope,” and I thought, Huh, I guess this is sort of a Robin trope, orphaned...

For my entire life, I've been hearing the Happy Days theme song and wondering why it contains the weird line “These days are all / Filled in with glee.” Though...

Was listening to NPR this evening on my way home from work, and I could have sworn the announcer said that the program was sponsored by iMate: giving you your...

I heard a TV commercial the other day that I thought referred to “the first orgy phone.” Turns out I misheard; it was really a 4G phone. Oh, well....

Last November, I heard the song “Margaritaville” on the radio. I was amused at the line “strummin' my sex train,” until I discovered it was actually “strummin' my six-string.”...