A MOTLEY MELANGE OF MONDEGREENS

Mondegreens: Misheard song lyrics, saying, quotes, and such


“Bald headed woman.”
(Actual lyric: “More than a woman.”)
-- Stan Kegel

“Rollin’ - rollin’ - roll another reefer”
(Actual lyric: “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.”)
-- Gary Hallock

“Four-legged woman.”
(Actual lyric: “More than a woman.”)
-- Stan Kegel

“Big girl, small fry.”
(Actual lyric: “Big girls don’t cry.”)
-- Stan Kegel

“I Am Biocide.”
(Actual title: “I Am by Your Side.”)
-- Lynne

“Big ol’ Jed had a light on.”
(Actual lyric: “Big old jet airliner.”)
--Stan Kegel

“Pick out Jed from the line-up.”
(Actual lyric: “Big old jet airliner.”
-- Stan Kegel

“Born on a donkey, to die on a donkey.”
(Actual lyric: “Born on a dung heap, to die on a dung heap.”)
-- C.M.
(True confessions time: This isn’t just one I collected; it’s one I actually committed myself. I can’t tell you how many years I mis-sang this line from one of the songs from Man of La Mancha before one day I finally, suddenly heard it correctly and realization hit me with the force of a right jab.)

“East Side, West Side, all around the town,/The cops played ring-around-rosie.”
(Actual lyric: “East Side, West Side, all around the town,/The tots played ring-around-rosie.”)
-- C.M.
(This is the mondegreen that first generated my interest in mondegreens, many years before I knew this type of mis-hearing had a name. In my childhood, there was a weekly TV show—I think it was broadcast only in the New York City area—called The Children’s Hour, featuring talented kids who performed for the cameras of the then-young medium known as television. “The Sidewalks of New York,” the song from which this mondegreen derives, was the show’s theme song, and weekly, as they sang it, I misheard it as “The cops played ring-around-rosie.” I never caught on to the correct lyrics till my adult years, at which time I became vastly amused at my own error and, at the same time, came to the realization that surely other people misheard song lyrics as well.

As I said, I did not yet know this type of mistake had a name; I didn’t learn the term “mondegreen” till I read it in a William Safire “On Language” column many years later. But my interest in mondegreens was born with the realization that, after all, the New York City police force was not playing ring-around-rosie in the lyrics of that song.)

“The bride bless the day, the dogs say goodnight.”
(Actual lyric: “The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.”)
-- Stan Kegel

“Bringing in the sheets.”
(Actual lyric: “Bringing in the sheaves.”)
-- Stan Kegel

“Love is greater than time can tell.”
(Actual lyric: “Love is greater than tongue can tell.”)
-- C.M.

“Killed in a bar when he was only three.”
(“Killed him a b’ar when he was only three.”)
-- Richard Lederer