I’d like to thank Andrew Thomas for contributing today’s most excellent entry. Check out Andrew’s original music here. — JS
We’ve all had those moments where we hear a song on our car radio and have to stop what we’re doing, think “Did he just say ‘Burrito Supreme‘?”, then apologize to the line of drivers in crushed cars yelling at us for some reason. Or, maybe it’s just me.
Regardless, the misheard lyric is a timeless tradition in popular music, from Jimi Hendrix’s “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” to Elton John’s “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.” All of us have heard some variation on these classics. Today on the Fiver, we explore some of the lesser known corners of misheard lyricdom.
1. “The Milkshake Song,” Angry Salad
- Actual: “She gave me a milkshake and a kiss”
- Misheard: “She gave me a milkshake etiquitte”
The idea of Milkshake Etiquitte was first advanced by Emily Post, in her seminal 1899 manual “Of Dairy Drinks and Their Consumption: A Primer for Proper Ladies.” Today, this upper-class tradition is reflected in Daniel Day-Lewis’s generous offer to drink your milkshake. Sadly, this was not what the boys of Angry Salad were referring to in this song.
2. “Bullet With Butterfly Wings, “Smashing Pumpkins”
- Actual: “Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage”
- Misheard: “The spider Marines, Siam’s steel-chested rabbit arcade”
I first came across this gem in a page-a-day calendar of misheard lyrics. I was hooked within the first 3 words. It’s a science fiction movie that writes itself – we follow the lives of giant anthropomorphic spiders as they enlist in the military, travel to Thailand, and play bizarre video games involving armored rabbits. Michael Bay, get on this STAT.
3. “Hold Me Now,” Thompson Twins
- Actual: “Oh, my cold and tired heart”
- Misheard: “Oh, my cold Italian heart”
The only acceptable reason to listen to this song is so you can intentionally mis-hear this line. Too bad it’s toward the end of the song.
4. “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana
- Actual: “An albino, a mosquito”
- Misheard: “You’re a wino on a Ski-Doo”
Kurt Cobain’s enunciation was never all that great (“Weird Al” Yankovic famously lampooned it in “Smells Like Nirvana”), but this is one of the the few instances where the actual and misheard lyrics make equally as much sense.
5. “Whatever I Fear,” Toad the Wet Sprocket
- Actual: “You eat my kind for breakfast”
- Misheard: “You eat my cat for breakfast”
Glen Phillips, lead singer and head songwriter of Toad, originally wrote this song as a tribute to everyone’s favorite ’80s sitcom alien puppet, Alf. The only surviving lyric from this original version was a line about eating cats, which Phillips and his bandmates quickly re-wrote into its final form. If you listen closely, though, you can still hear Glen lapse into singing “You eat my cat” a few times. True story.
As an extra special bonus, I want to include what I feel is the ultimate in misheard lyrics, from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, “Pod People.” There’s absolutely no way I can do this justice in words, so I’ll let the song in its entirety do the talking.
Let’s face it. Everyone is bound to disappoint you at some point. No one is perfect. For example, I have forgotten my mother’s birthday every year for about 20 years in a row. I’m at the point where, whenever I talk to her, I wish her a happy birthday just in case.
The category for today’s Top 5 list, though grammatically questionable, comes from a suggestion by my friend Charlie Simmons, after I requested ideas for Top 5 categories. I suppose I have no one but myself to blame. —JS