People mishearing and misquoting song lyrics has been going on for about as long as lyrics have existed in music (Well probably. I don't have a citation for that). About a week ago I was inspired to write this post because I realized that I had been misquoting a lyric to a song by one of my favorite bands. On top of that, the quote is in the chorus of the song so I was literally mishearing it a crazy number of times. On top of that, the quote is in the title of the fucking song!
How did this happen Mason!? How could you be so oblivious!?
Well, for those of you that know me well, I usually listen to albums straight through instead of listening to individual songs. When I first start listening to an album, there is quite a time that I will refer to a song by its track number instead of its title because I haven't learned the title of the song yet. So, yes, I was awfully oblivious in this instance but also, what could have also contributed was how I learned the lyrics wrong when listening to it and then, when looking down at the song title one day, I had incorrectly read it as well since my brain was making the assumption that it was the mishearing that my brain had grown accustom to.
Does that make sense?
For those of you wondering, the song is "This is How I Disappear" by My Chemical Romance. For years, years, I have been incorrectly titling and quoting the song as "This is How We Disappear." I even mis-titled the song in the credits for my XDXC video Spec-Ops: Ranger Elite REVENGE. I think the reason why I made this mistake initially when I first started listening to this song was because when Gerard Way sings it, the 'w' in 'how' kind of gets carried over into the 'I' part of the line so when my, over-assuming, brain was hearing it, it just figured he was saying 'we.' Within the context of the song, the use of 'we' does kind of make sense as he could be saying that anyone could "disappear" in this fashion. Or perhaps 'we' in a more of an us and them kind of connotation. That 'we' can disappear in this way opposed to normal people.
But, the song makes way more sense with 'I.' In fact, now that I am listening to the song with this knowledge of the actual lyric, I don't know how I heard 'we' in the first place.
Anyways, I would also like to take this chance to talk about some other misquoted songs that I, or others, have commonly misquoted/misheard.
Green Day - Castaway
When the chorus comes and Billie Joe sings "Castaway," everyone that I know, including me, thought that he was singing "Gasoline." Billie Joe tends to be hard to understand when singing but this one lyric in particular seems to always be misheard in the same way. It probably has something to do with that he doesn't enunciate the 't' very well.
My Chemical Romance - Our Lady of Sorrows
My good friend Ryan was looking up lyrics to this song and there seemed to be a disagreement in cyberland about whether one of the lines in the song was "Laceration Gravity" or "Laceration Clarity." That, I find hilarious because the argument can be resolved by looking up the lyric in the lyrics booklet. I suppose a lot of people don't own lyrics booklets anymore as they legally or illegally download music. However, I am one of the few people (call me a hipster if you want) left that value CDs. So, I looked up the lyric in the booklet.
It's "Laceration Gravity" guys.
Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger
My band does a cover of this song and there was one line during the bridge that was pretty inaudible and no one could hear what he was singing. If I remember correctly, we found out that the line is "The Trivial Sublime" (whatever that means). If you want to know for sure, you would have to ask my friend Ryan.
The Hiss - Back on the Radio
This song is relatively obscure so when my band looked up lyrics for it, we couldn't find any. It's pretty hard to understand what he's singing some of the time so we took a stab at it.
No one is going to know the difference anyways.
The Killers - Human
I remember there was a pretty big debate over whether Brandon Flowers was singing "...are we dancers?" or "...are we denser?" In this case, there was no lyrics booklet with the CD. If I remember correctly, Brandon Flowers had to publicly announce that the lyric was "are we dancers?" to end the controversy. Though, if you ask me, the mix-up is pretty understandable as it sounds like he's leaving the 's' off of 'dancers' just about every time.
With Me - Sum 41
This one isn't so much of a misquote but more of... maybe I'm hearing things? It sounds to me that there are backup vocals in the chorus. Most of the time the backups are singing the same lyrics as the lead. However, there is a part when the backup is layered underneath the lead instead. It is so faint that not only can you not understand what is sung, you can't really hear them unless you're listening for them in the first place. So, how did I hear them if I wasn't listening for them? I don't know. I just kind of noticed them one day.
Anyhow, the backup I'm talking about starts right after the lead vocals sing, "These words are my heart and soul." They happen every chorus so pick anywhere in the song to listen (I suppose except for the verse). I can't find anywhere on the internet even an attempt at these backups and I don't own a copy of the CD so I don't know if they would be in the lyrics booklet.
My best guess is, "So I'll hold on." but I'm pretty unsure of the word 'hold.' I'm about 80% confident now after listening to the song some more that the first, second, and fourth words of that backup are 'so,' 'I'll,' and 'on,' respectively. However, I feel like 'move' (what I thought he was singing at first) doesn't really make sense in the context of the song.
It also does sound like it's more likely that he is singing 'hold' when listening to it over and over like I am now. Upon further review, I think I am 95% sure that the lyric is, "So I'll hold on." But, it's nowhere on the internet from what I can tell. So you saw it here first.
Actually, now that I think about it, the backup vocals are louder in my ear buds than in my good headphones or my stereo system. Interesting...
If you guys have any lyrics that you know of that are misquoted frequently, leave them in the comments.
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