Brian Adams - Summer of '69

Actual lyrics to start the song: I got my first real six-string, bought it at the five and dime

What I always hear, sung so proudly and nostalgically: I got my first real sex dream down at the five and dime

For some reason when I was a kid, I thought the song “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield said “You know I wish that I had Tootsie Rolls” instead of “You know I wish that I had Jessie’s Girl”.

I still don’t know why i thought he was singing about tootsie rolls, but that’s how I used to sing along to it

A friend thought “Pretty Vacant” by the Sex Pistols was “Streaky Bacon”. Another thought “Battery” by Metallica was “Bakery” (pronounced BAK-A-RAY). In keeping with the food theme I thought the lyric “fingernails, cigarettes; a lousy dinner” in the Replacements ‘I Will Dare’ was “bacon and cigarettes” for longer than I care to admit.

Apparently when I was two or three years old, I insisted the lyric was “If you’re gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a parallelogram.”

Esa son Reebok o son Nike

Oh man, reminds me of kissthisguy.com. Back when the internet was still run by humans.

Tell you one I recently realized: Chattanooga Choo Choo. I don’t know who the “original” artist of that one was, it’s been a country-western staple for awhile. Came back into my attention recently because I was rewatching Hyce & KaN’s Let’s Podcast of Railroads Online, and one of several backing tracks is an instrumental version, so the song got stuck in my head. Singing it while doing dishes, I got to a lyric I never understood, and looked it up.

The lyric I heard:

There’s gonna be a certain party at the station

Satin and lace, a hustacauphanie face

I…didn’t know what “hustacauphanie” meant. My brain did that thing where I assume a word exists I’m not familiar with. Like, you know how sometimes women’s skin is compared to alabaster? Hustacauphanie might have been dead people talk for some luxurious or exotic material or…something. So I looked it up. The actual lyric is:

There’s gonna be a certain party at the station,

Satin and lace, I used to call ‘funny face’

The songwriter managed to pack the entire second act of It’s A Wonderful Life into half a lyric. We don’t have compression algorithms that good anymore.

I forever thought the chorus of Billy Squire’s song The Stoke was “Slow dance jug band.”

That’s how I sang it when I was a kid and I simply never reevaluated it as I grew up.

In Belle and Sebastian’s "Me and the Major’ my brain will simply not hear anything except

“Me and the midget don’t see eye to eye”

Which I find funny on a couple of different levels.

Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

Also, I knew I was forgetting the best one. I sang this with my whole heart and soul from the time it came out ~1997 until somebody corrected me ~2020 pandemic:

I believe in the sand beneath my toes The beach gives a feelin’, an earthy feelin’ I believe in the faith that grows …

“And the four eyed goats can make me cry” right?

Wrong! It turns out it’s “And the four right chords can make me cry”

There is a famous one here in Germany that everyone gets wrong.
The original line being sung: “Es tobt der Hass da vor meinem Fenster”, meaning “Hatred is raging in front of my window”.
What everyone hears: “Es tobt der Hamster vor meinem Fenster”, meaning “The hamster is raging in front of my window”.

Wrapped up like a douche

Actual lyrics

Revved up like a duece

• Blinded by the light

Excuse me, while I kiss this guy! 😘

I used to hear “Honest, Lucille” instead of “Our lips are sealed” from The Go Gos.

The hymn Lead on Oh King Eternal sounded like Lead on oh kinky turtle to a very young me.