What did you say?; Misheard Lyrics

Add in background music, back up vocalists, and instrumental, and it’s sometimes hard to hear the lyrics for what they truly are. This leads to misheard lyrics that are often hilarious.

When I was little I was sure that “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves” by Cher didn’t go ‘We’d hear it from the people of the town. They’d call us gypsy’s, tramps, and thieves’ but instead went, “They’d call us Carrots, Stamps and peas”. I was always slightly confused at why carrots, stamps and peas were insulting names. I didn’t question it as a kid because it was a good song and what the heck did I know about making songs or about gypsies.

This is actually a fairly common occurrence. There’s a phenomenon called mondegreens, It means, “a word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of another word or phrase, especially in a song or poem”.

The phrase came from an American writer by the name of Slyvia Wright, and written about San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll. Mondegreen is inspired by a misheard line in a poem. She misheard “he laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen” from the Scottish ballad “The Bonny Earl o Moray”.

“The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens since no one else has thought up a word for them is that they are better than the original” comments Wright. This brought forward a vivid image of a beautiful and brave woman, a lady and she was rather disappointed that she wasn’t actually a character in the poem.