People who thought Elvis was singing “People love bagels” instead of “Viva Las Vegas” were not alone in the world of misheard music lyrics.
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People love bagels!
by Phil Houseal
Sept 29, 2010
What!? Y’all don’t recognize that Elvis hit song? Oh, right. Some people insist the lyrics really are Viva Las Vegas. Welcome to the world of misheard lyrics.
We all have them - those lines from songs that got garbled in our heads the first time we heard them. When the Monkees were blasting I’m a Believer out of 3-inch speakers hooked up to 45-record, is it any wonder we thought Micky Dolenz sang “When I needed suction on my brain” instead of “When I needed sunshine, I got rain?”
The phenomenon of misheard lyrics goes way back and is not restricted to rock and roll. What child hasn’t sat in church pondering the song about “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear?” (Gladly, the cross I’d bear), or “My goat knows the bowling score” (Michael, Row the Boat Ashore).
But it was raised to an art form with the genesis of rock and roll, where the guitars and drums were mixed as loud as the vocals, and lead singers ingested various concoctions that led to slurred words that were strange to begin with.
The Beatles had lyrics rich in double meanings, especially when misheard:
Pay for that Chrysler - Paperback writer (Paperback Writer)
In my own pajamas - In my hour of darkness (Let It Be)
It’s the wheel, it’s the heat - Ah, Mr. Wilson, ah, Mr. Heath (Taxman)
With the Rolling Stones, sometimes the misheard lyrics made more sense (and were less provocative) than the real ones: our parents thought Mick Jagger was crooning “A later, different scene in New York City?” when we knew what he was really saying.
Writer Gavin Edwards lists more examples in his book He’s Got The Whole World In His Pants:
Pineapples in Flight - Skyrockets in Flight (Starland Vocal Band, Afternoon Delight)
Your cat just peed in your penthouse - You can’t plant me in your penthouse (Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
He like to tickle bananas - Electrical banana (Donovan, Mellow Yellow)
I hope the city voted for you - Hopelessly devoted to you (Olivia Newton-John)
Some of those wrong lyrics now seem more accurate:
Head out on the highway, looking for my dentures -
Head out on the highway, looking for adventure (Steppenwolf, Born to Be Wild)
Some are just weird:
Gypsies, chimpanzees, and every night all the men would come around and lay the monkey down (Cher, Gypsies, Tramps, & Thieves).
And I can’t speculate on how “I’m Your Venus” has been misheard.
The one that got me was The Joker by the Steve Miller Band. I spent hours in college singing along - not ever sure what he meant by “cause I speak of the pompoudors of love.” Even when I learned it was really “the pompitus of love” it made no sense. I recently learned why - he cheated! Miller made up the word “pompitus.” But it makes me feel better that I didn’t understand that lyric BECAUSE IT WASN’T REALLY A WORD!
Margaritaville. I played that Jimmy Buffet tune in many bands, but never could figure out he was saying “stepped on a Pop-Tart” (stepped on a pop top) and “my outlaw shaker of salt” (my long-lost shaker of salt).
Then there is the number one worst pop song of all time - Rupert Holmes’ Pina Colada Song. How many of us thought he was singing, “If you like bean enchiladas...?”
The Eagles’ Hotel California was another tune rife with symbolism and made-up words.
The offending phrase in this case is “the warm smell of colitas.” Some thought it was “colitis” which is an inflammation of the large intestine. But colitis is pronounced “koe-LIE-tis” as in the Beatles song “the girl with colitis goes by.” Colitas (koe-LEE-tas) is derived from the Spanish “colas” which are the branches on a plant such as hemp. You can figure out the reference from there.
Our most nagging misquote was when we had a lounge band and tried to cover the Linda Ronstadt tune Willing. We listened over and over to that song, trying to decipher the line following “I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari...”
We finally agreed it was “I had to be a Joan of Arc.” Sure, that made little sense. But it fit. So that’s how we sang it.
Years later I discovered the line was really, “From Tehachapi to Tonopah.”
Hey! In our defense, we were from the Midwest - we’d never heard of those Southwest towns!
Now we have the Internet and we can look up all those obscured lyrics. But in some ways it was more fun not knowing. Reminds me of the old joke one of my elementary students told me about the Spanish exchange student who was so impressed with our country’s hospitality. “I could not believe it,” the young man said. “Before watching my first baseball game, everyone stood up and sang, ‘Jose, can you see?’”