Refrain From Assuming

""Teenage Wasteland... teenage wasteland... teenage wasteland... it's only teenage wasteland...""

- The Who, "Baba O'Riley"

Many songs, perhaps even most songs have the title of the song as the refrain or otherwise prominently featured in the lyrics. Woe be, however, to the casual listener who assumes that this is true of all songs. They're liable to say something like "I love that song 'Teenage Wasteland'" and get permanently branded a noob or a poser, or just get Gannon Banned altogether.

In the defense of such listeners, this Title Confusion often results from idiosyncratic song naming, where the title of the song has apparently nothing whatsoever to do with the tune (thereby averting Title Drop). Also, songs are frequently played on the radio (or by friends) with no introduction so the best anyone can do for identification is typing whatever line is most memorable into Google with "lyrics" after it or humming a few bars.

Songs that outlast their initial airplay popularity to become incorporated into other works such as films and video games as background music are particularly vulnerable to this, as contemporary listeners can catch the title being mentioned by a radio DJ or see the credits of the music video.

As a general rule, if the song title is given as " ", it's probably this type of song. is the official title and is the line that repeatedly appears in the lyrics that everyone thinks is the title.

Incidentally, Opera tunes are traditionally known by their first lines, so this trope never applies to them if you're good at catching words in Italian or German. Of course, there's the catch of being able to tell where songs begin.

See also Misattributed Song and Non Appearing Title. Sometimes turns into a Chorus Only Song.

"Have you listened to the song "Let Me See Your Hips Swing"?
 * The Who's "Baba O'Riley" is more commonly known as "Teenage Wasteland" -- its original working title. If only it hadn't been incorporated into a lost concept album... Pete Townshend ultimately released another, different song, with expanded lyrics and sans synth track, called "Teenage Wasteland," so ending this confusion (if possible) needs to become a priority.
 * To be fair, iTunes actually calls it "Teenage Wasteland" as well, which is misleading, to say the least.
 * Some even call it "Out Here In The Field" after the first line.
 * Freaks and Geeks references this confusion. When the main character calls it "Teenage Wasteland," her friend (played by Seth Rogan) gets annoyed and corrects her.
 * Coldplay's song "Fix You" is not called "Lights Will Guide You Home." The title comes from the last words of the chorus, rather than the first.
 * Coldplay has a lot of counterintuitive song titles. "Politik" could easily get mislabeled as "Open Up Your Eyes," since that line is shouted loudly numerous consecutive times, while the word "Politik" only appears twice and doesn't sound important.
 * "Viva La Vida" has many title-esque lines in it, but the phrase "Viva La Vida" isn't in the song at all (or in any song in the album "Viva La Vida," for that matter).
 * "Charlie Brown" does not contain the phrase "Charlie Brown" and has no obvious relation to Charlie Brown. From the lyrics, the song sounds like it's called "Glowing In The Dark" (which is repeated prominently 3 times).
 * Fridge Brilliance? The outro kinda sounds like the "Peanuts" piano standby "Linus & Lucy".
 * Some incorrectly list the song name as "Cartoon Heart" due to the lyric halfway through the song, the fact this was the original name of the song doesn't help either.
 * Ironically, a member of Coldplay named REM's song "Supernatural Superserious," helping it avert this trope (it was originally called "Disguise," which would have been difficult to guess from the lyrics).
 * Marianas Trench has a song with the refrain "Try a little more, little more, little more/Slap me like a bitch, and you take it like a whore/Upside-down and around and around/Just another piece till you need another sound." The song, however, is not called "Try A Little More." It's called "Shake Tramp" after a line in the second verse: "And you need that stamp, little handshake tramp."
 * "By My Side" from Godspell is not called "Where Are You Going", although this is the first line said and the actual Title Drop doesn't come in for a long time.
 * "Escape" by Rupert Holmes was officially retitled "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" when the record label learned that just about everyone who asked for the song in record stores referred to it as "that piña colada song".
 * Fatboy Slim has never recorded anything called "Funk Soul Brother". Or "Check It out Now". (Or "The Funk's Your Brother", nor "The Funk's So Rubber".) Try "The Rockafeller Skank".
 * This is referenced in the track's intro on You've Come a Long Way, Baby, where a caller calls in to a radio show and, after caling Fatboy Slim "the band of the 90s... if you can call it a band, 'cause it's a one-man name", requests "the funk soul BROTHER!!" and sings the first line after the host tells him he doesn't know which one he's talking about.
 * The CD single was sold with a sticker on it saying "Check It out Now, the Funk Soul Brother" so people would know that that was the song.
 * "Star 69", another Non Appearing Title, is not called "WTF".
 * He also never wrote a song called "Push the Tempo", but they did write a song with that same lyric entitled "Ya Mama".
 * Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" is more commonly known as "Son of a Bitch," thanks to its prominent use in the chorus. The band wanted to name the song "Son of a Bitch" from the start, but their label wouldn't allow it. To get around this, Nazareth decided to name the song something that, phonetically, comes very close to "Heir of the Dog," which is another term for...
 * The Laura Branigan song sometimes known as "Creatures of the Night" is titled "Self Control" (a line that does appear in the song as "you take my self control" but is not as clearly enunciated as the mistaken title).
 * "The 59th Street Bridge Song", better known as "Feelin' Groovy", by Simon and Garfunkel. In listings on Simon & Garfunkel CDs and the like, it's usually listed as "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)". Covers of that song are often listed under the false title.
 * Keith West's "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera" is often called "Grocer Jack". On the Teenage Opera CD (released many years later), it's called "Grocer Jack: Excerpt from a Teenage Opera".
 * The words "Train in Vain" never appear in The Clash's song of that name. It's commonly known as "Stand by Me" for lyrics that do appear in the song.
 * The title is probably a reference to the Robert Johnson classic "Love in Vain".
 * Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)". People think it's just "Time of Your Life".
 * They also have "Platypus (I Hate You)".
 * Looking For to download The Mars Volta's "Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)"? Better search for a song called "Exo Skeleton". That isn't the line either, it's "Exoskeletal junction at the railroad delayed".
 * Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" is sometimes referred to as "I wanna fuck you like an animal", the most obvious and memorable line in the chorus. "You get me closer to God" is also included. Not helped by the fact that the version that appeared on the EP was called Closer To God. As was the EP.
 * Also, "Wish" may be mistakenly called "The First Day of My Last Days".
 * The name of The Alan Parsons Project's biggest hit in America is not "I Can Read Your Mind", but "Eye in the Sky". Both lines occur in the chorus, but the former is the one at the end of the chorus and the one that repeats most often.
 * The Smashing Pumpkins' song "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" is better known as "some variation on 'Rat in a Cage'".
 * "The World Is a Vampire" is also common, after the first line.
 * The Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself" is also known as "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch", since that starts the song and is considerably more notable than the true title. Some cover versions use the false title.
 * "By the Way" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers has been called "Under the Marquee".
 * "Under the Bridge" is called quite a few different things. These include "City of Angels", which occurs fewer times in the lyrics than the title but is enunciated more clearly.
 * "Dani California" is often called "California Rest in Peace." The former is the actual title, and appears once in the second verse. The latter is the first line of the refrain.
 * "The Adventures of Raindance Maggie" runs into this, one could call it "Make it Rain Somehow". The titular character is refered to only as Maggie in the chorus.
 * The song "Wedding Bell Blues" (by the Fifth Dimension) has been called "Bill".
 * The David Bowie song is "Space Oddity," not "Major Tom."
 * Peter Schilling's new-wave sequel to Bowie's song, on the other hand, was titled "Major Tom" despite there being no mention of Tom in the chorus. It's sometimes referred to as "Coming Home."
 * To add the confusion, Peter Schilling has two "Major Tom" songs, to add to all the confusion. One takes the themes of the Bowie song and runs with them- "Major Tom (Coming Home)", the second one is "Major Tom, Part 2"
 * Or, in the original German version, as "Major Tom (völlig losgelöst)"; the parenthetical part features very prominently in the chorus.
 * Once, all three panelists on Jeopardy gave questions to a Final Answer answers that were all variations of "What is 'Rolling on the River'?" The Credence Clearwater Revival song is called "Proud Mary."
 * Also, there is no CCR song that is titled "Some Folks" or "It Ain't Me." It's "Fortunate Son."
 * Nine Days' "Absolutely" gets called "Story of a Girl" or "When She Smiles." "Story of a Girl" is the official subtitle, but people use it who ignore the main title completely.
 * LL Cool J's big is is not "Don't Call It a Comeback" but "Mama Said Knock You Out."
 * The poem opening "How doth the little busy Bee ..." is actually titled "Against Idleness and Mischief".
 * "Daisy Bell" is the song HAL sings, not "Daisy, Daisy" or "Bicycle Built for Two".
 * Harvey Danger's hit song, "Flagpole Sitta", is often called "I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well" because "Flagpole Sitta" doesn't appear in the song.
 * Are you having trouble finding "Rattle My Bones" by Matt Nathanson? Of course you are, because it's really "Faster".
 * You might also have trouble finding the Sugarland collaboration because you're searching "I Run to You", which is actually a song by another band.
 * Of Montreal's songs, particularly from their more recent albums, invoke this frequently. "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse"? "Requiem for O.M.M. 2"? "Wraith Pinned to the Mist (and Other Games)"? None of those phrases even appear in the lyrics. Many contain words that aren't in the dictionary. Averted by their song "Coquet Coquette".
 * Almost none of Panic at the Disco's songs on their first album, A Fever You Can't Sweat out, have their titles in their lyrics. The titles often rhyme with the choruses. "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", for example, half-rhymes with the end of the chorus, "poise and rationality". Then there are titles like "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered, Honey, You Just Haven't Figured It out Yet". What?
 * A lot of their song titles are drawn from literature and movies, mostly for completely unrelated reasons; "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes off" comes from the movie Closer.
 * So does "But It's Better If You Do".
 * Unsurprisingly, the band that Panic At the Disco strove to imitate in their first album, Fall Out Boy, did pretty much the same with a lot of their own song titles. Try to find "A little less Sixteen Candles, a little more Touch Me" anywhere in the song. The same goes for "20 dollar nose bleed" (from the "Folie a Deux" album - also known as "the benzedrine song") and, of course, the pièce de résistance: "Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued".
 * That Fall Out Boy song is called "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs", not "Thanks For The Memories". It's supposed to look like a text message (and/or be a Take That to people who complained about their long song titles).
 * The Fray's "Over My Head (Cable Car)" was originally just "Cable Car", but Executive Meddling changed it before it was widely released. It's the band's first single; one presumes that they might have gotten away with just calling it "Cable Car" if they were more established.
 * For instance, now that they are established, "Never Say Never" does not have "Don't Let Me Go" as a subtitle.
 * Evanescence's song "Bring Me to Life", despite being one of their most well-known songs, falls victim to this trope a lot. Even though "Bring me to life" is in the lyrics, everyone still seems to think it's "Wake Me up Inside" -- including some serious academic books on pop culture.
 * Their song "Bleed" is more generally known as "I Must Be Dreaming". Admittedly, "bleed" is used only once, in the first verse, but still.
 * Weirdly, it seems "My Immortal" doesn't get confused as much, maybe because the chorus is not very giving up of an in-song title.
 * Or because of the fanfiction named after it.
 * Brooklyn based doom/gloom/goth/sludge metal band Type O Negative's faux-live album The Origin of the Feces plays with this trope by naming the songs as if they were from a bootleg. Most of the titles are the first line of the chorus or the most repeated word: "Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 x 10-8 cm-3 gm-1 sec-2" becomes "Gravity" and "Unsuccessfully Coping with the Natural Beauty of Infidelity" is retitled "I Know You're Fucking Someone Else".
 * "The Wicker Man" by Iron Maiden was once called "Your Time Will Come" on a request thread.
 * Also, "Man on the Edge" isn't called "Falling Down" (though the movie that served as inspiration is).
 * They also never did a song called "I'm On My Way". They did, however, do one called "Wildest Dreams".
 * "Drifter" can also be found online as "Gonna Sing My Song".
 * Also, "The Evil That Men Do" is not called "Livin' on a Razor's Edge".
 * This bootleg from the 1992 Fear of the Dark is guilty of that, as well as "Sanctuary" is referred to as "Sanctuary From the Law" (the fact that Bruce Dickison is credited as a songwriter in that picture doesn't help either) and "The Clairvoyant" is "Time to Live Time to Die" (the only Maiden example here that's also a Non Appearing Title). It's also funny how the bootleg is named "The Teenage Werewolf".
 * Billy Joel's "River of Dreams" is often referred to as "Middle of the Night". "(In the) middle of the night" is repeated throughout the song; "river of dreams" appears only once, near the end.
 * It appears that some people think the Billy Joel album The Stranger is called "Movin' Out." "Movin' Out" is the first song on that album, and a catchy one. "The Stranger" is a different, quieter song on the album.
 * The correct title of the song is "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", a rare instance where the item in parentheses is not the lyric people think is the title.
 * There is a song on The Stranger called "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie." The full Billy Joel single, however, is "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," after the bookends; and only "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" appears in the official album listing.
 * Another Billy Joel example is "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)".
 * The Four Seasons song "December 1963" is commonly known as "Oh What a Night". Album listings do use Title (Subtitle) format but don't agree on which phrase goes in the parentheses.
 * Another example is the Pet Shop Boys' "Opportunities", commonly known as "Let's Make Lots of Money".
 * Some people refer to Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" as "Thunder". This mistake occurs less often than it ought to, since the word "dreams" is buried in the lyrics, while "thunder" is quite prominent. Mistakes may become more common if the song starts fading from the collective consciousness.
 * The Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch" is more commonly referred to as "the Discovery Channel song."
 * Also, "Fire Water Burn" isn't "The Roof is On Fire".
 * New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" is popularly known as "Every Time I See You Falling." New Order seems particularly fond of song titles that appear nowhere in the lyrics; other famous examples include "Blue Monday" ("How does it feel...") and "True Faith" ("I used to think that the day would never come...").
 * "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is the title of the Bob Dylan song better known as "Everybody Must Get Stoned". It's clear why the song couldn't be titled "Everybody Must Get Stoned" -- it would have seriously hampered distribution of anything with that song on it; it's less clear why Dylan chose the decoy title. He claimed it was for two women who wandered into the studio the day the song was recorded...
 * "Rainy day woman" is apparently a slang term for a marijuana cigarette from the '60s. Or So Iheard.
 * Bringing it around full circle, one of the many theories on the origin of 420 as slang for Marijuana is that 420 is 12*35, after this song.
 * Similarly, while Don't Look Back is the Dylan documentary, the song is called "She Belongs to Me." And yes, the title is ironic.
 * Dylan was very fond of this trope for a while. Other examples include "My Back Pages" (occasionally credited as some variation on the chorus "I Was So Much Older Then/I'm Younger Than That Now"), "Ballad of a Thin Man" ("that Mr Jones song"), "Positively 4th Street" ("You got a lotta nerve..."), not to mention any number of songs that don't have a chorus, where the title doesn't appear anywhere in the song at all.
 * The song is "I Don't Believe You," but due to the recurring line it's often called "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)."
 * Including on some albums' packaging. This may be due to a Retcon.
 * In a slightly different way, most of the Dylan titles from his 1965-66 years which have a -ly adverb; not only the title never appears in the song, it certainly looks like only the part after the adverb is the real title and the adverb is tacked on ("Positively 4th Street", "Obviously Five believers", "Queen Jane Approximately" and, probably the most blatant example, "Most likely you go your way (and I'll go mine)")
 * Disturbed's "Meaning of Life" is often called "Get Psycho."
 * And "Conflict" is often called "Enemy". Probably because "enemy" is every fifth word.
 * To put it into perspective, the song is about 250 words long at 4:35. The word "Enemy" is used at least 52 times. So yes, this song is indeed made 1/5 "Enemy".
 * Everclear's "Santa Monica," which does not contain the title anywhere in the lyrics, tends to be called "Watch the World Die" (the last line of the chorus) or, occasionally, "Live Beside the Ocean" (from the first line of the chorus).
 * Similarly, "Father of Mine" (which shows up at the beginning of the verses) is not called "Daddy Gave Me a Name" (from the chorus).
 * A few people called "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana as "Hello, Hello". But, in the defense of those few people, those are just about the only words in the song that you can actually understand.
 * "Come As You Are", not "Memoria" or "Don't Have a Gun".
 * "Lithium", not "I'm Not Gonna Crack".
 * "All Apologies", not "In the Sun, Buried".
 * Zeromancer's "Dr. Online" is known as "1-800-suicide", after the most promenant lyric. There also is a completly different song called 1-800-suicide by Gravediggaz.
 * The Cure's "A Forest" has been referred to as "Into the Trees."
 * "Let's Go to Bed" saves that part for the very end. Those words aren't uttered at all in the chorus.
 * In the musical A Chorus Line, "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" is named after the first line of the verse. The original title, "," was changed to keep from giving away the joke.
 * Reel Big Fish's "You Don't Know" sometimes gets referred to as some variation of "Fuck Off" or "The Fuck Off Song". It must be the profanity, because the line "You Don't Know" is said more than "Fuck Off" in the song by a good margin.
 * "Cheer Up" has been called "I Got a Funny Feelin'". The words "Cheer up" only occur once, at the very end of the song.
 * The U 2 song "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (just "Pride" on some pressings of ''The Unforgettable Fire") is more referred to by the part in parentheses.
 * Ke$ha never wrote a song called "Glitter in my Eyes", "Hot and Dangerous", or "DJ Turn it Up". The song with those phrases is called "We R Who We R".
 * And in this case the title is actually prominent on the song, appearing "twice" on the chorus.
 * Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" is often referred to as "Start Spreading the News". It didn't help that the "start spreading the news" part of the song was featured in a Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercial. Nor does it help that there are other songs titled "New York, New York," the most notable one being from the musical On the Town, whose film version featured Frank Sinatra (that song is often mistakenly called "It's a Hell of a Town").
 * You know that song from Chicago that goes "He had it coming, he had it coming, he only had himself to blame..."? Well it isn't called "He Had it Coming", as it can be found on certain file sharing sites as. It's called "Cellblock Tango".
 * "A Hymn to Him" from My Fair Lady is sometimes referred to by the first line of its refrain, "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?" The real title never appears in the song.
 * Hardly anyone remembers that "Volare" started out as "Nel blu dipinto di blu" (the line immediately following the "Volare, oh-oh, cantare, oh-oh-oh-oh" bit). Neither would most people know that it premiered at the 1958 Eurovision Song Contest, and that it only went third on the night.
 * No one seems to know that the oft-covered Joni Mitchell song is called "Big Yellow Taxi". Understandable, considering the phrase only appears once in the entire (quite lengthy) song, towards the end.
 * Some people end up calling this something along the lines of "You Don't Know What You've Got 'Til It's Gone". Including Janet Jackson.
 * Others refer to the song as "They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot", which is the line that starts the song and ends each chorus.
 * Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" is an inversion; it's also known as "Clouds" (the name of the CD and subject of the first verse) despite "Both Sides Now" being in all the choruses.
 * In at least one live performance of the song, Mitchell herself introduced the song saying, "Here's a song that has two titles -- 'Clouds' and 'Both Sides Now' -- and both are correct." So, there you have it.
 * There is no song by The Killers titled "(I've Got) Soul but I'm Not a Soldier" or "Gotta Help Me out." The song with both those lines (repeated in the bridge and chorus, respectively), is named for the last line, "All These Things That I've Done."
 * That one string-heavy Coldplay song that gets played on the radio all the time? The title has nothing to do with ruling the world. It's called "Viva La Vida". It doesn't help that the title doesn't appear in the lyrics; nor do any other Spanish or Latin words. (It is part of the title of the album it comes from, however - Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, "Death and All His Friends" being the name of the last(ish) song on the album.)
 * Stone Temple Pilots is infamous for this trope. Many of their songs like "Plush" and "Big Empty" don't have anything remotely close to the title anywhere in the lyrics. And then you have songs like "Sour Girl" (sometimes mistakenly called "What Would You Do") and "Creep" (AKA "Half the Man I Used to Be"), which do have the title in the lyrics, but only once or twice in on of the verses, not in the refrain.
 * Phil Collins' "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" is named after an line in the second verse. Based on the chorus, a more predictable title might be "Please Believe in Me". Opera convention would name it "We had a life, we had a love."
 * Also by Phil Collins, "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" -- as the bracketed title would suggest -- is frequently known as "Take a look at me now".
 * Just to complicate matters, the song is named for the movie in which it appeared. In the lyrics, the line is "against the odds": It is sung as "against all odds" only in the last verse, and not in all versions of the song.
 * Some think The Pretenders' "Brass in Pocket" was called "Gonna Make You Notice." It has been listed on Don't Forget the Lyrics as "Brass in Pocket (I'm Special)."
 * Also, there's no such song as "Ohio," or even "Back to Ohio." It's "My City Was Gone."
 * Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen" is not actually called "Just Like the White-Winged Dove".
 * Saturday Night Live recently did a sketch involving a rewritten version of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe." A summary of the sketch on a website called the original song "Choctaw Ridge."
 * The Police never did a song called "Many Miles Away." The actual title is "Synchronicity II."
 * The Police do not have a song called "I'll Be Watching You". The actual title is "Every Breath You Take". (And while we're at it, it's not a romantic song either.)
 * And "Message in a Bottle" is not "Sending out an SOS".
 * Most of the older Linkin Park songs have no mention of the title in the lyrics, so this mistake is justified in most cases. But not when you accidentally call "What I've Done" "Mercy" or "In This Farewell".
 * Or refer to "New Divide" as "Give Me Reason".
 * Many people do know by now that the "Numa Numa" song is called "Dragostea Din Tei"; but, for a long time, it was just "Numa Numa" to everyone. And Memetic Mutation has kicked in so firmly on this one that for many, it may remain "Numa Numa" forever.
 * Plus, "Numa Numa" is easier (for English-speakers) to say and people are lazy.
 * This Troper has heard the song referred to as "Maya He" after the first words.
 * Metallica's "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)." (only "Sanitarium" appears in the chorus)
 * From the same album: "Disposable Heroes" is not called "Back to the Front" (the band has been known to make fun of this confusion in their own live shows)
 * "Enter Sandman", not "Enter Night, Exit Light".
 * The Eric Bogle song "No Man's Land" is sometimes known as (and has been recorded under) the alternate title "Green Fields of France". Some people, however, refer to the song as "Willie McBride" (the name of the dead soldier to whom the song is addressed).
 * Stevie Wonder's classic song isn't called "You Can Feel It All over" (which is basically the entire chorus); it's "Sir Duke" (which appears exactly once).
 * Inverted Truth in Television: While recording their legendary "Raising Hell" album, rap pioneers Run DMC had problems tracking down Aerosmith to ask them to collaborate on the remake of their "Walk This Way". The reason? As Russell "Rapper's Run" Simmons admitted later, they thought both the band and the song were "Toys in the Attic" (which was both the name of the album "Walk This Way" appeared on and a completely different song on that album).
 * Even many die-hard Rush fans will mistakenly refer to "Red Barchetta" as "Ride Like the Wind".
 * The James song that goes "but she only comes when she's on top" is called "Laid". And it is not a Matt Nathanson song.
 * Kurt Weill's "Alabama Song", popularized by The Doors, may get called "Whiskey Bar" if you just heard the song. (And, more ridiculously, that phrase comes from the first verse, not the refrain, which starts: "Oh, moon of Alabama...")
 * Three Pink Floyd examples: "We Don't Need No Education" for "Another Brick in The Wall, Pt. II", "Dirty Woman" for "Young Lust", and "Riding the Gravy Train" for "Have a Cigar".
 * Make that four: "The Dark Side of the Moon" (for the Album Title Drop that is part of the song's only repeated line) for "Brain Damage" (which doesn't appear in the lyrics). On radio stations, the latter song is often played with "Eclipse".
 * Tom Waits' "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)" is often erroneously called "Waltzing Matilda" because it uses that song as its chorus and because the real title makes no sense. Most of the songs on that album also have alternate or expanded titles in parentheses.
 * The title makes complete sense if you know the backstory, it's just never explained in the song itself.
 * Pat Benatar's "Love Is a Battlefield" is often mistitled "We Are Young," after the line that begins the chorus instead of ending it.
 * The title of Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" never appears in that specific form in the lyrics. Most people seem to think the title is "Take a Look at My Girlfriend".
 * The very same wrong title is often mistakenly given to Gym Class Heroes' popular single "Cupid's Chokehold", where the Supertramp song's first few lines are sung as a chorus by Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump.
 * "Kernkraft 400" by Zombie Nation. Most people think "Zombie Nation" is the name of the song because it's mentioned in the song and the title is not. Being listed as "Zombie Nation" on several compilations doesn't help matters. Neither is the true title looking foreign.
 * Nirvana never did a song called "Entertain Us", nor they did "Waif Me". The first one's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the last one Walmart made to sell In Utero.
 * Queen did not perform a song called "We'll Keep on Trying". The song is called "Innuendo".
 * Queen also did not perform a song called "I Want to Ride My Bicycle". That song is called "Bicycle Race", which is said several times in the bridge, but very quickly and weirdly stressed, and once at the end.
 * It's "Flash's Theme", not just "Flash".
 * The album version is "Flash's Theme", but the single edit with the memorable quotes from throughout the movie IS simply called "Flash".
 * "You're My Best Friend" is often referred to as "You're Making Me Live"; they're both in the refrain, but the latter is said more.
 * Radiohead's "Just" is sometimes appended with "(You Do It to Yourself)" for this reason. Former: 3 times. Latter: 15. Its often called this by American alternative radio disk jockeys.
 * The same also applies to "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", often shortened to "Fade Out" for no reason.
 * Their biggest hit "Creep" often appears on filesharing sites as "So Fucking Special" after its best known lyric.
 * The Afroman song that people keep calling "Colt 45" is called "Crazy Rap". "Colt 45" is a COMPLETELY different song from the same artist.
 * Jan Terri's "Losing You" is not called "Lose You Tonight".
 * Older Than Recorded Music: Stephen Foster didn't write a song called "(Way Down Upon the) Swanee River". He did, however, write one called "Old Folks at Home".
 * There is no such song as "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog". For the last time, the Three Dog Night song is called "Joy to the World". Yes, the same title as the Christmas carol. (The confusion isn't helped by the fact that the chorus has ended up in several cover versions of that Christmas carol...)
 * While we're on the subject of Three Dog Night, they never did a song called "How Does Your Light Shine". It's called "Shambala".
 * "Black and White" is usually referred to as something along the lines of "A Child Is Black, a Child Is White". The words "black" and "white" appear constantly throughout the song, but "black and white" never appears as an unbroken phrase.
 * For all the Canadians out there, "Ontario Sucks" is actually called "The Toronto Song." And it wasn't recorded by the Arrogant Worms either, it's actually by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. Which makes sense anyway, seeing how the Arrogant Worms are from Kingston, ON, not Alberta.
 * Savage Garden's song "I Want You" is almost exclusively remembered as "Chica Cherry Cola" (or some spelling variant), despite the fact that "I Want You" is most of the chorus and "Chica Cherry Cola" is in the bridge once. This is likely because "Chica Cherry Cola" is distinctive, and "I Want You" is more generic. (The Savage Garden song doesn't have a "She's So Heavy" section, does it?)
 * Talking about Savage Garden, it's "Affirmation". And not "I Believe".
 * The Arcade Fire song "Rebellion (Lies)" never has the word "rebellion" occur in its lyrics; it has the word "lies" only in the backup vocals, but it is repeated many times back there.
 * Barry Manilow's "Weekend in New England" is generally remembered by those who aren't fans of his as "When Will I Hold You Again?" It doesn't help that New England is mentioned only once in the lyrics, and the word "weekend" is never said at all.
 * "Annie's Song", one of John Denver's biggest hits, never mentions the name Annie anywhere in the lyrics. People who don't know the real title tend to assume it's called "You Fill Up My Senses" or "Come Let Me Love You".
 * By the same token, "Annie's Other Song" is often assumed to be called "I'm Bringin' Me Home to You."
 * And similarly, Simon and Garfunkel's "Kathy's Song" never mentions Kathy in its lyrics (though she is mentioned in different song of theirs, "America", just to add to the confusion).
 * Likewise, Loggins & Messina’s oft-covered big hit “Danny’s Song” never mentions Danny and is probably best known for its “Even though we ain’t got money” chorus.
 * The song "Beer Barrel Polka" is usually called "Roll out the Barrel."
 * The George M. Cohan song "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" was originally titled "The Yankee Doodle Boy" (and the last line of the chorus is "I am that Yankee Doodle boy").
 * Toadies' "Possum Kingdom", which doesn't contain the title phrase anywhere in the song, tends to get called "So Help Me Jesus" for the last line of the chorus, or less often "Do You Wanna Die?" for the bridge.
 * The Icicle Works' "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)": the phrase "Birds fly" appears once in the second verse, while "Whisper to a scream" is the last line of the chorus. And according to Arista Records, the subtitle apparently wasn't enough: they wouldn't put the single out in the US unless it was retitled "Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)". It's been released multiple times under both "title 1 (title 2)" configurations, so both are correct, although technically "Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)" is supposed to refer to the mix of the song released as a single in the US.
 * The song by the Grateful Dead known as "I Will Get By" is actually titled "Touch of Grey."
 * Also the song sometimes called "Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down" is actually called "Throwing Stones"
 * Enya's "Sail Away" was originally titled "Orinoco Flow". I've recently seen it listed as "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)."
 * It was titled "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)" on the single (at least in the UK) but generally just "Orinoco Flow" otherwise.
 * Led Zeppelin have a few songs like this, since so many don't have the title in the lyrics at all. The most obvious is "Black Dog" ("Hey hey mama said the way you move gonna make you sweat gonna make you groove...") It's named after a stray black dog that was wandering next to the studio.
 * Similarly "You Don't Have to Go" is actually "D'Yer Maker" (pronounced like "Jamaica")
 * Zep had a LOT of these. If memory serves: "Over the Hills and Far Away", "Misty Mountain Hop," "Thank You," and that's just off the top of my head. Also, keep in mind that they did in fact have an entire album with No Title. (variously known as Led Zeppelin IV, Four Symbols, Zoso, etc.)
 * The song "Caramelldansen" is sometimes dubbed "U-U-Uaua" by Nico Nico Douga users for the chant before and after the chorus.
 * Francis Scott Key titled his poem "Defense of Fort McHenry". The first person to publish it along with sheet music called it "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the name stuck.
 * Evanescence's song "Whisper" is called "Don't Turn Out the Lights" for the last lyric in the chorus of the song.
 * The theme music from the movie Arthur is called "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)". However, it is best known by the first line of the chorus, "When you get caught between the moon and New York City", and is therefore often referred to as "The Moon and New York City".
 * The soothing, mellow Christmas song that everyone knows as "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" is actually titled, simply, "The Christmas Song."
 * The famous show tune from Rent is actually called "Seasons of Love," not "525,600 Minutes."
 * "Another Day" from the same show is sometimes referred to as "Me and My Guitar" after the first lines of the song.
 * Blur's "Song 2" is often called "Woo Hoo" after the chorus.
 * Also "I got my head shaved".
 * Five for Fighting's "Superman (It's Not Easy)", which doesn't contain the word "Superman" anywhere (it's sung from the point of view of Superman). Common titles for this include "I'm More Than a Man in a Silly Red Sheet" or "I Can't Stand to Fly".
 * Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" apparently leads a bizarre triple life. It's also known as Lit's "I'm Not Sick but I'm Not Well" and Green Day's "Paranoia". The first title and attribution is the correct one. This isn't caused by the existence of three differently-titled covers; there's only one recorded cover, which is by Chiodos.
 * In response to this, the song that was titled "Dance Floor Anthem" on Good Charlotte's Good Morning Revival album was retitled "Dance Floor Anthem (I Don't Want to Be in Love)" when it was released as a single.
 * Squeeze have a song called "Black Coffee in Bed". Black is not added until near the end. This song might also be called "Stain on My Notebook".
 * Chicago: "Call On Me" and "Questions 67 and 68" have too many phrases in the chorus to list all possible alternate titles.
 * "Ice Cream Freeze" is a new song by Hannah Montana, but it leaked months ago and most fans thought the title was "Let's Chill," so when it was officially released, it got the title of "Ice Cream Freeze (Let's Chill)"
 * Dire Straits' biggest hit is "Money for Nothing", not "MTV" or "Microwave Ovens".
 * Weird Al Yankovic's parody of the song is called "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", not just "Beverly Hillbillies". And yes, the asterisk is part of the title.
 * Men At Work's third-biggest hit is called "Overkill", not "Day After Day".
 * Most people refer to the popular Placebo song as "Every Me and Every You" because that's how the chorus seems to go. If you read the back of the CD case, it is quite clearly called "Every You, Every Me" and if you listen to the choruse more carefully, you'll hear the end of the chorus goes "every me and every you, every me."
 * And a lot people think it's called "Sucker Love" after the first two words of each verse.
 * Few people appear to know that the song "Pure Morning" is called "Pure Morning" and not "A Friend In Need", even though the latter line is sung at the start of every verse.
 * Feeder's most popular song "Buck Rogers" is sometimes referred to as "Brand New Car" or even "CD Player". The title does appear in the song but only as backing vocals between the chorus and verse.
 * Another Feeder song, "Just a Day", does not feature the title within the lyrics. It tends to show up on music sites with names like "All By Myself" or "I Blame Myself".
 * "Shot Through the Heart" and "You Give Love a Bad Name" are two different Bon Jovi songs. To add to the confusion, both start with the words "Shot through the heart"...
 * Although "You Give Love a Bad Name" uses its title twice in the refrain, and "Shot through the heart" is only heard once in the refrain.
 * Similarly, "Here I Am" and "The One That You Love" are two different Air Supply songs. The former is sometimes referred to as "Just When I Thought I Was over You" to try to head off the confusion.
 * The Jane's Addiction song is called "Ted, Just Admit It..." not "Nothing's Shocking".
 * It doesn't help it the album it's on is called Nothing's Shocking.
 * Jilted John's most famous song is called "Jilted John" and not "Gordon is a Moron"...
 * The established convention in Opera is to name arias after their first lyric. This is useful for the singers/orchestra so that everyone knows that they are all (literally) on the same page. However, the first line generally isn't the most memorable, making it confusing from the audience's perspective. Perhaps the best example of this is from Pagliacci: the crying clown aria is called "Vesti la giubba (Put on the Costume)", not the soaring, climactic lyrics "Ridi, Pagliaccio (Laugh, Clown!)".
 * Also notable is the original Scarpia Ultimatum, which is actually called "Tre sbirri, una carozza (Quick, a carriage)". It's usually either referred to as "Va, Tosca" or The One With The Te Deum. And averted in the same opera, with "Vissi d'arte (I lived for art)", which actually is the part everyone remembers.
 * This is irritatingly carried over into the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, leaving such gems as the one that goes "I am the Pirate King/You are, hurrah for the Pirate King!/And it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Pirate King!" which is of course titled "Better Far to Live and Die". And how could we forget the chorus "A paradox/A paradox/A most ingenious paradox!/With quips and quibbles heard in flocks/None can beat this paradox!" which naturally is called "When You Had Left Our Pirate Fold".
 * Oh, so very, very many Michael Nesmith songs, from before, during, and after his time with The Monkees: "Papa Gene's Blues", "Nine Times Blue", "Daily Nightly", "Auntie's Municipal Court", "Tapioca Tundra", "Writing Wrongs", "Never Tell a Woman Yes", "Admiral Mike", "The Crippled Lion", "Hollywood", "Carlisle Wheeling", "Propinquity", "Some of Shelley's Blues"....
 * At one point his record label supervisor told him to knock it off and write songs that were "just good clean fun," so Nez wrote a song called "Good Clean Fun" that still didn't have those words in the lyrics. Nez is awesome.
 * His fellow Monkee Micky Dolenz wrote the song entitled "Randy Scouse Git" (or, in the UK, "Alternative Title" as people there actually knew what the phrase meant; most people in the US, and Micky himself (who had heard it on a British TV show), did not). If you didn't know the title, you might be forgiven for believing the title to be "Why Don't You Cut Your Hair?" Since the show in question (Till Death Do Us Part) was later adapted for American TV as "All in The Family", had Mickey been a Brit visiting the US a few years later, the title might have been "Pinko Polack Meathead".
 * James Brown's most famous song is called "I Got You (I Feel Good)", not "I Feel Good."
 * Initially, the song's title was just "I Got You" without the subtitle. The original version has shown up on several compilations over the years.
 * His second-most famous is not "Sex Machine," or "Get Up", or "Get On Up," but has the baffling title "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine."
 * 3 Doors Down's most famous song is not called "Superman," nor is it called "If I Go Crazy." It's actually called "Kryptonite.
 * And the Spin Doctors' song featuring the line "I've got a pocket full of kryptonite" is entitled "Jimmy Olsen's Blues."
 * Made more confusing by the fact that the album it's on IS called Pocket Full of Kryptonite.
 * Biggest-ever hit for this band, same album: It's widely thought to be called "Just Go Ahead Now" or after the phrase that ends each line in the chorus. It's not called "If You Want to Call Me Baby," either. It's actually called "Two Princes", which appears in the opening line of the first verse.
 * The calypso tune popularly known as "Day-O" is more properly called "The Banana Boat Song." Also, one of its earliest arrangements was done by a calypso group fronted by future Academy Award-winning actor Alan Arkin.
 * Also, "6 Foot 7 Foot" became a common mistake thanks to Lil Wayne.
 * Simple Plan's song "Untitled" is commonly referred to as "How Could This Happen to Me?" or "Untitled (How Could This Happen to Me?)", but when the album was originally released, it was simply "Untitled".
 * The song by Simple Plan that everyone uses as a typical example of an "emo" song is not called "How Could This Happen to Me?", its proper name is "Untitled". Yes, the song's official name is "Untitled". Though the single version has it as "Untitled (How Could This Happen to Me?)". Also, the song is actually an anti-drink-driving song, despite what many people on the internet will tell you - the music video makes it clear what the song's really about.
 * George Strait's "Love Without End, Amen" is often mistakenly referred to as "A Father's Love."
 * The Polyphonic Spree apparently subscribes to the serial-number school of song titling, meaning that very nearly their entire repertoire falls under this trope.
 * Outside of album track listings, they refer to their songs by the subtitles; "Section 9 (Light & Day/ Reach for the Sun)", for example, is just "Light & Day" on the single or when Tim DeLaughter speaks in person. Also, songs that aren't on their main albums don't have section numbers ("I'm Calling" or assorted concert-only pieces). The only really tricky thing is that Sections 20 and 21 are both called "Together We're Heavy"; 20 is the title track for their 2nd album, while 21 is the prologue to their 3rd.
 * The song by the Smiths you like so much? The one that was (in Covered Up form by Love Spit Love) used as the theme for Charmed? Its name isn't Shut Your Mouth or I Am Human. It's How Soon Is Now?.
 * Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's "Come Inside", sometimes referred to as "Welcome Back My Friends", is actually entitled Karn Evil 9: First Impression Part 2, and its actually only the second part of a four-part song that tells the story of a world in which all decadence and sin has been banished.
 * "All Downhill from Here" by New Found Glory narrowly averted this trope. The original title was supposed to be "Catalyst" (which does appear in the refrain but is more difficult to understand than the title phrase), but their manager suggested to use the more recognizable line "All Downhill from Here" instead.
 * That saxophone-heavy song by George Michael (credited as Wham! featuring George Michael in the US) is not titled "I'm Never Gonna Dance Again" or "Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm". It's titled "Careless Whisper", which appears only once in the lyrics in a single verse.
 * The Billy Talent song "The Navy Song" is continually named under the repeated lyrics: "In the Fall".
 * Velvet Revolver's most well known song is not "Here Comes the Water". It's named "Slither".
 * The Frank Zappa song isn't called that either, it's "The Wet T-Shirt Contest." It is about exactly that.
 * That other Frank Zappa song you might think of doesn't have "American Dream" anywhere in its title. It's named "Bobby Brown (Goes Down)".
 * Joseph Arthur's "In the Sun" is often known as "May God's Love Be with You" or "If I Find My Way," both of which appear at noticeable turning points in the song.
 * A rare Tokusatsu theme example: The opening theme to Kyojuu Tokusou Juspion is not "COME ON BOY", it's "Ore ga Seigi da, Juspion!"
 * Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has a song named "June Bride." Anybody who hears the song without knowing the title might easily assume the title to be something like "They Say When You Marry in June."
 * A lot of people seem to think "Blitzkrieg Bop", The Ramones' best-known song, is called "Hey Ho Let's Go".
 * blink-182 does not have a song called "Say It Ain't So". That song is called "All the Small Things".
 * blink-182 (or more their fans) later inverted this before releasing their last album. When a version of the first track was released, many people began calling it "Action" because you can hear a sport's commentator saying "Get ready for action!" at the beginning of the song, despite the fact that "Feeling This" is literally every other line in the song. When the album was released, the song was titled Feeling This.
 * And their song "Dammit" doesn't once use that word.
 * Nor is Adam mentioned anywhere in "Adam's Song".
 * Some of Miyuki Nakajima's albums come with translation booklets. Normally, the title is translated directly from Japanese into English in said booklets, although some song names follow this trope. For instance, the translation of "Alone, Please" is re-titled "Leave Me Alone, Please," and the translation "Hitori de umarete kita no dakara" is re-titled "Jasmine."
 * Another Older Than Radio example: It's not "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" or "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah" or "that song mentioning the Grapes of Wrath". The actual title of the song is "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (and its tune is borrowed from the Civil War-era folk song "John Brown's Body").
 * What about when the most-known part of the song doesn't even have lyrics? That's the case for "Life in a Northern Town" by The Dream Academy, otherwise known as that song that goes "Ah hey ma ma ma hey ah".
 * Otherwise otherwise known as Sunchyme by Dario G.
 * Redgum's "A Walk in the Light Green" is commonly known as "I Was Only Nineteen", as the real title is a Non Appearing Title.
 * The cover by The Herd is listed as "I Was Only Nineteen".
 * My Friend the Chocolate Cake's "A Midlife's Tale" is commonly known by the refrain "(He's got to) Get it back now".
 * The song by Bonnie Tyler that goes "turn around... {lyrics lyrics}, turn around... {lyrics lyrics}, turn around, bright eyes... {lyrics lyrics}, turn around..." and on and on like this is called "Total Eclipse of the Heart". (Not "I Need You More Than Ever," either) Though this is at least guessable, being the punch line of the refrain.
 * Her other big hit is not called "I Need a Hero". It's called "Holding Out for a Hero".
 * "Bodies" by Drowning Pool tends to get called "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor."
 * Bette Midler's "The Rose" (title from the last words of the song) is sometimes misnamed "Some Say Love" (title from the first words of the song).
 * Joey Scarbury's most famous song is only subtitled "Believe It or Not". It's more properly known as the "Theme to The Greatest American Hero".
 * That Beach Boys song (actually Older Than Radio) about a miserable boat trip is called "Sloop John B", not "I Wanna Go Home".
 * A very early song by Live tends to be called "Give It Up" or "Let It Go" due to the words being uttered frequently during it. It's actually called "Operation Spirit (Tyranny of Tradition)". Only one word of the actual title is used in the song, and it's in the first verse.
 * Here's a typical conversation between two people:

You're such an idiot. It's called "Swing"."

"This song's refrain is obviously "Oh my, oh me,"
 * If someone mentions an AFI song called "Kiss My Eyes and Lay Me to Sleep", they're probably thinking of "Prelude 12/21".
 * In the same vein, "As We All Form One Dark Flame", "Love Your Hate", or "You Are Now One of Us" is actually "Miseria Cantare (The Beginning)".
 * Inverted with "The Joker" by Steve Miller Band. "I'm a Joker" actually is in the refrain, but it's name is often confused with "Space Cowboy", a completely different song that was being referenced in the first verse exactly one time, along with like, five others.
 * It's not called "Midnight Toker," either.
 * Ambrosia's "Biggest Part of Me" is usually mistakenly referred to by its repeated choral refrain: "Make a Wish".
 * Animal Collective has never released a song called "Open Up Your Throat". The actual name of the song is Brother Sport.
 * The Butthole Surfers' "Pepper", their biggest hit and one of their frequent Non Appearing Title songs, gets mistakenly called "Coming Down The Mountain" (the last line of every verse), "I Don't Mind the Sun Sometimes" (the first line of the chorus), or "Through Other People's Eyes" (the last line of the chorus). Or some variation on the lines "They were all in love with dying/They were doing it in Texas."
 * Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" (not "Stop, Hey, What's That Sound", but it is a subtitle)
 * The Band's "The Weight" (not "Take a Load off, Fanny")
 * Head East's '70s classic rock hit is not titled "Save My Life," "Going Down for the Last Time," or anything else found in the chorus. Rather, it's titled for the line that occurs two lines before the refrain: "Never Been Any Reason."
 * Lots of Gorillaz' songs are known for having a title not in the song, so a lot of songs by them are misnamed, like "Clint Eastwood" being called "Sunshine in a Bag" or "My Future is Coming On", and "19/2000" being called "Get the Cool Shoeshine".
 * Don McLean's "Vincent" is not titled "Starry Starry Night".
 * Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson's "September Song," not "May to December" or "It's a Long, Long Way" etc.
 * Oingo Boingo's song "No One Lives Forever" is often thought to be titled "Hour of the Wolf". Seeing as the former appears in the song twice as often, the only logical explanation is "Hour of the Wolf" is just a cooler title.
 * Alice in Chains big hit from the early nineties is called "Would" not "Into the Flood (Again)".
 * In an episode of Married With Children, Al is trying to figure out the title of a song. All he knows is "huh huh him". Later he hears the song on the radio, and the chorus is "Go With Him". Then the DJ comes on and says "I know you think that song is called "Go With Him", but it's not!" and then neglects to mention what the title actually is. (It's "Anna" by Arthur Alexander.)
 * Every line in the song begins with the word 'Anna', while 'Go With Him' is only the refrain. The song itself was later covered by The Beatles, under the title "Anna (Go to Him)". It causes quite a bit of confusion among listeners (at least those who know the title).
 * Neil Young has an anthemic song about dying early, from his Rust Never Sleeps album. Most people would guess that the song is called "Look Out Mama" or something similar (the song has no particular chorus, and begins thusly: "Look out, mama, there's a white boat comin' up the river...") when, in actuality, it's called "Powderfinger". This phrase doesn't appear in the lyrics - however, the last verse, sung after the character's rifle has backfired, killing him, begins: "Shelter me from the powder and the finger". This is in reference to the gunpowder and the finger that pulled the trigger. Probably.
 * This is true of several of Weird Al Yankovic's songs, particularly later ones where he began to deviate from titles for his parodies that are sound-alikes (either in phrasing or cadence) to the originals, making most errors due to a Non Appearing Title.
 * His parody of "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor (a major theme of the third Rocky film) is called "Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)", not simply "Rye or the Kaiser".
 * "The Plumbing Song", combined parody of Milli Vanilli's hit singles "Baby Don't Forget My Number" and "Blame It on the Rain", is sometimes known as "Baby Don't Forget My Plumber" and/or "Blame It on the Drain".
 * His Flintstones-flavored Red Hot Chili Peppers parody is named "Bedrock Anthem", not "Yabba Dabba Doo Now" or any variation thereof; the mistake is probably due to the repetition of Fred Flinstone's catchphrase in place of the semi-Title Only Chorus from "Give It Away".
 * His parody of Crash Test Dummies' "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" has the same mmm's in the chorus as the original, but is listed as "Headline News".
 * "Cavity Search" has been misnamed as "Numb Me, Drill Me, Floss Me, Bill Me", being a dentistry-themed parody of U2's "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me".
 * Al's second Star Wars-themed parody is "The Saga Begins", not "My, My, This Here Anakin Guy".
 * His parody of "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne is not called "Constipated", "Related", or "Decapitated", with which Al replaces the word "complicated" in the first, second, and third verses, respectively; it's called "A Complicated Song". Rumor has it that the three verses are actually the beginnings of three different attempts at a parody of "Complicated" that were loosely tied together into a single song.
 * Album Title Drops are a frequent victim of this trope. Elvis Costello's "Brilliant Mistake" is often thought to be called "King of America" because it's the title of the album and the first line of the song.
 * Bob Marley and the Wailers' "Three Little Birds" is often called "Don't Worry About a Thing" or "Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright". The "three little birds" of the title technically get mentioned twice, because both verses of the song are identical, but the chorus is still what sticks in most people's minds more.
 * The Tom Petty song frequently referred to as "Last Dance with Mary Jane" is actually called "Mary Jane's Last Dance", a phrase that doesn't appear anywhere in the song.
 * Van Halen titled their song "Love Walks in" even though "Love Comes Walkin' in" is repeated throughout the chorus and the title never actually appears.
 * "Rock and Roll Part 2" is not called the "Hey Song" so stop calling it that.
 * The song from Grease is not called "Summer Loving" or "Tell Me More". It's called "Summer Nights" (which is actually the refrain).
 * At no time are the words "chop suey" ever mentioned in System of a Down's well-known song, which may well explain why I've seen it called "When Angels Deserve to Die" so often (those words are the last line of the refrain, though; and it seems to be part of the central meaning to the song's lyrics).
 * Also there's "Wake Up!", "I Don't Think You Trust," and "Self-Righteous Suicide" for that song.
 * The working title of the song was "Suicide", hence the engineer saying "We're rolling 'Suicide'" at the start of the recording. Still, no excuse to keep calling it "Self-Righteous Suicide".
 * What did get called "Chop Suey" on occasion, at least in Canada in the mid-80s when it was somewhat popular, is Doug & the Slugs' "Chinatown Calculation".
 * System of a Down has this problem with several of their songs, since a lot of them are named different then the prominent lyrics (and a lot of the verses are hard to understand). Even though the words "toxicity" appears in the song "Toxicity", common mislabels for it include "Disorder" and "What, Do You Own The World?"
 * Sarah McLachlan has a song called "Angel." It is not called "In the Arms of the Angel."
 * Nor is it called "Adopt an Animal Or You Have No Soul," despite what the ASPCA would have you think.
 * Similarly, there is no song titled "I'll Take Your Breath Away." The title is "Possession."
 * "We're Off to See the Wizard" is the name of the song from The Wizard of Oz. "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" is just part of the verse, though it's the only part of the verse used in the movie.
 * Actually, on the soundtrack, the first time the song appears (as Dorothy is leaving Munchkinland and the Munchkins are singing the song), it is titled "Follow the Yellow Brick/You're Off to See the Wizard".
 * John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Christmas/anti-war song "Happy Xmas (War Is over)" is sometimes mislabeled as "So This Is Christmas," after the first line of the refrain.
 * You can catch the title of John Lennon's "Instant Karma", as it's the first words of the song. But as it is sung rather fast, a lot of listeners pick up on the first words of the chorus instead: "And we All Shine on".
 * It's actually "Instant Karma!", with an exclamation point.
 * A television commercial for a covers album by Cristy Lane lists one of the songs on the album as "I Believe in Angels". Except that the song is actually called "I Have a Dream".
 * The infamously memetic song that lodged "All your base are belong to us" into the minds of so many is titled "Invasion of the Gabber Robots".
 * The Laziest Men on Mars used to distribute a version of the song that was tagged "Invasion of the Gabber Robots (all your bass are belong to us)" back when MP 3.com actually sold MP 3 s.
 * It's "Close to You" by Carpenters, not "Why do Birds Suddenly Appear".
 * Properly, it's "(They Long to Be) Close to You", but this is one of those songs where the full title is seldom referred to when it's played on the radio, so it tends to slip beneath the radar.
 * Cracker's "Low" is frequently called "Like Being Stoned" (or just "Stoned") - the title is in the chorus, it's just not the part of it people tend to remember for some reason.
 * Also by Cracker- the song's title is "Teen Angst", NOT "What the World Needs Now".
 * Perhaps not a true example because there are no lyrics, but how many times have you heard Clint Mansell's "Lux Aeterna" simply referred to as "Requiem for a Dream"? ("Requiem for a Dream" being the name of the movie in which it appeared.)
 * Steely Dan's song is called "Peg", not "Your Favorite Foreign Movie".
 * "Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson (or Alien Ant Farm, for that matter) is not "Annie Are You Okay".
 * The University of Nebraska's fight song is frequently called "There is No Place Like Nebraska," but the actual title is "Dear Old Nebraska U"
 * Is Eve 6's biggest hit called "Heart in a Blender"? Or "Rendezvous"? How about "Swallow My Pride"? No, it's "Inside Out".
 * That song by Paramore with the hook "Badada-badada-dada!" is not "Bury the Castle". It's "Brick by Boring Brick".
 * Colbie Caillat released no such song as "Wherever You Go" or "Starts In My Toes". It's "Bubbly", damn it.
 * "What Goes Around, Comes Around" was never released by Alicia Keys. The song in question is called "Karma".
 * 4 Non Blondes' biggest (only?) hit is not "What's Going On". It's "What's Up". The former title was avoided so it wouldn't be mistaken for a cover of the Marvin Gaye song of that name.
 * That song by Van Morrison is not called "I'm In Heaven When You Smile", but "Jackie Wilson Said".
 * People tend to remember "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies as the song with "chickety-china, the Chinese chicken" and mislabel it as such. The line appears only once but is very distictive.
 * Skid Row's "I Remember You" (the end of the refrain) is occasionally labeled incorrectly as "Remember Yesterday"(The start of the refrain).
 * Jim Croce had two songs whose titles weren't even in the lyrics: "Age" ("I've traded love for pennies, sold my soul for less . . ." and "Thursday" ("I was looking for a lifetime lover, and you were looking for a friend.")
 * You know the song "Freedom" by Aretha Franklin? It's actually called "Think."
 * The only single off of BT's Emotional Technology is actually titled "Somnambulist (Simply Being Loved)". Between 75% of the refrain consisting of the subtitle and the US home version of DDR Extreme including it with the title switched around, it's usually referred to as just "Simply Being Loved".
 * In fact it doesn't even have its main title in the lyrics.
 * Closest it somes to title-dropping is : "So little joy, so little joy / It's complicated / I feel I'm stumbling in the dark / Somnambulated".
 * There is no song titled "Do You Cry Your Eyes Asleep". That's "The Force of Gravity", whose title appears but once. Most of the remixes only use the refrain, completely leaving out the title.
 * The song with the refrain "Reach Out for Me" is titled "Mercury and Solace", also a Non Appearing Title.
 * The Moody Blues song "Tuesday Afternoon" was truly and originally given the much better, more poetic and evocative title "Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)" in its original recording. Apparently misnomers became so common that it ended up causing officially released compilations to have the song be called "Tuesday Afternoon" or occasionally "Forever Afternoon".
 * And it's "Legend of a Mind", not "Timothy Leary" or "Timothy Leary's Dead".
 * It's "Your Wildest Dreams", not "Once Upon a Time"
 * Sort of inverted with the song we know as "Fly Me to the Moon". It was originally called "In Other Words" after the first line of the chorus, but eventually due to the confusion it was changed to the first line of the song, which everyone knows it as.
 * The Life Size Humans tune that appears in the current Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercials is not called "Spread a Little Joy" or "Spread a Little Love". It's called "Something to Remember".
 * That Bruce Springsteen song which has also been covered by The Hollies is not named "Sandy" but "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)". The "(Sandy)" part is sometimes omitted altogether, despite being the only bit of the title that actually appears in the lyrics.
 * The Hollies compilation album Epic Anthology lists the title as simply "Sandy". However, the album on which their version originally appeared, Another Night, gets the title correct.
 * Coheed and Cambria's song "A Favor House Atlantic" often gets this treatment, being referred to as "Good Eye Sniper," the first line of the refrain, or as "Bye Bye Beautiful," the first line of the chorus. Granted, many of Coheed's song titles aren't included as lyrics in the song, and only make sense if the listener takes the titles in the context of the Amory Wars storyline.
 * Haircut One Hundred never did a song called "Boy Meets Girl." They did, however, do a song called "Favourite Shirts."
 * You know that DMX party track "Up in Here"? How about "Y'all Gon Make Me Lose My Mind"? They don't exist. "Party Up" does, however.
 * "Up in Here" is the song's subtitle, though.
 * The Doobie Brothers never made a song called "Without Love." It's "Long Train Runnin'."
 * "Without Math" was the intended title of The Googols' song in a Mathnet installment; the record company exec changed it to the non-appearing title "Don't Leave, Just Stay, I'll Go" (because his scheme involved CDs with two commas in the titles).
 * It's "Get a Move On", not "You've Got to Keep Moving" by Mr. Scruff (Non Appearing Title)
 * Death Cab for Cutie did "Crooked Teeth", not "Nothing There All Along". (the title only appears once in the lyrics) In fact, a great many of their songs have their title only appear once, outside of the refrain, or not at all, eg "Marching Bands of Manhattan" is often mistaken as "Your Love Is Gonna Drown", and Grapevine Fires is not called "A Matter of Time" or "Before We All Burn".
 * Shiny Toy Guns' "Le Disko" is not called "Supersonic Overdrive".
 * "We Are Pilots", not "Who I Am".
 * "When They Came for Us", not "When They Took the Beach" or "Shiny Toy Guns".
 * Gary Numan's biggest hit was called "Cars", not "Here in My Car".'
 * The Cowsills did not do a song called "The Flower Girl"; that's "The Rain, the Park, and Other Things".
 * Inversion: The theme of The Spy Who Loved Me is titled "Nobody Does It Better", although the movie title is in the lyrics.
 * "The Flesh Failures" from Hair is simply legendary. You don't remember "The Flesh Failures"? It's the one that ended with a long refrain of "let the sun shine in, let the sun shine in..."
 * This is made worse by the fact that this refrain was released at the end of the 5th Dimension's "Age of Aquarius" single as "Age of Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine in."
 * An example using an album title: the 1973 debut album by avant-garde rock pioneers Henry Cow is entitled The Henry Cow Legend. It has become so popular to refer to the album by the title Leg End—a practice that spoils the joke inherent in the cover art (the cover features an image of a sock, as did the covers to their next two albums)—that the remastered CD was actually entitled LEG END: Original Mix.
 * Hilary Duff never did a song called "Let the Rain Fall Down." It's "Come Clean."
 * The George Jones song about a Corvette is not titled "Hotter Than a Two-Dollar Pistol." It's "The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)."
 * Rufus Wainwright's "Greek Song" is sometimes referred to as "You Turn Me On" after the phrase repeated seven times in the first verse.
 * Ace of Base's "The Sign" is not called "I Saw the Sign."
 * Smash Mouth did not do a song called "All That Glitters" or "Shooting Stars"; that's "All Star".
 * The Fantasy Project song with the refrain "Stay, baby" is not the title track from the Stay album, but another song from that album called "Spirit"; the real title doesn't appear at all in the lyrics. Similarly, "Stay" may be mistakenly called "Don't Be Blind", since that appears in the refrain, while the title doesn't.
 * Tori Amos never released a song called "Starfucker." It's "Professional Widow."
 * Although the Rolling Stones did. Their record company made them change it to "Star Star".
 * Erasure does not have a song titled "Take Me, I'm Yours"; that's "Breath of Life", whose title is absent from its lyrics.
 * Suzanne Vega's most famous song is not "My Name Is Luka", it's just "Luka".
 * Thanks to Eddie Murphy's hilarious impression of Teddy Pendergrass in Delirious, many people mistakenly believe his song "Only You" is called "You Got What I Need".
 * Discussed in "If Love Is Real" by Peter Schickele:

And yet that's not the title of the song;

The title happens to be "If Love Is Real,"

Which is really quite hard to believe,

'Cause usually the title of the song is the refrain, you see.

Oh my, oh me!"

"Student 1: What's their hit? "Slight Return", that's the one.
 * The techno tune with the Looped Lyrics "I've got the hots for you" is "Theme from S-Express" by S-Express.
 * One Hit Wonder Electronic did not have a song called "I Don't Need You Anymore", that's the Non Appearing Title song "Reality".
 * Journey's song "Don't Stop Believin'" is often referred to as "Midnight Train" or any variant on the first line "just a small-town girl"...
 * It's also referred to as "Streetlight People" from the refrain.
 * Even after the infamous Sopranos ending? I think that pretty much reinserted that one into all of our minds.
 * Assuming it ever left in the first place.
 * Also, the song's title was originally written as "Don't Stop Believing" on the album. Later re-releases and covers have used "Don't Stop Believin'".
 * Also from Journey: It's "Separate Ways", not "One day, love will find you".
 * That song's title is listed as "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)", making it an inversion of what the title makes you expect. "Worlds apart" is heard once in a verse, "separate ways" is repeated multiple times in the chorus.
 * Leo Sayer's first hit was "Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)", not "I Know I Can Dance".
 * The Small Faces' lone US hit was "Itchykoo Park", not "It's All Too Beautiful".
 * The Bloodhound Gang song is "Fire Water Burn" not "The Roof is on Fire."
 * That famous John Cougar Mellancamp song isn't called "Ain't That America?". It's called "Pink Houses", and those words do actually appear in the chorus.
 * Although it doesn't help at all that John invites the audience to sing ain't that American with him, while he sings little Pink Houses for you and me as low key as possible during concerts.
 * Was I the only one who didn't know the title to Harry Chapin's 'Taxi'? Not that it actually has a refrain, mind..
 * Madonna never did a song called "Spanish Lullaby"; you're looking for "La Isla Bonita". Also, many people misattribute it to Gloria Estefan.
 * Hot Chocolate named their song about a black woman/white man relationship "Brother Louie" (famously covered by Stories.) They probably did this to distinguish it from that other "Louie Louie" song. The word "brother" does appear once in the lyrics ("Brothers, you know what I mean.")
 * Also by Hot Chocolate, "You Sexy Thing" is known by some as "I Believe in Miracles".
 * Sigue Sigue Sputnik's only song of note (debateable) is called "Love Missile F1-11," not "Shoot It Up."
 * Looking for the Aqua song called "Candyman"? No such title, it's "Lollipop". Perhaps the more obvious phrase was not used as the title due to copyright reasons.
 * Don McLean's "American Pie" is often mistakenly called "The Day the Music Died".
 * The opening song in Guys and Dolls is called "Fugue for Tinhorns," but everybody knows it by it's first line, "I Got the Horse Right Here" (or perhaps as "Paul Revere," the name of the horse in question).
 * Puddle of Mudd's most popular song is not called called "Take It All Away". It's called "Blurry", but since the title is only the third word in the song (and only appears that one time), and the latter is the refrain, it's no wonder why "Take It All Away" is a secondary title.
 * Tim McGraw did a track titled "Something Like That" -- and called "Barbeque Stain".
 * The rock band Fastball has multiple examples of each type:
 * "Damaged Goods" and "Sweetwater Texas" are the more traditional types (those phrases are never uttered during the song), while "Goodbye" technically falls into this category, as only the shortened phrase 'bye' is used in the song.
 * "The Malcontent (The Modern World)" and "We'll Always Have Paris (Everyday All of the Time)" fall into the " " category.
 * "Warm Fuzzy Feeling" and "Red Light" each have a Title Drop once, during the first verses. The titular phrases are not repeated. "Mono to Stereo" is much the same, but with the title drop in the second verse.
 * Plenty of Fastball's other songs, including their biggest hit "The Way," drop the title multiple times, but never during the refrain. Although that does fit this trope, it also makes the title fairly easy to pick out, as it's usually the only phrase repeated across every verse.
 * "One Man Army" by Our Lady Peace is commonly mistaken as "Falling" or "I Remember Falling", even though the title and the secondary titles are repeated an almost equal number of times.
 * Weezer's "Island in the Sun" is not called "Hip Hip."
 * ~16 Horsepower~ did this very often. Most notable is Coal Black Horses, the chorus of which repeats the name-friendly phrase "Hey hey hey, it's always forever, hey hey hey, never or now". Other examples are "Hang my teeth on your door", "Neck on the new blade" and "The Denver Grab."
 * MGMT's "Kids" is not called "Take Only What You Need", vel sim.
 * OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass" is not named for the more emphasized line that comes after the title in the chorus, "When the morning comes."
 * Black Sheep's most famous track is not known as "This or That", "You Can Go With This", or anything with the words "this" or "that" in it. The title is actually "The Choice Is Yours".
 * Thanks in large part to its use in numerous YouTube AMVs related in some way to the color red, Sting's "Desert Rose" is often known as "I Dream of Red"...which aren't even the right lyrics.
 * Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" may best be known as "I Get Knocked Down" or "Pissing the Night Away".
 * "Bad Connection" by Yazoo is not "Can You Hear Me". The real title is a Non Appearing Title.
 * Elton John's hit song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" has occasionally been referred to as "Butterflies Are Free" due to the line being used occasionally throughout the song, despite the fact that the entire last minute or so is him constantly repeating the actual title of the song.
 * The Steve Miller Band has a song named "Fly Like an Eagle", not "Time Keeps on Slippin'" (Both are said often).
 * Seal doesn't change that, either.
 * "Hold the Line" by Toto is often called "Love Isn't Always on Time".
 * "Electric Slide" is the name of the popular line dance that you (or more likely your parents and grandparents) dance to Marcia Griffiths' hit single "Electric Boogie"; it is not the name of the song itself.
 * The Tubes' biggest hit was not called "Don't Fall in Love" nor "One in a Million Girls." The song's title is "She's a Beauty."
 * The big hit by the Cars is entitled "You Might Think," not "All I Want Is You."
 * Similarly, for heaven's sake, it's "Let's Go," not "I Like The Nightlife Baby."
 * "Political Science" by Randy Newman is incorrectly known by many by its oft-repeated line "Let's Drop the Big One Now".
 * "Drive" by Incubus is mistakenly-known both as "Whatever Tomorrow Brings" (the first line of the chorus), and "Water Over Wine" (a line from the second verse).
 * Even "I'll Be There" is used.
 * Korn's "Oildale (Leave Me Alone)" was first introduced to fans in concert as simply "Oildale", named after one of the areas the band members grew up in but having no relation to the lyrics. It was most likely just a working title that they never intended to use (as they've been known to do), but the fans grew attached to it, and there was backlash when there were reports that the song was going to be released as "Leave Me Alone", the most prominent line in the chorus. They eventually settled on the " " format as a compromise.
 * Also, "Freak On A Leash" is often known as "Something Takes A Part Of Me".
 * It's not "You Spin Me Right Round", it's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".
 * Also, "Right Round" is a Flo Rida song, but Dead or Alive's original version is not called that.
 * It's called "When You Say Nothing at All", not "You Say it Best".
 * The second track on The Beatles album Abbey Road is just called "Something", not "Something in the Way She Moves".
 * This mistake is especially aggravating since "Something in the Way She Moves" is a different song entirely. It was written and performed by James Taylor on his debut album, which was released by Apple Records, The Beatles' label. The Beatles liked the song's opening line and proceeded to use it as the opening lyric of their own song, but obviously, they had to give it a different title. Interestingly, James Taylor had originally wanted his song to be titled "I Feel Fine", after a more dominant line in the chorus, but the title was already taken by a Beatles song.
 * "Eleanor Rigby" is not "All the Lonely People" or "Look at all the Lonely People".
 * The Flaming Lips song with the chorus that goes "You're invisible now..." is called "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)". Yes, with that spelling mistake.
 * The IOSYS song that repeats "Overdrive" at the start is actually called "Stops at the Affected Area and Immediately Dissolves ~Lunatic Udongein~", not "Overdrive" or "Over Drive".
 * That Muse song with the chorus that goes "I want it now... I want it now..." is not called that, it's called "Hysteria". Also, the Muse song that goes "It's a new dawn, it's a new day" is called "Feeling Good".
 * Also, their The Resistance single "Uprising" is not called "Victorious", (Or "We Will Not Fall", or "The Paranoia is in Bloom") as Entertainment Weekly Magazine seems to think. This mistake was caused by the last verse of the chorus being "We will be victorious", with the last word being given a very clear intonation. Also, the song's actual title is a Non Appearing Title.
 * Meat Loaf's song "You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)" often gets the second part omitted when being referred to.
 * It's "Fat Lip" by Sum 41, not "Waste My Time" or "El Nino" or "Don't Count on Me" or "Should've Had an Abortion".
 * The Japanese opening to Sonic X is called "Sonic Drive", not "S-O-N-I-C" or "Inside Outside".
 * That S Club (S Club 7 at the time of recording) song is just called "Reach", not "Reach for the Stars".
 * It's called "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap, not "Whatcha Say". Although there was a later song called "Whatcha Say" by Jason Derülo that used the original song as a sample.
 * It's "Helena" by My Chemical Romance, not "So Long and Goodnight". They also have a song called "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish". Despite what you may have heard, there is no "fucking" in the title. (A lot of places on the internet will have the song listed as "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Deathwish").
 * While "Helena" is a definite example, if memory serves the album booklet to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge did list the latter example as "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Deathwish". The packaging omitted the expletive, presumably to avoid offending retailers, but fans, myself included, took the uncensored title to be the "true" version.
 * The classic Spice Girls song is just called "Wannabe", not "If You Wanna Be My Lover" or "I'll Tell You What I Want".
 * It's just "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce, not "Through the Fire and the Flames", even though the lyrics say "Through the fire and the flames, we carry on!". Also, even though the lyrics to one of their other songs say "We stand before the dawn of a new world", the actual title of that song is "Dawn over a New World".
 * The Format has a song called "The First Single (You Know Me)" (sometimes even with "Cause A Scene" in parenthesis instead) because it was the band's first single.
 * Looking for that song that you probably know from Family Guy as "The Bird Is the Word"? Well, you won't find it under that name, it's actually called "Surfin' Bird", by The Trashmen, although it is based partly on an R&B song called "The Bird's the Word" by The Rivingtons.
 * Not to mention, episode the song was featured in ("I Dream Of Jesus") actually mentioned that the song was called "Surfin' Bird".
 * The musical Little Shop of Horrors has quite a few of these. Two prominent examples are "Skid Row" (often referred to as "Downtown") and "Git It" (more popularly known as "Feed Me").
 * There's a song by J Pop artist Hirose Kohmi whose memetically mutated chorus prominently features the English words "Get down!" The song is, however, called "Promise".
 * C & C Music Factory's hit is not called "Everybody Dance Now", it's "Gonna Make You Sweat", but "Everybody Dance Now" is its subtitle.
 * Shania Twain invoked this trope with "Love Gets Me Every Time". The song was originally titled "Gol Darn Gone and Done It", and that line is more prominent in the song, but she changed it at the last minute because she thought the original title would be too hard to pronounce.
 * OMC's one hit is not called "Every Time I Look Around", but "How Bizarre". How bizarre, how bizarre.
 * It's "Lez Be Friends" by The Midnight Beast, not "She Must Be a Lesbian".
 * Did you think Sara Bareilles did "Head Under Water" or "I'm Not Gonna Write You a Love Song"? Wrong, it's actually titled "Love Song".
 * Alanis Morrisette didn't do a song called "Isn't It Ironic". It's called "Ironic".
 * Did you think Patrice Rushen's sole hit was called "Send Me Forget Me-Nots"? Well, you are wrong. It's actually called "Forget Me-Nots".
 * No Doubt has a hit song they recorded for the 1999 indie film Go. It's not called "You're So New". It's simply called "New".
 * They do not have a song called "Keep on Dancin". It's "Hella Good".
 * Popular DJ Sonique never had a song called "Your Love It Feels So Good". Nor did she ever have a song called "And That's What Takes Me High." It's called "It Feels So Good".
 * Russian Songstress Origa never recorded a song for Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex called "We Rise Above". She did however record a song titled "Rise".
 * Sheena Easton's hit song is not "My Baby Takes the Morning Train". Perhaps you are confusing it with "Morning Train (Nine to Five)".
 * "9 to 5 (Morning Train)" before it was retitled for the US market.
 * Chic's disco hit was not titled "Freak Out!" It's "Le Freak".
 * MIA's song is not called "All I Wanna Do *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*" nor is it called "Paper Airplanes", or "I Fly Like Paper, Get High Like Planes", it's "Paper Planes".
 * Bananarama never did a song called "Your Desire" nor did they ever do one titled "Goddess on the Mountaintop" or "She's Got It". They did do a song called "Venus" however.
 * Actually, it's not even their song.
 * Professional Wrestler Sheamus's theme is called "Written in My Face", not "Too Many Lies". (Or "Too Many Limes", or "It's A Shameful Thing, Lobster Head".)
 * Flight of the Conchords:
 * The song "Bowie" is often referred to as "Bowie's in Space", after its first lines.
 * The song officially titled "Robots" has been referred to as both "The Humans are Dead" (or just "Humans are Dead") after its chorus and "The Distant Future" after its opening line and the name of the album it appears on.
 * "Pencils in the Wind" is usually called "Sellotape."
 * Navras (a.k.a. the fight song for Neo vs. Smith in The Matrix Revolutions) has three lines, and "navras" isn't in any of them.
 * Blue Oyster Cult fans have this problem all the time, particularly given the band's frequent use of Word Salad titles and the sheer wordiness of their lyrics. Below, some of their songs (on the left, the actual title; on the right, the title you probably thought of):
 * "Hot Rails to Hell" = "Burn Your Eyes Out"
 * "7 Screaming Diz-Busters" = "Lucifer the Light"
 * "Flaming Telepaths" = "The Joke's on You"
 * "Extraterrestrial Intelligence" = "Balthazar"
 * "Sinful Love" = "Daredevil"
 * Ironically inverted with "The Golden Age of Leather." Everybody knows the song title, but it's mentioned once at the beginning of the song (in the "glee-club" opening) and then is never mentioned again.
 * Semi-averted with "Tattoo Vampire," where the title is indeed sung several times toward the end of the song, but in such a way that it sounds like "Vampire Tattoo."
 * "Wind Beneath My Wings" by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley is often called "Hero" (or some other variation on "Did you ever know that you're my hero", the first line of the chorus). A cover version by Gladys Knight & The Pips actually did use the title "Hero", but the official title is still "Wind Beneath My Wings" (which appears at the end of the chorus).
 * Billy Currington's "Good Directions" has the title only at the very end. It is not titled "Right Back Here to Me" (a recurring line) except in Luke Bryan's cover.
 * The CAKE song "Nugget" is often mistitled "Shut The Fuck Up", since the latter phrase makes up about half the chorus and it's got a Non Appearing Title. Chicken McNuggets get mentioned in the lyrics, but that probably couldn't have been used as a title without getting in trouble with McDonalds.
 * Nile has a song called "Kafir," which is the Arabic word meaning "infidel," and while it does include the word itself, is sometimes mistakenly referred to by the main refrain of the chorus, "There Is No God."
 * They also have a song on the album Amongst The Catacombs of Nephren-Ka that includes that very phrase, but in fact is titled "Beneath Eternal Oceans of Sand."
 * King Crimson has a thoroughly confusing example. On the album Red, there is a song entitled "Starless," which contains the phrase "Starless and Bible Black," which leads people to think that is the name of the song. It gets confusing, when on their next album, entitled Starless and Bible Black, there is a song with the same name that is simply an instrumental.
 * The Bravery song with the chorus "I just want love" is actually called "Unconditional".
 * Third Eye Blind never did a song called "I Want Something Else". It's really "Semi-Charmed Life".
 * They also never did a song called "Can You Put the Past Away?". It's called "Jumper".
 * If you want to find 'Panic' by The Smiths, you're better off searching for a fictional song called 'Hang The DJ'.
 * That song by Biffy Clyro that's been everywhere recently? It's called "Many of Horror", NOT "When We Collide" - no matter what Matt Cardle says.
 * Offspring's "Come Out and Play" is often mistaken as "Keep 'Em Separated." (That's its subtitle, though)
 * Another song by The Offspring is called "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid", not "Right Between the Eyes" or "Hit 'Em Right Between the Eyes".
 * Plus, "My Friend's Got a Girlfriend" is "Why Don't You Get a Job?".
 * The Bryan Adams song is "Summer of '69", not "Best Days of My Life". Both phrases feature in the lyrics.
 * The Sum41 song "88" (a Non Appearing Title) is not called "I Feel Like a Prisoner", "I Hope Someday You Have It All" or any other phrase that appears in the refrain.
 * Here's a strange one: the classic tune so often referred to as "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart actually goes by the official and less memorable name of "Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525" (or just "Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major".) The title also properly translates to "A Little Serenade", not "A Little Nightmusic".
 * Classical music often gets this, due to the naming conventions for it. For example, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" is properly called "Symphony No. 9 in D minor" (and "Ode to Joy" is only the final movement of said piece) and "Für Elise"'s official title is "Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano". It's no wonder people use the shorter titles to refer to these pieces... The one exception is Bach's "Toccata and Fugue In D Minor", which despite being a fairly well-known tune (you probably know it as the theme from Rollerball, or the theme for Keith Olbermann's Worst Persons in the World) doesn't go by any other name than that.
 * The Jonathan Coulton-penned love song from an evil villain to his female captive is titled "Skullcrusher Mountain", not "I'm So Into You". The latter phrase appears in the chorus, the title appears at the beginning of every verse.
 * Also, his other song about a zombie wanting to eat his colleague's brains isn't titled "All We Wanna Do Is Eat Your Brains", nor is it "Eat Your Brains" or any other variation on that. The song is actually called "Re: Your Brains" ("re" is short for "regarding", not "reply" - it's meant to look like a business email subject header).
 * Cascada's song "Love Again" is much better known as "The Summer Belongs to You".
 * "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" by Ray Stevens is commonly assumed to be called "The Day the Squirrel Went Berserk".
 * OFWGKTA has a couple songs like this notably, "Yonkers", and "Sandwitches"
 * Foster the People's sleeper hit song is NOT "Run Baby Run". It's, for the umpteenth time, "Pumped Up Kicks"!
 * A local country station once made a pre-song sweeper of a listener calling in to ask "Who sings that new song, American Girl?" to which the DJ responded "Well nobody, but Trisha Yearwood sings X's and O's." X's and O's is the second half of the second line of the chorus, while "She's an American Girl" is the last two repeated lines of every chorus... But, "X's and O's" gets repeated about 4 times at the very end of the song. And just to confuse things further, the song's official title is "XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl)". Yes, three X's and three O's.
 * Erin McKeown's "Queen of Quiet," better known for its refrain, "What kind of lover am I?" The title is spoken only once, as the last of many lead-ins to the more repeated phrase.
 * Mudvayne's "Determined" is commonly mislabeled as "Fucking Determined".
 * Many people don't know that, as opposed to what's called in the Need For Speed Underground soundtrack, Lostprophets' "Ride" is actually named "To Hell We Ride".
 * That Eels tune with the jingle-esque refrain "before I sputter out" is properly called "Novocaine For The Soul". The latter phrase occurs immediately before the former; it’s just not as memorable melodically.
 * "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones is sometimes mistakenly called "Never Had To Knock On Wood". Both phrases are in the chorus, it's just that the latter is the catchier part of it.
 * In "Funk Phenomena" by Armand van Helden, the Looped Lyrics say "the funk phenomenon" instead.
 * A semi-example -- the famous Men At Work song is called "Down Under," not "Land Down Under."
 * Major Lazer featured Ricky Blaze and Nina Sky on "Keep It Goin' Louder", not "Party With You".
 * Raise your hands. How many of you thought that the Stevie Nicks song "Edge of Seventeen" was named "Just Like the White Winged Dove"? Of course, the latter appears in the chorus, while the former, and actual title, only appears once or twice throughout the song, and only in the verses.
 * For the thousandth time, "What is this Feeling?" is not entitled "Loathing!"
 * Pearl Jam's acoustic, waltz-tempo ballad with the refrain "Hearts and thoughts, they fade, fade away" is called "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town".
 * The Bluetones' biggest hit is called "Slight Return", despite these words not appearing anywhere in the song; it's more usually known by the chorus, as Lampshaded in their later B Side "Armageddon (Outta Here)":

Student 2: Oh, I don't know that one, I only know the one that goes "you don't have to have the solution, you've got to invest in the problem".

Student 1: Yeah, that's "Slight Return".

Student 2: Oh. I thought it was called "You Don't Have To Have The Solution, You've Got To Invest In The Problem".

Student 1: No.

Student 2: Oh."


 * The Biffy Clyro song "Many of Horror" is often referred to as "When We Collide" after the first line of the chorus. Matters made worse by Matt Cardle's cover, which really did change the name of the song.
 * Despite the heavy repeated use of the line in the bridge and near the end, the Rise Against song is called "Savior", not "I Don't Hate You".
 * Enanitos Verdes has no song called "¡Por Favor, Déjennos Bailar!" The name of it is "Guitarras Blancas"
 * On the same fashion, Wilfrido Vargas doesn't play any song called "El Negro", or "Qué Será lo que Quiere el Negro". The name of the song is "El Africano".
 * America doesn't have a song called "Will You Meet Me in the Middle?" That's "Sister Golden Hair".
 * That Jefferson Airplane song about Alice in Wonderland isn't called "Go Ask Alice." It's "White Rabbit."
 * The New Radicals' only hit song is called "You Get What You Give" and not "You Got The Music In You." or "You Only Get What You Give."
 * Portishead gets this a lot as well. Off of Dummy, their debut album, we have:
 * It's not "Nobody Loves Me," it's "Sour Times."
 * "Did you realize" is actually called "Strangers."
 * "Give Me a Reason" is a lyric in "Glory Box."
 * That Temple Of The Dog song that goes "I'm going hungry" is actually called "Hunger Strike".
 * Billy Squier's first hit is called "The Stroke," not "Stroke Me."
 * "One Last Breath" by Creed might be better known as "Hold Me Now" or "Six Feet From The Edge," both of which prominently appear as part of the chorus. The actual song title shows up in the penultimate lines of the first two verses.
 * The Night Ranger song "Sister Christian" is not called "Motoring," or as some people believe, the Mondegreen "Motorade."
 * Everything Else's song "Everything Else" would be a Title Only Chorus if the title of the song was "Stereotypical".
 * The Beautiful South did a song called Good As Gold, and not Carry On Regardless.
 * Back in the sixties, Atomic Rooster did a song which was called Devil's Answer, and not the repeated imperative Change!.
 * Lit's most well known song isn't called "Sleeping With My Clothes On" or "And You're Gone". The song you want is "My Own Worst Enemy". The former two both appear in the chorus, while the latter only appears in the second verse.
 * Faith No More's hit song is called "Epic", not "You Want It All".
 * The recent playing of Whitney Houston videos after her unfortunate passing has probably led to at least one person's surprise to find out that "The Greatest Love of All," is not, in fact, called "I Believe the Children are Our Future."
 * "Domino", by Jessy J, is often known as "Dancing in the Moonlight" or "Dirty Dancing in the Moonlight", the first line of the chorus.
 * Ginuwine's 2001 hit, "Differences," is better known by the name "My Whole Life" or "My Whole Life Has Changed," which comes from the first line of the chorus. The actual title only appears once in the song.
 * One could be forgiven for thinking that Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" is titled "The Love That I Found".
 * Michael Penn (Sean’s younger brother) did not have a late-’80s hit called "Romeo In Black Jeans" or "Someone To Dance With". The actual title, "No Myth", is dropped in the line between the two containing those phrases.

Anime

 * The first opening theme from Hokuto no Ken by Crystal King is often referred to as "You wa Shock," as that line comes up quite a bit in the lyrics. It's actually titled "Ai o Torimodose," a line which appears far fewer times (twice in the album version, only once in the TV edit).
 * DGM's cover of "Ai o Torimodose!" is actually titled in the album as "You Wa Shock! (Ai o Torimodose)".
 * Many bands that cover this song tend to title it like that or as "Ai o Torimodose (You Wa Shock!)".
 * A similar case is the fourth opening to Naruto. It's frequently mistaken to be titled "Fighting Dreamers" after a bit of Gratuitous English in the refrain, but it's actually called "GO!!!" (punctuation included), which is also part of the refrain but less noticeable.
 * The first opening of Naruto Shippūden is called "Hero's Come Back!!" by nobodyknows+, though sometimes you will also find it under the title "Speed Hunter".
 * One of the songs from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is often referred to as "Row Row Fight the Powah" or just "Fight the Powah", but is actually called ラップは漢の魂だ! 無理を通して道理を蹴っ飛ばす! 俺たち大グレン団のテーマを耳の穴かっぽじってよ~く聴きやがれ!!": Rap wa Kan no Tamashii da! Muri o Tōshite Dōri o Kettobasu! Ore-tachi Dai-Gurren-dan no Tēma o Mimi no Ana Kappojite Yo~ku Kikiyagare!!, or Rap is a Man's Soul! We Kick Reason to the Curb to Make the Impossible Possible! Open up Your Ears and Listen to Our Team Dai-Gurren Theme!! in English.
 * Actually there are at least three other songs that use the same lyrics as a part of them; the distinctive segment's name is presumably called "Rap is a Man's Soul!" as that appears in the title of three of the four songs. The fourth, which juxtaposes the rapping with opera, is named "'Libera me' from Hell."
 * A certain Prince of Tennis ending song is sometimes referred to as "Glory Days," due to this being the last two words of the chorus as well as one of the only English phrases in the song. The title is actually "White Line" (with this phrase only appearing if you translate the song).
 * The first Pokémon theme song for the dub is literally called "Pokemon Theme Song", not "I Wanna Be The Very Best" or any other variation.

Theatre

 * Possibly either inverted or subverted by the music of Gilbert and Sullivan. Very, very few of their songs are named after the most well-known line of their refrain- because they're all named after the first line of the song itself. Thus, they never wrote a song called 'I Am A Pirate King' (it's called 'Oh, Better Far To Live And Die') or 'I've Got A Little List' (it's called 'As Some Day It May Happen') and 'I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major General' is only called such because that's the opening line as well as the main refrain (ironically despite that, a lot of people seem to think it's called 'The Major General Song').

Video Games

 * When MOTHER was released, it was accompanied with a soundtrack containing lyricised versions of several songs from the game. Some familiar with the lyrics tend to assume that the name of the first (and most famous) song on the album is "I Believe in You". Some unfamiliar with the lyrics tend to call it "Pollyanna's Theme". Turns out both groups are wrong - the name of the song is simply "Pollyanna" (though to be fair, the full title for the lyricised version is technically "Pollyanna (I Believe in You)"), and there is no character by that name in any game in the series. (There is a "Paula" and an "Ana", but neither character is closely associated with the song in question.) "Pollyanna" is simply a term used to describe the kind of extremely positive person the song is about.
 * The song at the credit roll of Devil May Cry 3 is titled "Devils Never Cry," although a lot of people call it "The Devil's Cry," after the last words of the song. Humorously, the song featured in the fourth game does not fall under this trope.
 * That oddly epic song that plays throughout Super Smash Bros. Brawl is not called "Audi Famam Illius". The title actually is "Super Smash Bros. Brawl Main Theme".
 * The Japanese/European opening song of Sonic the Hedgehog CD is called "Sonic - You Can Do Anything", not "Toot Toot Sonic Warrior". The credits song is called "Cosmic Eternity - Believe in Yourself".

Western Animation

 * The opening song of Disney's Beauty and The Beast is called "Belle", not "Bonjour".
 * Also sometimes mistakenly called "Provincial Life", another recurring phrase.
 * But, more often than not, it is falsely titled "Little Town," because it's the first words of the song.
 * Phineas and Ferb: The song Stacy's relatives sing in "Summer Belongs to You" is officially titled "J Pop" (a Non Appearing Title), not "Welcome to Tokyo".
 * A song from the movie "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman" is called "The Monster's out in You", not "Little Brother, Mr. Hyde".
 * The iconic instrumental tune associated with the Peanuts cartoons is usually referred to as "Peanuts" or "The Charlie Brown Theme". It's actually called "Linus and Lucy" - which is confusing in itself, since Linus is merely Charlie Brown's Lancer (and truth be told, Snoopy gets higher billing than him) while Lucy is simply The Chick. This tends to bring a lot of confusion, as there is already a song called "Charlie Brown Theme."
 * While it's somewhat justifiable, "Awaken" by Dethklok is not called "Mustakrakish." It doesn't help, I guess, that in the episode of Metalocalypse where the song first appeared Nathan calls it "Awaken, Awaken Mustakrakish The Lake Troll." I assure you, though, on the album it's simply called "Awaken."
 * Jack's Lament is sometimes referred to as "The Pumpkin King" or simply "Jack's Song".
 * The Training Montage song from Mulan is called "I'll Make a Man Out of You", not "Be a Man".

Others

 * The first song in Act II of Dr. Horribles Sing Along Blog is officially titled "My Eyes," but is often referred to as "On the Rise." There was a gap of several months between the release of the video and the release of the soundtrack and song titles.
 * Most of Doctor Horrible has that problem, due to the aforementioned gap between the release of the musical and the release of official titles for the songs.
 * In all honesty, the entire production is full of this. "Penny's Song" or "Story of a Girl"? And just how are you supposed to name the Bad Horse Choruses? Not to mention that despite "Brand New Day" being the closer of Act II, the opener of Act III, "So They Say", ends on "Or is this a brand new day?" Sure, we know all of it now, but...
 * To clear up confusion: the official titles (according to the soundtrack albums) are "Penny's Song", "Bad Horse Chorus" and "Bad Horse Chorus (Reprise)".
 * Also, reportedly, Joss Whedon will break down and cry if you call it "Laundry Day". It's "My Freeze Ray".
 * Perhaps the oldest example of this trope: the patriotic song whose first line is "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" is actually titled "America."
 * Not long after the above, came "Das Deutschlandlied", often mistakenly referred to by its opening line, "Deutschland Uber Alles."
 * The Philippine national anthem is NOT titled "Bayang Magiliw" ("Beloved Country"). It's called "Lupang Hinirang" ("Chosen Land").
 * Three's a Catholic hymn that says "We shall be changed" numerous times throughout, including twice in the chorus alone. The song is actually called "On the Wings of Change", which is never actually said anywhere in the lyrics themselves.
 * Pig With The Face Of A Boy's Tetris song is called "A Complete History Of The Soviet Union Through The Eyes Of A Humble Worker, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris", not "I Am The Man Who Arranges The Blocks".
 * And the melody itself isn't "Tetris song", it's from Russian folk song "Korobeiniki" (which itself is a victim of this trope - it's not "Oy polnym polna mоya korobushka").
 * "The Damned" by Plasmatics is often referred to as "Prisoners of the Damned".
 * The song sometimes referred to as "Please Don't Let them Hurt Your Children," is actually called "Dear Mr. Jesus" by Power Source/Sharon Batts.
 * The fifth Naruto Shippuden opening, "Hotaru no Hikari" (Light of the Fireflies), is often incorrectly called "Sha la ls".
 * Gonzo sings a song about Camilla the Chicken in the Leslie Uggams episode of The Muppet Show. It's listed on lyrics sites as "Camilla", but is officially titled "Gonzo's Song".