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[[File:YotsubaMondegreen2.jpg|link=Yotsuba&!|frame|Yotsuba sings about the true nature of life.]]
{{quote|''"I mean, what the crap was he even saying there? 'Everybody, now bleed a beetle'? No! [[Squick|Ewww.]] 'Everybody, law deed will be dull'? Uhhhh, no kidding. 'Everybody, something the feed mill'?"''
|'''Strong Bad''' [http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemailintro.html commenting] on ''[[Homestar Runner]]''{{'}}s site intro}}
Sometimes caused by [[Elmuh Fudd Syndwome|bad diction]], or [[Lyrical Shoehorn|bizarre]] [[Word Salad Lyrics|lyrics]].
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'''Note: Examples below should be [[In-Universe]], or ones referenced in other works ONLY.'''
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* A recent ad for Cingular used this: two men are walking down the street and mangling the chorus of "Rock the Casbah" by [[The Clash]]. One sings it as "lock the cashbox", only to be briefly stunned when his friend sings it as "stop the catbox". He then agrees with that interpretation.
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* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWy-LCGDsd8 This Volkswagen Passat commercial] has several people mishearing a line from "Rocket Man".
* Maxell tapes did a series of ads focusing on this. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbP_wBn3Lsc This advert] mishears Desmond Dekkerby's Israelites. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gib916jJW1o And this one] mishears The Skid's "Into The Valley".
== Card Games ==▼
* One ''[[Perplex City]]'' card is based on identifying these.▼
* "You fill out my census" ("You fill up my senses" from "Annie's Song" by [[John Denver]]). This common misheard version was naturally seized on by the Capitol Steps for one of their political song parodies.▼
* John Denver's lyrics were skewered by Monty Python's Eric Idle on "John Denver being strangled" ("You came on my pillow...HYUUUNG!) -- and yes, Denver sued.▼
* There's also a comedian who bemoans his parents' inability to remember song lyrics, the trump being that his father sings one of Elton John's song as "Don't let your son go down on me".▼
* In his stage act, comedian [[Michael Winslow]] used to do a version of "Purple Haze", changing the lyric to "'Scuse me while I kiss this fly", followed by screeches of [[The Fly|"Help me! Help me!"]]▼
* Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man" is easily misheard as ''Secret Asian man'', and has been parodied as such at least twice, by the Capitol Steps as well as Da Vinci's Notebook.▼
* The Vacant Lot comedy troupe has a skit dedicated to mondegreens in Springsteen's ''Blinded By The Light'': "ripped up douches"; "loofah sponges" and the "foreman of the night;" and one that's completely incomprehensible.▼
* Springsteen's ''Blinded By The Light'' was made fun of by comedian [[Louis CK]] who once commented▼
{{quote|''You know that song 'Blinded by the Light'? Whenever it said 'revved up like a deuce' I always thought it said {{spoiler|'your mother's [[Country Matters|cunt]] smells like oranges'}}. Strange how that works...''}}▼
* Penn Jillette even joked about Paul McCartney's poor grammar in "Live and Let Die" ''in front of a UK audience'' in ''[[Penn & Teller]]: Fool Us''.▼
* In [[Ellen DeGeneres]]'s stand-up days, she discussed this.▼
{{quote|"Does he have it?" Is that what they're singing? "Does he have it?" Then you think to yourself "Why have I been singing 'Monkey hatchet?'" How many people have heard me sing "Monkey hatchet?" Then there are some songs that you don't even bother learning the words, because you assume that no one knows the words. That Aretha Franklin song "Respect," that's been around a long time, and we always get to that part where "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me. R-E-S-P-E-C-T, ([[Beat]]) coch-C-T HO!"}}▼
== [[Comic Strip]] ==▼
* "Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly" was once mondegreened in Walt Kelly's comic strip ''[[Pogo (comic strip)|Pogo]]'' as "Deck Us All with Boston Charlie".▼
* ''[[Peanuts]]'' once subverted this trope: a story arc has Sally preparing for a Christmas pageant in which "I come out and say, 'Hark!', then Harold Angel starts to sing." Everyone assumes that she's simply confused by the name of the song...until a kid named Harold Angel actually shows up.▼
** Sally was known for these kinds of blunders. In another Christmas strip, she recites: "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care/In hopes that Jack Nicklaus soon would be there."▼
* The Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" was mondegreen'd as "Chimpanzee for the Devil" in ''[[CRFH]]'' (admittedly, by a character who's a [[Cloudcuckoolander]])▼
{{quote|'''Roger:''' [http://www.crfh.net/d/20050511.html Well, the coolness levels of that song just dropped 666%.]}}▼
* A ''[[Bloom County]]'' strip had Opus the penguin mangling ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' when he finds himself unable to remember the lyrics ("Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light / what so proudly we snailed, at, um, the starlight's last cleaning...").▼
* In the comic strip ''[[Wild Life]]'', Carson the Muskrat thinks the lyrics to his favorite U2 song are "I still haven't found Walter's cookie jar" (''I still haven't found what I'm looking for'')▼
== Film ==
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* One of [[Beverly Cleary]]'s ''[[Ramona Quimby]]'' books had the titular protagonist thinking that the lyrics of ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' began "Oh say can you see, by the dawnzer's lee light" and becoming convinced that "dawnzer" must be another word for "lamp."
* John T. Sladek's novel ''The Müller-Fokker Effect'' (really!) has the following version of ''The Star-Spangled Banner'':
{{quote|''Ofay can you pee
''By the dong's surly blight
''What you probably inhaled
''At the toilet's last cleaning. }}
* An in-universe mondegreen names the book ''[[Snot Stew]]'': it comes from the [[Cute Kitten|kitten protagonists]] mishearing the human children arguing: "Is not!" "Is too!" becomes "S'not!" "S'tew!"
* ''A Monk Swimming'' by Malachy McCourt (a memoir of growing up in Ireland and moving to America) uses a mondegreen from the prayer "Hail Mary" -- "blessed art thou amongst women".
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== Magazines ==
* There was an article in a 1980s ''[[Readers Digest]]'' in which the author recounted how, as a child, she thought that the first line went of ''The Star-Spangled Banner'', "O say can you see, by the daunserly light" and kept "daunserly" as her secret, magical word. She was eventually corrected on this by her family when she decided that it couldn't hurt to share that magical word with her sister who, of course, initially had no idea what she was referring to.
== Music ==
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* [[Kings Of Leon]] has an intentional aversion/backstory example in ''Sex on Fire'', one of their biggest hits. The [[Word Salad Lyrics]] originally featured "Set Us On Fire" as the chorus, but ''everybody'' would Mondegreen it as "Sex on Fire". According to [[The Other Wiki]], one of the sound mixers came in and said, "Sex on fire, huh?" It became a running joke, and eventually the group not only changed the lyrics, but made it the album title track.
* The Peter, Paul, and Mary song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" inspired the Pinkard and Bowden parody "Libyan on a Jet Plane".
* "There's a bad moon on the rise" (Credence Clearwater Revival) was prone enough to mondegreen as "there's a bathroom on the right" that [[Bob Rivers]] actually recorded a parody of the song under that title. Not only that, CCR was known to occasionally sing it that way in concert.
* "Wrapped up like a douche" ("Revved up like a deuce" (coupe) in the Manfred Mann's Earth Band version of [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s ''Blinded By The Light'')
* "Loaded guns in your face" ([[Billy Joel]], "Pressure") can easily be misheard as "lonely cunts", something [[Moral Guardians|which can't be said]] on the radio.
* Likewise, "Play that funky music, white boy" (Wild Cherry) is easy to mistake for "play that f-cking music right, boy."
* From [[That Other Wiki]], [[wikipedia:Mairzy Doats|"Mairzy Doats"]] is built of intentionally inverting this trope. For those not willing to go to the link here are the actual lyrics on the sheet:
{{quote|''Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
''A kiddley divey too, woooden shoo?
''(Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy
''A kid'll eat ivy, too, wouldn't you?) }}
* [[Stevie Nicks]] gives us an example of an [[Ascended Trope]]. The first time she met [[Tom Petty]]'s wife Jane, Jane said that she and Tom met "at the age of seventeen." However, her thick Southern accent made it sound like "Edge of Seventeen." Nicks liked the sound of it, and wrote a song around it.
* Folk singer John Prine, in a live version of his song "That's the Way that the World Goes 'Round," mentions a fan who told him she liked the lyrics "It's a happy enchilada, and you think you're gonna drown." Actual lyric: "It's a ''half an inch of water'', and you think you're gonna drown." Rather than correcting the fan, he told her he was glad she liked the words.
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* [[They Might Be Giants]]' John Linnell wrote a song called ''Olive, The Other Reindeer'', named after a ''[[Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer]]'' mondegreen of "...[[All of the Other Reindeer]]..."
* Australian punk legends Radio Birdman took their name from a misheard lyric in [[The Stooges]]' "1970" - ''Radio '''burnin''' up above...''
* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] got the idea for "Like a Surgeon" from [[Madonna]] Mondegreening her own song "Like a Virgin" while talking to a friend.
* [[Rush]]'s "Tom Sawyer" has a line ("Catch the witness, catch the wit/Catch the spirit, catch the spit") which has been misheard as "catch the fish". Which amused the band so much that they would (as many other bands have) sing the Mondegreened lyric -- while pointing to a rubber fish on the stage.
* [[Starship (band)|Starship]]'s "We Built This City" includes the line "[[w:Guglielmo Marconi|Marconi]] plays the mamba", but it has been transcribed (presumably by someone too young to know about the origins of radio) as "Ma Coney plays the mamba".
▲* "Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly" was once mondegreened in Walt Kelly's comic strip ''[[Pogo (comic strip)|Pogo]]'' as "Deck Us All with Boston Charlie".
▲* ''[[Peanuts]]'' once subverted this trope: a story arc has Sally preparing for a Christmas pageant in which "I come out and say, 'Hark!', then Harold Angel starts to sing." Everyone assumes that she's simply confused by the name of the song...until a kid named Harold Angel actually shows up.
▲** Sally was known for these kinds of blunders. In another Christmas strip, she recites: "The stockings were hung by the chimney with care/In hopes that Jack Nicklaus soon would be there."
▲* The Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" was mondegreen'd as "Chimpanzee for the Devil" in ''[[CRFH]]'' (admittedly, by a character who's a [[Cloudcuckoolander]])
▲{{quote|'''Roger:''' [http://www.crfh.net/d/20050511.html Well, the coolness levels of that song just dropped 666%.]}}
▲* A ''[[Bloom County]]'' strip had Opus the penguin mangling ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' when he finds himself unable to remember the lyrics ("Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light / what so proudly we snailed, at, um, the starlight's last cleaning...").
▲* In the comic strip ''[[Wild Life]]'', Carson the Muskrat thinks the lyrics to his favorite U2 song are "I still haven't found Walter's cookie jar" (''I still haven't found what I'm looking for'')
== Recorded and Stand Up Comedy ==
▲* "You fill out my census" ("You fill up my senses" from "Annie's Song" by [[John Denver]]). This common misheard version was naturally seized on by the Capitol Steps for one of their political song parodies.
▲* John Denver's lyrics were skewered by Monty Python's Eric Idle on "John Denver being strangled" ("You came on my pillow...HYUUUNG!) -- and yes, Denver sued.
▲* There's also a comedian who bemoans his parents' inability to remember song lyrics, the trump being that his father sings one of Elton John's song as "Don't let your son go down on me".
▲* In his stage act, comedian [[Michael Winslow]] used to do a version of "Purple Haze", changing the lyric to "'Scuse me while I kiss this fly", followed by screeches of [[The Fly|"Help me! Help me!"]]
▲* Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man" is easily misheard as ''Secret Asian man'', and has been parodied as such at least twice, by the Capitol Steps as well as Da Vinci's Notebook.
▲* The Vacant Lot comedy troupe has a skit dedicated to mondegreens in Springsteen's ''Blinded By The Light'': "ripped up douches"; "loofah sponges" and the "foreman of the night;" and one that's completely incomprehensible.
▲* Springsteen's ''Blinded By The Light'' was made fun of by comedian [[Louis CK]] who once commented
▲{{quote|''You know that song 'Blinded by the Light'? Whenever it said 'revved up like a deuce' I always thought it said {{spoiler|'your mother's [[Country Matters|cunt]] smells like oranges'}}. Strange how that works...''}}
▲* Penn Jillette even joked about Paul McCartney's poor grammar in "Live and Let Die" ''in front of a UK audience'' in ''[[Penn & Teller]]: Fool Us''.
▲* In [[Ellen DeGeneres]]'s stand-up days, she discussed this.
▲{{quote|"Does he have it?" Is that what they're singing? "Does he have it?" Then you think to yourself "Why have I been singing 'Monkey hatchet?'" How many people have heard me sing "Monkey hatchet?" Then there are some songs that you don't even bother learning the words, because you assume that no one knows the words. That Aretha Franklin song "Respect," that's been around a long time, and we always get to that part where "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me. R-E-S-P-E-C-T, ([[Beat]]) coch-C-T HO!"}}
▲* One ''[[Perplex City]]'' card is based on identifying these.
== Theatre ==
* In a theatrical parody called ''Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer'' about a crossdressing/gay reindeer, the Snowman-narrator sings a song about a woman named "Sylvia Gould" until the Luberjack corrects him that it's supposed to be "Silver and Gold."
== Video Games ==
* The version of "Purple Haze" in ''[[Guitar Hero]] World Tour'' is a live recording and includes the line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" modified to "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" - while he points to a man!
== Web Comics ==
* As ''[[Suicide for Hire]]'' [http://suicideforhire.comicgenesis.com/d/20080413.html points out], [[Nightwish]]'s "Romanticide" apparently includes the lyrics, "Happy haunting, you taco-faced carny fork." (The actual line is, "Happy hunting, you double-faced carnivore.")
== Web Original ==
* In ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s article "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131026113913/http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-new-years-ruins-everything-great-about-drinking_p2/ 5 Reasons New Year's Ruins Everything Great About Drinking]", number 2 is "The Music", because nobody really knows the lyrics to "Auld Lang Syne":
{{quote|Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never yab to bye, adaaa dada banana boat, and auld lang synnne.}}
* In the [[Riff Trax]] for ''[[New Moon]]'', the commentators joke that one of the songs on the soundtrack seems to say "Armed with your staring fly." The song is ''Roslyn'' by bon Iver and [[St. Vincent]] and the real words are "Aren't we just terrified?"
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* The Similou's ''All This Love'' inspired a mini fad on YTMND about the famous communist hero, [http://rainbowstalin2.ytmnd.com/ Rainbow Stalin.]
* "Hold me closer, Tony Danza," a butchering of "Hold me closer, tiny dancer" by [[Elton John]], became an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgPjnTCZNu4 ascended meme] featuring guess who? [[The Danza]].
* Many youtube videos parody the first section of Carmina Burana, called Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, based on Mondegreens. Can be found [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYufeRxaMtg here] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scCTty3KDLk here]
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