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See also [[Lady Mondegreen]], which is about something similar happening with character names in other works. Contrast [[Malaproper]] which is a character who mixes up words on a regular basis, and [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]] which is for when the misheard line becomes more famous than the original. A [[Gag Sub]] for a music video will probably be filled with mondegreens.
 
'''Note: Examples below should be [[In -Universe]], or ones referenced in other works ONLY.'''
{{examples}}
 
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{{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 De GeneresDeGeneres]]'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 (Comiccomic Stripstrip)|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 ''[[College Roomies Fromfrom Hell]]'' (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...").
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* When Scott was reading ''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' to his son in ''[[The Santa Clause]]'', his son mistakes "arose such a clatter" for "a Rose Suchak ladder". This turns out to be justified.
* In ''[[Life of Brian]]'', Brian and his mother are listening to Jesus' Sermon of the Mount from way in the back row, prompting Brian's mother to ask, "Did he say, 'Blessed are the Cheesemakers'?"
* ''[[Winnie the Pooh (FilmDisney film)|Winnie the Pooh 2011]]'': Pooh and his friends thought that Christopher Robin was kidnapped by a monster known as the Backson because Pooh actually mistranslated Christopher's message "I'll be back soon."
* ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'': "Frollo's nose is long, and he wears a truss." <ref> A truss is a tricorn-like headdress worn by judges in the Middle Ages</ref>
* In ''[[Flushed Away]]'', Roddy protests to the thugs looking for Rita that he's just an innocent bystander. They now think that Roddy's name is Millicent Bystander.
* The Christmas short ''[[Olive the Other Reindeer (Film)|Olive the Other Reindeer]]'' has this set off the plot. Upon hearing on the radio that one of Santa's reindeer is injured and that they'll be counting on "all of the other reindeer," Olive decides that Santa did not say this, but the title, and that she is not a dog at all, and that she is in fact, a reindeer. So she goes to the North Pole to prove it. A bus driver later tells Olive that he used to think the pledge of Allegiance was about him, Richard Stands. As in, "And to the Republic, for Richard Stands."
* Near the end of [[Cars|''Cars 2'']], Mater, Finn McMissile, and Holly Shiftwell are all captured by the Lemons and are trapped inside a giant clock tower in London, England. As the Lemons proceed to drop Mater into the clock's gears to shed him alive, the tow truck immediately yells, "Dad gum!", and as a result he accidentally deploys his weapons Finn and Holly gave him and blasting away the ropes suspending them over the clock gears, therefore freeing himself and allowing them.
 
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* The Lois Lowry novel ''All About Sam'' renders the Pledge of Allegiance as the Pled Jelly-Juntz. Justified as the protagonist is four years old.
* In the novel ''The Prisoner of Pineapple Place'', set in an invisible alley of invisible residents, the protagonist believes the words of the Pledge are "One nation, ''invisible'', with liberty and justice for all". The story suggests this might be an intentional [[Mondegreen]] on the teacher's part, given the residents' own invisibility.
* There's a running joke in ''[[Good Omens (Literature)|Good Omens]]'' about how all cassette tapes left in cars will eventually metamorphose into tapes of "The Greatest Hits of Queen". Crowley listens to the song "Radio Ga Ga", hearing the lyrics "''All we need is Radio Ga Ga''". It's actually "''All we'' hear ''is Radio Ga Ga.''"
* "Olive, the other reindeer ..." (''[[Rudolph the Red -Nosed Reindeer]]'': "...[[All of the Other Reindeer]]..."). Inevitably, a book called ''Olive, The Other Reindeer'' was published in 1997, and was turned into a [[Christmas Special]] in 2003 by [[Matt Groening]] of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' fame.
* 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'':
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'''Lord Vader:''' The transmission was garbled. He promised to leave you in ''pieces''. }}
* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' Crookedstar's Promise, barn cat Fleck thinks that the moonstone (a place where warriors communicate with their ancestors) is the foodstone. Prompts the hilarious line "Is there a foodstone as well as a moonstone?"
* The title ''[[The Catcher in The Rye (Literature)|The Catcher in The Rye]]'' comes from an in-universe Mondegreen, Holden mishears the song "Comin' Thru the Rye" and adopts this mistaken phrase as his future purpose in life, forming a mental image of himself catching kids who are running around in a rye field (which is inexplicably placed on "some crazy cliff," which to him is symbolic of [[Moral Guardian|protecting them from adult themes]], especially sex. The song is actually, very ironically, about two lovers meeting to have sex in a rye field.
* Several books by Gavin Edwards (before the Internet made reading and sharing mondegreens easy), in the 1990's are collections of these sent in by readers: '''Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy'', ''He's Got The Whole World in his Pants'', ''When a Man Loves a Walnut'', and ''Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly''.
 
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* [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]] had fun with ''[[Pod People]]'' "Idiot control! Bees on pot! Burning rubber tires!" The funny thing is some of the ridiculous lines Joel and the bots sang ''are the real lines''. Also, one must remember this is a dub of a Spanish movie so it's bound to have major issues.
* ''Ken Lee'' ("Can't live [without you]", ''Without You''). Made famous by [http://youtube.com/watch?v=FQt-h753jHI this clip] from the Bulgarian version of ''Pop Idol''.
* [[Six Feet Under]] - [[In -Universe]] pop-star Celeste's song ''Set My Loving Free'' is sung by Keith as ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEk18HUlphc&list=FLjzW69sgd5CZAx4pzozg8XA&index=7&feature=plpp_video Shave My Legs For Free]''.
* In [[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]], Greg Proops confuses the title of Sir Mix-a-lot's "Baby got back" with "Ladies got back.
* In the TV show ''[[Wings (TV series)|Wings]]'' one episode's subplot revolved around Antonio becoming a busker in the airport, singing a song he learned back in Italy (his introduction to English): "My Goat Knows the Bowling Score, Hallelujah." After everyone gets sick of him singing the same line over and over they suggest he go on to the next verse, which he does: "Sid's new hair is in the mail, Hallelujah." (That is, "Michael, row the boat ashore" and "Sister, help to trim the sail", respectively.)
* The Australian TV show ''Comedy Inc.'' has fun with this trope in their stop-motion vignette series ''Ernest the Engine and Others'' where the character Stevie the Steam Train tends to "stutter badly at the most inappropriate of times", such as when he sings the song "'''Count'''ry Roads".
* The main character of ''[[Victorious]]'' mistook the ''[[Fresh Prince of Bel Air]]" theme song lyric "shooting some b-ball outside the school" as "chewing some meatballs outside the school."
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* Joan Baez's cover of ''The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'' by [[The Band]] has a number of Mondregreens, as she learned the song by listening to the recording repeatedly rather than through a lyrics sheet. Notable ones are singing "So much cavalry" instead of "Stoneman's cavalry," and "I took a train to Richmond that fell" in place of "by May the tenth, Richmond had fell." Most of the changes are minor, and none hurt the power of the song at all.
* [[The Bangles]] included a cover of "Sweet and Tender Romance" on their 2011 album ''Sweetheart of the Sun''. Despite having found no official lyrics. Susanna Hoffs remarked, "We listened to the McKinley Sisters' recording over and over again, and could decode most of the words, but in the end we guessed a bit! What you hear on the record is actually our "scratch" vocals, and in fact Vicki and I are singing different words!"
* "Slow Uncle Walter/The fire engine guy" ("Smoke on the water/A fire in the sky", ''Smoke on the Water'' by [[Deep Purple (Music)|Deep Purple]]). The Barenaked Ladies pay homage to this Mondegreen in their song "[[Tear Jerker|The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel]]":
{{quote| ''Rubberneck traffic and passers-by/ And Slow Motion Walter the fire engine guy / Stand around with their mouths open wide...''}}
* [[Electric Light Orchestra (Music)|Electric Light Orchestra]]'s "Don't Bring Me Down", is frequently mondegreened as "Don't bring me down, Bruce!" The actual lyric is "Don't bring me down, groose", which is a made-up word. ELO realized so many people were hearing this that they actually started singing it live.
* Cover artists are divided as to whether the line in Elvis's ''Peace in the Valley'' is "the Lamb is the Light" or [[Sherlock Holmes|"the lamp is alight."]]
* Doug Ingle's slurred and/or drunk/stoned mispronunciation of "In The Garden of Eden" has likewise become the official title of the famous [[Iron Butterfly (Music)|Iron Butterfly]] song, "Ina-Gadda-Da-Vida".
* "Hey Sandy" by Polaris was the theme tune to ''The adventures of Pete and Pete'', with a famously unintelligible lyric which the band swore they would never reveal. The lyrics have been guessed as everything from "Can you settle to shoot me" to "can you see the shroom babe" and no one is any the wiser.
* One of the more famous mondegreens is "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" ("'Scuse me while I kiss the sky", [[Jimi Hendrix]], ''Purple Haze''). Hendrix, aware of the mondegreen, was actually known to pause at this point in the song and either point to or kiss one of his male band members during concerts. In at least a few live recordings, he very clearly says "kiss this guy" or "kiss that guy".
* "Seven Nation Army" by [[The White Stripes (Music)|The White Stripes]] has the line "And the feeling coming from my bones...", but it sounds ''exactly'' like "And the feeling coming from my balls..."
* [[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".
* "Wrapped up like a douche" ("Revved up like a deuce" (coupe) in the Manfred Mann's Earth Band version of [[Bruce Springsteen (Music)|Bruce Springsteen]]'s ''Blinded By The Light'')
* 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<br />
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(Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy<br />
A kid'll eat ivy, too, wouldn't you?) }}
* [[Stevie Nicks (Music)|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.
* [[Pink Martini]] actually ''recorded'' a Mondegreen not realizing it was the wrong lyric. In "Amado Mio," a cover of another song, China Forbes sings "I want you ever, I love my darling, wanting to hold you and hold you tight" - and only later did the band realize that the words are "My one endeavor, my love, my darling."
* [[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]] got the idea for "Like a Surgeon" from [[Madonna]] Mondegreening her own song "Like a Virgin" while talking to a friend.
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* In [[Cracked]]'s article "[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 [[RifftraxRiff 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 (Music)|St. Vincent]] and the real words are "Aren't we just terrified?"
* This little bit from Snopes on [http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/rafiki.asp an old Disney picture/audio book] certainly counts.
* [http://kissthisguy.com/ The Archive of Misheard Lyrics], whose website URL comes from a mondegreen of Hendrix "Purple Haze", is possibly the biggest archive of mondegreens in existence.
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* Lordi -- [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHaahKa1Nk "Biomechanic Man"]
* [http://www.rathergood.com/bill "Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, put your hands all over my body"] ("Erotic, Erotic, Put your hands all over my body") in Madonna's ''Erotic''.
* O-Zone's ''Dragostea din Tei'' has been intentionally 'misinterpreted' in other languages, the [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/maiyahi Japanese version] even includes [[Shout -Out|Shout Outs]] to ''[[One Piece]]'', ''[[Street Fighter]]'', and ''Sazae-san''.
** Another video takes a misinterpreted "razor blades" in the chorus and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5DNuQfoy10#t=2m55s runs with it].
** Or [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dH9yOc7lWs "She's a rather slutty date"].
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* "O Fortuna" [http://www.briankaneonline.com/2010/02/24/oh-four-tuna/ Godspeed.]
* [http://www.rathergood.com/elephants "Elephants, Yeah!"] ("E di pensier," "La donna é mobile" from Verdi's ''Rigoletto'', as sung by Luciano Pavarotti)
* [[That Dude in Thethe Suede]] chose [[Rob Zombie (Music)|Return of the Phantom Stranger]] as the theme song for his ''Fandom Stranger'' series because of this trope.
* ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qayDROc-dkE Rum Stein]'' by [[Rammstein (Music)|Rammstein]].
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oiLfTnrC40 "Marmoset there'd be days like this..."] (actually "Mama said there'd be days like this," by the Shirelles)
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNLDLyeepVs BOAT! RUDDER! STRANGE! MOUNTAIN! STOMP! UKRAINE! THIS! LIME!!] From the infamous "Interpretation of Trivium". Trivium have mentioned people turning up to their concerts with T-shirts with these "lyrics" written on, even though it was written by [[Poe's Law|someone who hates Trivium]] as a form of trolling.
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* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKgSF0BNFrU&feature=related Here] we find out that the Gamecube Wavebird controller has "fudge brownies" inside.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wix4GxuGqHY Sheamus] will rip off your head and fuck your girlfriend.
* Slowbeef of ''[[Retsupurae]]'' once made a video called "A Public Service Announcement to all Lets Players" wherein he attempted to read ''[[American Gods (Literature)|American Gods]]'' by [[Neil Gaiman]] whilst ZoopSoul [[Let's Play|LPed]] ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]''. Everytime ZoopSoul dies, Slowbeef interrupts himself and says "[[Memetic Mutation|Please Stop Lets Playing I Wanna Be The Guy.]]" At one point he gets to the part where Shadow "was (secondly) going to towel himself off" and ZoopSoul ends up dying at that moment. It is commonly misheard as "Second he was going to tell himself, Please Stop Lets Playing I Wanna Be The Guy." In reality it's, "Second he was going to towel himself - Please Stop Lets Playing I Wanna Be The Guy."
* "Old Long Johnson" the cat. "Oh, Don Piano. Why do I despise you all the live long day?"
* The German youtuber [[Coldmirror]] has produced quite a lot of videos mongegreening songs.
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* Another example of subtitle mishaps, The Simpsons episode "Moe Baby Blues" when aired on Sky 1 has the line "No means no for Elmo!" subtitled as "A smack in the mouth!"
** Another Simpsons subtitling example: in the episode "The Last Temptation of Homer", when Bart (imitating [[Jerry Lewis]]) says "My voice is crazy with the spraying already!" after getting his throat sprayed, the subtitles ALWAYS have it as "My voice is crazy with this braying already!"
* In ''[[Ben 10: Ultimate Alien (Animation)|Ben 10 Ultimate Alien]]'', when Jimmy Jones is naming some of Ben's aliens, he incorrectly identifies Jetray as "Jeffrey". Ben corrects him.
 
 
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