More Misheard Lyrics: Turtle Love!

Back when I was an artist at Tower Records, my friend Holly who was a label rep would sometimes hang out in my room as I painted, and we'd chat about stuff while the radio played.

One time "Good Lovin'" was on the radio, and she said, "Did I ever tell you about when I was a kid and my older brother convinced me they were singing "Turtle Love" in this song?"
I had no idea what she meant until the chorus came uyp and what do you know, it DID sound like they were saying "turtle love" instead of Good Lovin' if you set your mind to it!~

I began cracking up with laughter imagining her going around as a kid singing "Turtle Love", and she soon shook her head and said, "Maybe it was a mistake to tell you that!", making me laugh even MORE!

One, two, Three...TURTLE LOVE!

More Misheard Lyrics: "I Love The Japanese Lady"

This one wasn't mine but my Mother whose ears somehow scrambled the lyrics to the 1983 Song "Jeopardy" by The Greg Kihn Band and turned it into a confession about a guy's Asian obsession!

Me and my sister were watching MTV and the Jeopardy video came on.  My mother came into the living room and, after watching for a bit, said how funny the video was- "He keeps singing I Love the Japanese Lady, but that woman's not even Asian!" to which me and my sister looked at each other and started cracking up!

"I Love The Japanese LADY? HAHAHA, he's saying "Our Love's in Jeopardy, Baby!" we laughed, to which my Mom shrugged and went back to her cooking. 

 Little did she know she just created a classic that we'd continue to sing OVER the actual song lyrics from then on! Years later Weird Al Yankovic did his own parody of the song with "I Lost on Jeopardy"...

...but for my money, ya can't beat the original parody we heard that day!

More Misheard Lyrics: “And I’m Dewey”

In late 1979, a song started airing on the radio that made me immediately think of Donald Duck and his rambunctious nephews, Huey Dewey and Louie, because whenever I heard it, it sounded like the girl was saying:

He was singing

“And I’m Dewey…

And I’m Dewey…

…Delacie!

I’m Dewey DeLacie!”

 I laughingly told my friends “Dunno who this Dewey DeLacie guy is, but in MY mind I'm imagining that she’s singing about Dewey Duck!” We all laughed and from that point on, we’d all sing those words over the song whenever it came on! LOL

The SONG, as it turns out, was the Fleetwood Mac song “Sara”, written and sung by Stevie Nicks from their  1979 album "Tusk" ...

.... and unlike the very silly Disney lyrics I THOUGHT Stevie was singing, I was to later find out that the words were ACTUALLY:

He was singing

 and undoing

and undoing 

the laces

undoing the laces

 These lyrics were referring to her infamous fling with the Eagles Don Henley, her pregnancy and their would be daughter Sara (if Stevie had decided to keep the child).  BOY, to go from Dewey Duck acknowledging himelf to a song about a man serenading a girl while undressing her was quite a 180 degree twist!…and quite a bit darker than I thought!

"Sara" excerpt:

Fleetwood Mac would become one of my favorite groups of all time and the `978 album “Tusk” a classic, but even though I now know the lyrics and song well, there are times when it STILL sounds like she’s singing about Donald Duck’s nephew!

More Misheard Lyrics: " I Got A Dollar Bill"

 
BACK in around 1993 or so, a friend made a mix tape of some punk/alternative bands with some really cool music on there! The only problem was he had not bothered to list the artists or titles of the songs on the cassette card, and the only way I could refer to the songs was by the chorus refrains, etc.

There was a particularly catchy song which I really liked about a guy I presumed (through my mishearing ears) was low on cash as he sang about only having a buck to his name. The next time I saw my friend a few weeks later I said, "Who sings that song I Got A Dollar Bill?". To which he gave me an odd look and said "I Got a Dollar Bill?" I don't know any song like that.

I said, "Sure you do!", and then sang it to him. He shook his head in disbelief and said, "What? He's not saying I Got a Dollar Bill!"

The band in question was the groovy group the Hoodoo Gurus (whom I'd already loved for their awesome song "Like Wow~ Wipeout!"), the song was called "My Girl"...and the line that I THOUGHT was singing "I Got a Dollar Bill" was actually "My Girl Don't Love Me at All"!

WHHAAAAT! I was flabbergasted to find that I'd gotten the lyrics so wrong! So...this song ain't about a broke guy- Just a broken-hearted one! Nonetheless, a very catchy song and one which I still love to this day...though I can't get those original lyrics out of my head!

More Misheard Lyrics: “Green Air, Now”

 In the era of environmentally conscious efforts all over the world to make the world’s ecosystem clean and nature-friendly, there must be a ton of compaines and agencies calling themselves “Green Air” but when I was a kid, the term Green Air only meant one thing: The refrain to the latest Fleetwood Mac stop 40 single!

The song in question was the Stevie Nicks penned (strange how so many of her songs are featured in my Misheard Lyrics posts) tune “Rhiannon”, which, for SOME reason, instead of the title refrain, my ears heard them drawling ‘Green Aiiiiiiiiir- NOW!”

Later when I learned they were saying Rhiannon, I tried to justify my confusion by saying, “But listen, it really sounds liek they’re saying Green Air!” to which my friend Larry listened for a second and exclaimed, “Oh YEAH!” then, “no.” D’OH