Ask Lemmy

You can tell by the way I use my wand, Im a woman-man no automaton.

Stayin Alive circa 2001 on my crappy boombox .

Jeff Davis of Who's Line is it Anyway has a story about a friend of his mishearing "reach down, ease the seat back" in Van Halen's Panama as "reach down, ease the seed bag", as in adjusting his nuts. Always cracks me up when I think of that or hear the song

In the song "Edge of Seventeen" by Fleetwood Mac, the first line "Just like the white-winged dove", I misheard as "one-winged dove" for years

My family sings “More Than a Woman” as “Bald-Headed Woman” and when you hear it, it’s impossible to unhear it.

I thought the velvet underground "run run run" was

Run run run run run take your jacket too

Instead of "take a drag or two"

Good advice when it's cold out!

That Pete Seeger song (which isn't really his, but that's the version I heard) has Cuban Spanish lyrics and isn't at all about a One Ton Tomato.

"Sharp dressed man" always heard it as "Shy best man" this may have had a minor counterproductive impact on my behavior when I was a teenager.

I don't think Nikki Minage (spelling?) meant to say: "I want you to fart on my young"

When I was a kid I heard The Go-Go's Our Lips Are Sealed as "Alex the seal".

Doesn't matter what they say

In the jealous games people play

Alex the seal

I thought it was about a sad bullied seal.

Empire state if mind:

New York, Concrete jungle, w et dream, tomato.

LIBERATE! BANANAS!

From Rush's "Farewell to Kings"...

Bleating at the marketplace, And stopping at the "Y"

Very unusual behaviour for those scheming demons.

When I worked at a grocery store I always heard 'I hope you dance' as 'I want you dead'. The pa speakers were kinda shit and when the song eventually came up on radio on the drive home I was like "ooooooohhh!" out loud in the car by myself because I was wondering what it could possibly be since it was obviously not what I heard it as.

I know the super trooper.

Lights are gonna find me.

That little pause confused me as a kid, not knowing what a "super trooper light" or that a thing like that exists.

Love, I feel it in my hands, I can tell by the things I could do with another man.

I was embarrassingly old when I figured out nobody would be singing that in the 1970s and looked up the name of the song.

Billy Talent's "Viking Death March" is a song about religious hypocrisy, capitalistic exploitation and doing something about it.

I initially understood the chorus as singing "crosses to bend, axes to fall" and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The crosses in churches being torn down could fit with the axes, but you wouldn't bend them so much as break them. The only usage for bent crosses I could think of were Swastikas, but that also didn't quite seem to fit the rest of the song, nor the impression I had of the band.

Later, I figured out that it wasn't "bend", but "burn", which still didn't clear things up: Burning crosses also isn't exactly a leftist symbol, and following up "You preach about love and teach about faith, but all your beliefs are still rooted in hate" with a call to burn crosses just doesn't really track.

It's not a call to action. It's "Crosses still burn, axes still fall". It's calling attention to the fact that these hateful evils haven't disappeared.

I thought "Teen Spirit" was about Imitators and mashed potaters

To this day I hear "Diarrhea Jane" instead of "Diary of Jane"

FYi, these are called Mondegreens after a famous song that was mis-heard by pretty much everyone. I think it was Welsch.

Mine is England Dan and John Ford Coley's I'd really love to see you tonight.

Thought he sang, "I'm not talkin bout my linen."

Instead of, "I'm not talkin bout movin in "

Made up a whole story in my mind about how they met in a Laundromat.

Ever since I was a kid I thought in Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" he sang "on a stale horse I ride". I figured he had been riding his horse out in the desert a long time, it's all tired, no water.. yeah it's a stale horse. My partner will never let me live it down.

What have I become my Swedish friend?

George Thoroughgood's Bad to the Bone. Thought the line was "The head nurse spoke up. She said, leave us alone. " Instead of "Leave this one alone."

I thought, damn, that new born is gonna screw the head nurse. That IS bad to the bone!