Commonly Misheard Lyrics, or Mondegreens

'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy

If you enjoy music as much as I do, you probably catch yourself singing along. Without even knowing it, you may singing the wrong lyrics. Song lyrics are commonly confused, whether the songwriter uses words that are not in our common vocabularies or the singer forgets to enunciate. The misunderstanding of a phrase or lyric, or mondegreen1¹, often brings about amusing interpretations. Listed below are some of the common lyrics I have mistakenly heard/sung wrong, along with well-known songs that have misheard lyrics.

Additionally, you can visit this website, The Archive of Misheard Lyrics (http://kissthisguy.com), if you want to see a list of commonly mistaken lyrics or to look up a particular song. It's a hilarious site.

Bop-erannn

When I was little and heard the song, "Barbara Ann," (cover version by The Beach Boys), I always thought they were singing something along the lines of "Bop-erannn." I sang it wrong for years until someone finally told me they were singing a person's name, Barbara Ann. If you ask me, it still doesn't sound like they're singing real words, especially not a name, but the song is fun all the same.

Cross-eyed Bear

When Alanis Morissette came out with her album titled, "Jagged Little Pill" in the '90s, I was in middle school and hung out at my best friend's house a lot. When we listened to "You Oughta Know," we always thought she sang something about a "cross-eyed bear" when really, she was singing, "cross I bear." As a kid, I didn't know much about bearing crosses, at least not in any non-religious sense, so I thought I had a legitimate misunderstanding of the lyrics. Once my friend and I found out what the lyrics actually were, we still continued to sing "cross-eyed bear" because it was funnier.

The Bushes