Lady Mondegreen

One of the new words added this year to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary is a word I was not familiar with, but which describes many of my experiences singing along to my car radio (or along to some fine music video on Youtube): mondegreen. The word itself is quite obscure, but it describes the lyrics I sing very well. Why is that, you might ask? Well, mondegreen refers to misheard song lyrics. To wit, the word mondegreen itself, not surprisingly, comes from a misheard song lyric. Lady Mondegreen is the name for a lyric that actually says "laid him on the green."

This is far from the only song (and not even the most familiar example to most people) that has flagrantly misunderstood lyrics. For example, there is a rock song known as In-a-gada-da-vida, which really was intended to be "In The Garden Of Eden." This misheard lyric is so common that it ended up becoming the name of the song. This is quite remarkable and unusual in the history of mondegreens. The word mondegreen itself was first cited in 1953, but the word has toiled away in undeserved obscurity until now. In fact, this word is such a common facet of my own singing that I will probably use it a lot more often, know that I know the word (especially since it suits me well).

One song I enjoy listening to a lot right now is the song "Violet Hill" by Coldplay, the first single from their Viva La Vida, or Death And All His Friends album. My favorite lyric in the song is probably the following: "Bury me in honor, when I'm dead and hit the ground." Of course, when I hear and sing along to the song, it goes like this: "Bury me in armor, when I'm dead and hit the ground." I just think it's cooler (given my love of castles and that sort of thing) to be buried in armor than buried in honor, not that I'm sure that would be even possible anymore (given the absolute scarcity of honor, that is).

This is far from the only song whose lyrics I butcher. I remember slaughtering the lyrics to Norah Jones' tune "Don't Know Why" while in the car with some friends of mine. This sort of tendency to slaughter the lyrics of tunes in spectacularly public ways has made me a bit gunshy when it comes to kareoke. Despite my love of singing, I actually have never sung kareoke before, though I almost sung "Man! I Feel Like A Woman!" with some friends as a joke once at a Winter Family Weekend in Lexington in 2002. Thankfully, I spared myself much embarassment, I think, by not ending up singing that particular tune.

I'd be curious to hear about some favorite misheard lyrics from my loyal readers, because these sorts of funny stories are way too good to keep private. Why not share them with a world that probably includes many people who have done the exact same things. Come, let us take a stroll with Lady Mondegreen and reflect upon our common human frailty, and the tendency of the mind to hear, sometimes, what it wants to hear and not what is.