When I was 9 or 10 I heard Nena's "99 Red Balloons (or Luft Balloons)" for the first time. I thought on one part it said "99 decision trees" instead of "99 decision street." I also had a lot of other beliefs about the lyrics in this song. When she said, "You and I in a little toy shop" I thought she said "You and I and a little toshou" thinking that toshou was some foreign word for child or dog. My last one is when it says "panic bells, it's red alert" I thought she said, "panic birds, it's red alert." Until I looked the lyrics up, I had always wondered what a decision tree was, what language "toshou" was, and what birds had to do with the 3rd world war. :)

A Confused Toshou

I recently got a CD with 12 80's new wave songs on them. (I'm 11 and an 80's freak!) Well I had heard the chorus of Devo's "Whip It" before but didn't know any of the rest of the song. So when they did the, "Now whip it. Into shape. Shape it up.." I didn't know it. When they said "Try to detect it" I thought they said, "tatooed detective." I was like, "What does a tatooed detective have to do with this song?"

Whip it Good

I thought that in Donna Summer's "On The Radio", she said "On the radiator"!! My grandma and sister were always laughing at me and they told me I was wrong. I found out the right lyrics when I was like 8. Whenever that song comes on the radio, they still make fun of me...

Vannessa

my uncle and dad have argued this for years...in the song Henery the Eighth my uncle swears the line goes "She's been married several times before" when obviously it is "seven times before" if this Henery bloke is number 8 on her list...jeez

aly

Def Leppard (I think it was Def Leppard, forgive me should I be wrong) sang "Panama".
Are you positive it wasn't "Enema"?

Caitlin from Canada

At university, we over heard a friend of mine singing along to Boy George's "Karma Chameleon" - except she was singing "Come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a to me, Leon". Which, when you consider that that phrase is the title of the song, is pretty bad. Earlier that term she had cut herself with a spoon. Enough said.

Anon

I used to have this obsession with the play Cats and used to sing the Jellicle Song all the time. My friend could'nt understand why I was singing a song about 'Jellycones' She thought I was singing about dancing cups of jelly.
And also she though "saying skimble where is skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble" was "saying skimble where is skimble he's up a tree". weird!

lederhosen

I cant sleep at night for tossing and turning would sound better if it was I cant sleep at night for tossing my gherkin

Stevie P

I used to think that "My bonnie lies over the ocean," went, "My body lies over the ocean," and I was sad, because I thought it was about a floating dead person!

MissCalculated

My best friend of 20 years believed when we were kids that the song by Bon Jovi "Living on a Prayer" was actually called "Living on a Prairie". My dad still thinks that is funny to this day.

Westcott

The song "Where is the Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake. My sister to think it said, "People killing people tryin childrens hurting and in trying once you practice what you preach then you turn your other cheek. Father father father help us send some violence full of love cause peoples got me got me questioning where is above? above. above where is above, above, above???"

Kayla

Not about me, it's about my kids actually.

They sing "My Darling Clementine" and at the part where it goes, "dreadful sorrow" the sing "Drink The Soil"

ALSO: That song Daisy, Daisy give me your answer true. The next line is supposed to be I'm HALF crazy but they hear it as Im ASS crazy and they love to sing at the top of their lungs in the supermarket. Gets me lots of looks.

EwansOtherWife

When my sister and I were in the car the song, "How Bizzare" came on. We thought it was saying, "Help is on." It wasn't until a couple weeks later I called her and let her know I found out the real words.

Suzie

I had a roommate who thought that Celine Dion's song "Next Plane Out" said "let's make out." She didn't make the connection between the song's title and the words to the chorus....

Barbara

I lived near the Illinois Central train in Chicago, which we called the IC. Every morning in school I sang, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of the IC."

Annie

My friend's mum likes Bruce Springsteen a fair bit, and she recently got his latest album. Over dinner one night when I was there, she professed her confusion as to why he was talking about a "muffin man", before we all pointed out to her that it was actually "nuthin man"

claire

Do you remember "The look" by Roxette? I think it was popular around 1990, when I was 10 years old, and I really loved this song. I had just learned english in school for a year, but I tried to understand and translate the lyrics, looking up words in the dictionary and stuff (well most of the time the lines didn't make that much sense to me, I know now over 10 years later that they REALLY don't make that much sense).

Anyways there is this line where I always heard "kissing like a ramrod" and associated it to that big spaceship-transforming-robot from Saber Rider (anyone knows that series?) which was called Ramrod. I tried to look that word up, but I couldn't find it, most likely because I misspelled it "Ramrott" or something like that.

So, I went to my english teacher (an elderly man) and asked him what a ramrod was. He looked a bit puzzled, so I provided him the context and said the line in the song was "kissing like a ramrod", which made him look even more puzzled. He then muttered something about how lyrics in songs are sometimes no correct english and went on with his english lesson.

Years later, I stumbled by conincidence over the lyrics to "The Look" printed out somewhere... which solved the ramrod puzzle, since the original lyrics were "tasty like a raindrop". ^_^;

Lunaticat

I thought the song Secret Agent man was
Secret Asian Man
My mom had two she thought hang on sloopy was hang on stupid
and Theres a bad moon on the rise was theres a bathroom on the right

Dummy