There's a song called "Take It All" by a group called Hillsongs United. A friend and I were singing this song in the car the other day. One of the lines is "Jesus, we're living for your name; we'll never be ashamed of you.... Our praise, and all we are today.... Take, take, take it all! Take, take, take it all!!"
Well, my mom was driving, and she turned around in her seat to stare at us and gave us this "WTF???" look.

Turns out that she'd misheard "take it all" as "Take, take, take it OFF!!!" My friend and I laughed so hard that we cried. Poor Mom...

Taylor

There's a song, a hymn, called "There is a Balm in Gilead". I used to think it said "There is a Bomb in Gilead". And I would picture an unexploded bomb, half buried in the dirt, waiting to accidently go off! I wanted nothing to do with Gilead!

Helen

I used to think iI had a "piece of plastic, piece of plastic, down in my heart to stay"

The real words are "peace that passes understanding"

(still looking for a "round young virgin")

BoB

There is a hymn with the line "I love those dear hearts and gentle people". My mother was horrified when my sister, who was 3 or 4, sang for the Prayer Meeting group "I love those dear hearts and DAMNED OLD PEOPLE"....

marjorie

I've been to a lot of Catholic parishes and when I sang this traditional hymn, Forty Days and Forty Nights, I long ago thought the first line went "Forty plays and forty fights..." As a Catholic, I wouldn't do that in church!

Anon. Catholic Teen

the dance settee seems to be very popular... I'm another one who thought of Jesus dancing on a sofa....

Anon

I used to think that church songs were pop music. Well, we did sing them in church every week...

Roxy

The hymn that goes

"Gladly the cross I'd bare"

was one, I thought involved a bear with eye problems.

"Gladly, the cross eyed bear".

Kojak

there was this song called Trust and Obey we used sing that had the lyrics "then in fellowship sweet." I always sang "then in fellows of wheat."

Chad

As a child i never really understood many of the messages in hymns, and frankly I didn't care. Anyway I remember thinking the lyrics for a certain hymn were "two-headed eagle in the law", as if by some divine right of christianity a mutant bird was patrolling our streets protecting all of christendom from heaven knows what. As I never took much notice of the Anglican teachings of such obscure lyrics I never questioned whether this was in fact what i was supposed to be singing. And I still don't know but im guessing "eagle" was probably "evil" and it would figure "law" was "lord". Other than that I've not a clue.

first kid on the block

Dammit i thought it was 'dance seetee' too. used to picture jesus jumping on my old grey sofa.

glad to no im not alone

possilby slighlty deaf

I used to believe that in the song "Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Holly", "deck" was short for "decorate". It didn't confuse the meaning of that line too much. I'd say back then I was doing well to come that close to getting the meaning of the first line, considering how then I would have been totally clueless about the meaning of other lines, like "Don we now our gay apparrel". And I did wonder what the heck a troll was doing in a Christmas song, the only kind of troll I knew of at the time being a scary creature that lived under a bridge. Although the first line seemed clear, I must have had a somewhat confused time later learning the general meaning of "deck", though.

Natalie

I used to belive the song "Lord of the Dance" contained the following lyrics

:Dance, dance wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance settee.

Ianh

At my church they would sing all these hymns and being from the South you couldnt always understand what everyone was saying.

They sang one song called "Not by Might" It went something like this...

Not by Might. Not by Might.
But by my spirit saith the Lord.

However I would loudly sing every sunday morning...

Not my pie. Not my pie.
But its the spirt's and the Lord's.

And then there was the southern oldie called "When the Roll is called up younder..Ill be there!!" which I thought was "When the ROAD is called a Punder...Ill be there!!" I couldnt figure out why people would start calling roads punders and why in the heck would I want to be there?

clynn

in some hymns, they say, let the seas roar! i thought the seas would literally roar like tigers and would swallow you up at the seaside!

ROAR!

I used to believe that the words (in the christmas carol, "It came upon a midnight clear")

"With angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold"

were actually

"With angels spending near the earth to touch their hearts of gold."

Curiously I never wondered why angels should have golden hearts, but I always wondered what the angels were spending their money on.

Fara Shimbo

There's an old church song that goes " Hold to his hand, Gods unchanging Hand.."

My cousin Calvin would sing it....

"Hold to his pants, Gods unchanging Pants..."

Chane

In Sunday School we used to sing a song about "The wise man built his house upon the rock/the foolish man built his house upon the sand."
The chorus said, "The rain came down and the floods came up/and the house on the rock stood firm/and the house on the sand fell flat."
And I used to sing loudly, "THE RAIN CAME DOWN AND THE FUSS CAME UP!!" and I'd picture a crowd of people fussing around outside the houses.

Jaye

My grandparents have always attended a very traditional church, where they sing a lot of old hymns. One of the hymns they sing every week is "Gloria Patri" (or something like that), and when I was little, I read that in the bulletin, and was convinced that a woman named Gloria was going to speak in church that week. (I was always puzzled as to why her name was in the bulletin, but I never heard her preach)

Anon

I took "Gods got the whole world in his hands" a little too literally. I believed if we dug too deeply into the earth we would reach God's hand...oh and the sky was a handkerchief or a blanket to keep us warm.

Apple