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

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

Roxy

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

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 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

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

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 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

when I was 5 years old, I used to believe that Kingdom of God was on the clouds, so one day, I took the plane. When I saw the plane hadn't stopped on the kingdom, I screamed and one of the passengers was so emotionnal and told me the truth about the God [the kingdom is in the space and actually no plane could go so high}and until my 12 birthday, I was looking forward to waiting for this ultra-fast sonic plane.

vicky

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

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

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

My friend's little sister put her own surrealist spin on the carol "Ding Dong Merrily On High".
Last year she came out with the line "Gloria - Susanna is an extension" ...

Mina, UK

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

During the Catholic Mass, when we would sing "Grant us peace", my sister thought we were singing about some guy, Grantos Beece. She's 27 now and only figured out there's no Grantos about 3 years ago...

Jen

We used to sing a hymm at primary school called "Oh Jesus I have promised", which had the line "I hope to follow Duly, My saviour and my friend". I had an older sister called Julie, and wondered if she was named after the person in the song everyone wanted to follow.

Chris Smith

Hymns were my problem:
I am the Lord of the dance settee (rather than 'said he'), and picturing Jesus jumping upand down on a sofa.

Then there was 'goat tell it on the mountain'...

Jon

the words in "silent night" are "'round [as in around] yon virgin." i thought they were "round young virgin," because she was fat! i sang it that way for many years, and sometimes still do when i forget myself.

Anon

i went to a roman catholic junior school and when we sang "gladly the cross i'd bear" i thought we were singing about "gladely the cross eyed bear"

annieka