I used to believe that the old church hymn about bringing in the sheaves was actually talking about some farmer bringing in the sheep. I guess I thought that sheaves was the plural form of sheep.

Anon

At my old church we sang alot of hyms.. and there was one that said "and now, let the weak say i am strong, let the poor say i am rich because of what the Lord has done"..

But seeing as i couldn't read thien and had to learn the songs by ear, i sang the lyrics as "and now, let teh wheet say i am strong, let the corn say i am rich".. i new that in the old days they ran farms alot but i never got why the farmer's crops talked to them..

Doblica W.

The writers of the hymns that mentioned the word "breast" were perverts.

MDC

This is really my elderly friend's recollection.

Her family bred Siamese cats, which were of course good mousers. When the little girl learned to sing, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild" she thought the 3rd line went, "Pity mice implicitly" instead of the actual "Pity my simplicity"! (You must remember that children's spoken vocabulary was much more sophisticated in those days!)

Sylvia

I used to believe that Hosianna was a character from the Bible because of the line "Hosianna, Son of David!" in a religious hymn. Unfortunately, the religion class I attended only reinforced this belief: We were told that King David had many different children, and imagining the mysterious Hosianna as a less prominent son among several siblings made a lot of sense to me. It took a couple of years until my father found out about this belief of mine and set me straight.

Mary

I remember being rather confused at the lyric in the popular Christmas carol that went 'Dawn we now our day of peril, fa la la, la la la, la la la'. I couldn't figure out why we were so happy about a day of peril, but hey. Christmas is weird.

Dr. Nightshade

"God be with you 'til we meet again, with his sheets securely fold you....." That's what I sang until I graduated to senior choir, which marked the demise of my belief in a heaven fitted with carved cedar doors where all slept safe, tucked into fresh, white sheets.

Cynde Roberts

One of my favorite Christmas carols was "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen". There's the line in there that says "and save us all from Satan's powers." I thought it was "and save us all from saltine crackers." I never questioned why saltines were so evil.

Susan C-C.

Real words in "Jesus Loves Me": Little Ones to Him Belong..."
Until I was 15 I thought it was: "Little wants to hear me long"

Krista

In the first verse of the Harvest Festival hymn "Come ye thankful people, come" there is a line that reads "All be safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin". For a long time I thought that meant "Everyone be safely gathered indoors, before the winter storms begin". Only recently did I find out that it refers to crops, rather than to people!

Alan, Sheffield

My son used to Sing "Grey Sheets the Lord" instead of "Praise ye the Lord"

cyndi

When I was little, I liked this hymn at church that had the line, "turning his ears always to me", but I thought it was "Turning Ah Zeee", and preceeded to ask my pastor to play to play "Turning Ah Zee, puhlease". I think I've always been a little confused...

Jezarino

When she was a kid, my mother hated the carol "Good King Wenceslas" because she thought the line "Thou and I shall see him dine" was really "Thou and I shall see him dying".

EJH

Religion confused me, I used to wonder why a hill would HAVE a wall round it (hymn - there is a green hill far away without a city wall) and why if religion was touting God as a good thing, you would sing about not wanting him (the lord is my shepherd I shall not want).

Lorna

When Christmas came around my family always went to the Carols by Candlelight. My sister when she was eight always used to sing the line from Silent Night "round yon virnigen, mother and child" - we still remind here every year and she still hasn't lived it down as she used to sing at the top of her lungs!

Erin Jones

A few years ago I went carroling with a church group. We were singing "Hark, the Haroled Angels Sing." One line of either the second or third verse goes, "Hail the incarnate deity." When I first heard it, I thought they were saying guillatine instead of deity.
The same day, I found out out I'd been singing "What Child Is This" wrong for years. I always thought the chorus went, "Haste, haste to bring him love." I felt like a goofball when I realized that the correct word was laud instead of love. Really, that's not a word youhear every day.

keyboardplayer

We sang a hymn/religious song (I think it was more modern than a hymn judging by the informal lyrics) at school with the line "who made Earth and Mars?" This always annoyed me because the Bible says God made Earth, but has no mention of the other planets. I had also learnt from science books that the planets were formed naturally with no influence from God. So whenever we sang the hymn, I wouldn't say the words "and Mars", because I knew God had nothing to do with making it.

HB

Until I was about 3 or 4, I thought the line was, "Jesus loves me, *the sino*, for the bible..."

I kept wondering what a "sino" was.

XiuZan

I thought the hymn "Toiling On" had something to do with having a really difficult bowel movement.

Mark, Vermont

I used to sing 'I am the Lord of the done seatee' insted of 'I am the lord of the dance said he.'

Because we never had hym books or an overhead projector in infant school, so you had to sort of guess what others were singing!

Anon