songs

When I was younger I would listen to the radio a lot. One station often broadcasted live from different clubs where they were playing remixes of songs. I always thought that singers had to go perform live at these clubs and sing the songs differently to the different beats. When I got a little older I told my Dad what i used to think, and told him I now knew what they did... I now knew they just hired other singers to sounds like the famous people to sing those songs live. I was thirteen or fourteen before i realized the truth!

Bri

When I was wee, in the 60s, my parents took the family to sing-alongs many times. One favorite was Darlin' Clementine. I thought it was a sad song--I didn't get sarcasm at the time. But the worst was I thought the line in the chorus "Dreadful sorry" meant someone named Dredful was sorry for doing something wrong. Since She was "lost and gone forever" I thought the horrible thing he did was lose her (a little baby, I supposed). Maybe there are versions that are truly serious but the lines about kissing and hugging are pretty sarcastic. Maybe those lines aren't original, but thy're the ones I've always heard: In my dreams she still doth haunt me, Robed in garments soaked in brine. Though in life I used to hug her, Now she's dead, I'll draw the line. Repeat chorus How I missed her, how I missed her How I missed my Clementine. So I kissed her little sister, And forgot my Clementine.

joel

when i was two i believed that when my mom put a tape into the tape player it would send a signal to the singer and wherever they were they would have to suddenly start singing the song in exactly the same way

maya

When I was 6 or 7 back in the early 80s, one of my very favourite songs (still is to this day!) was "One Night in Bangkok" by Murray Head. Oddly enough I knew all the words and took pains to pronounce them correctly (everything from "Tirolean spa" to "cerebral fitness")...even though I had no idea what two-thirds of them meant. I had no clue that the song was about chess, but that Bangkok must be an awful place & having to spend a night there would suck because he was always being kicked "above the waistline"...was it some sort of punishment? And if he did something worse, would they kick him BELOW the waistline? Ultimately, I concluded the song was about the horrifying night he spent in Bangkok and I told myself that I was never, ever going there for fear of having the snot kicked out of me.

Tornado

when i was little. i used to think tiny people were inside the radio singing, i couldn't understand how songs were played

jmac

I used to believe that when you listened to the radio, the musicians were all at the radio station playing live every song and I wondered how they got all the equipment in and out so fast.

Jessica

When I was a child I honestly used to think when we were driving in the car and we had the radio on and we returned to the car after an hour or so, the same song would be playing?!?!

Jena

When I was a kid and we'd sing:

"My country t'is of the
sweet land of libery
of thee I sing"

I thought we were singing,

"My country Tisabee,
sweet land of liver-ty,
of the IC."

I had no clue where Tisabee was, where they ate liver and belonged to a club called the I.C.

Anon

I used to believe that you can sing whatever you wanna say that doesn't mean anything in a song. When I knew you can't,I was like shocked to know how they memorized songs so fast..

Frugen

When I was little my family had a record player and I just did not understand how music came from it, so I thought there were many versions of singers like Elton John, Oliva Newton John and other people in the record singing for the big ones in real life.

Al Strickland

I used to think that Steve Miller Band song "Joker" went "I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight talker" - like he stayed up talking through the night like adults do. I didn't learn until college that it was "toker" and not "talker." My husband thinks it's totally hilarious and still makes fun of me.

Erin

I was never priviledge to know the real version of Twinkle Twinkle little star until recent. What 27 years later. The version that I know is, "Twinkle, Twinkle, little start who the hell you think you are, Up above you think you're it, won't you sit in a pile of shit... Twinkle, Twinkle little star how i wonder where you are....

Denise R.

When I was little, I loved Amy Grant. She had a song that said "he had the biggest King James you've ever seen." All along, I thought that meant he had the biggest penis you'd ever seen. I had no idea it was referring to the King James version of the Bible.

Christian music misunderstanding

The first time I heard the word "pedestal" was in Anne Murray's song, "You Needed Me", in which she sings "You put me high upon a pedestal". For a long time I thought a pedestal was some kind of drug, and the line meant that somebody slipped her one and got her "high" on it.

Lauren

When I heard the phrase "melting in my arms" in a song, I thought it was literal. I remember thinking it was such a sad song.

Anon

I always thought when I was little that in the song Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when kids add the other lyrics, i.e. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer reindder had a very shiny nose like a lightbulb, I thought I was the one who thought up Like George Washington at the end.

cool cat

I was about 10 when I heard the song "Squeezebox" by The Who. I asked my older brother what the lyrics meant, "Momma's got a squeeze box she wears on her chest and when Daddy come home he never get no rest, 'cause she's playing all night, and the music's all right - Mama's got a squeeze box, Daddy never sleeps at night," etc. He told me it was about an accordion. I believed him until I was in college.

Joy

My mom used to like to sing along to the song "Honky-Tonk Women," but she didn't want to sing songs with anything vaguely resembling sexual overtones around her small children, so she changed the lyrics to say "Those Honky-Tonk Babies, Give me the honky-tonk blues." I wondered what a honky-tonk was, why there were so many babies there, and why they gave the singer the blues for the longest time before I heard the song without my mother singing along with the radio.

Anon