I am notorious for messing up song lyrics.   I can’t help myself.  If I don’t know the words, I have this habit of making up my own.  I substitute what sounds right or makes sense to me.  I laugh at myself when I think of my flubs.   I’m okay with laughing at my expense.

I have been doing this for many years…all the way back to being 7 years old.  I have to save my oldest song lyric faux pas for my last one. 

Many times I didn’t exactly know I was singing songs wrong until my hunka hunka would be like, “What did you just sing?”  Then he would laugh.   I didn’t know it was wrong…it made sense…sorta.  I just thought the artist had weird lines.  That’s happens, ya know?  

I sing these songs with confidence because beforehand, I didn’t realize they were wrong.  I know everybody sings “Blinded by the Light” line wrong.  It sounds so much like “Wrapped up like a douche” even though it should be deuce.  

Glen Campbell sings a line in “Rhinestone Cowboy” as “Like a rhinestone cowboy…riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo.”   Well…I sang that second line as… “riding out on a horse in a redneck rodeo.”  I have no idea how I ever got redneck out of star-spangled, but I did.  It sounds NOTHING alike.  I still struggle singing that song correctly.  My hunka hunka just resorts it to me being from Kentucky.

John Mellencamp sings his little ditty about “Jack and Diane”.   He has a line that says, “Dribble off those Bobby Brooks.  Let me do what I please.”  I thought he said, “Dribble off those Bobby Brooks slacks and do what I please.”  COME ON…give me credit…for real…sing it that way and tell me it doesn’t make sense…it does!!  I’m telling you it makes perfect sense!  Bobby Brooks are britches…HELLO. 

Another one…because I have a lot, but trying to pick out the funniest ones my hunka hunka laughs the most at me…

Gordon Lightfoot’s song “Carefree Highway”   From the title of the song to each time it is said in the song.  I always thought he was saying “Every highway..not carefree highway.”  Again…this is another song that makes sense.  Every highway..let me slip away on you.  

My hunka hunka’s favorite song lyric flub is from Queen, “Fat-Bottom Girls”.  I remember it coming on the radio one time and I was excited to tell him, “Hey, Queen wrote this song about me.”   He looked at me puzzled.  See…I thought the song was called “Flat-Bottom Girls”.  He laughed and said, “That song is NOTHING about you!”  Dang…just when I thought there was a song just for me and my flat ass, my hunka hunka killed my dreams.  FYI…I didn’t find out this tidbit of info till my 30s.  

I have saved the best lyric mess-up for last because it takes the cake.  Seriously one of those I cannot think about without laughing.  Hey…I’m a girl so proud of my hometown, Henderson.  

My brother, Jim, is a music enthusiast.  I do owe my love for all genres of music to him.  He had every album back in the day.  He would listen for hours on end to everything from Elvis to those scary singers, KISS.  I was scared to death of them…remember I’m afraid of clowns.  They fit the bill of that for me.  He would hide those albums between his mattresses because my mom didn’t want that “devil music” in our house.  Haha!

Jim is nine years older than me.  In his teenage years, I loved to sit with him while he listened to his albums, which is where I discovered the love of Queen.    I would stand on his bed where he would sing to me song after song after song.  There was one album he listened to repeatedly that I enjoyed the most, REO Speedwagon, “Hi Infidelity”.  I can still remember all the songs and even picture the album cover.  However, one song is just the bestest of them all, “Keep on Loving You.”  

It wasn’t until I was an adult…like…many years into adulthood that I discovered I was singing one line completely wrong.    My whole childhood was completely ruined when I was corrected of the words to my most beloved song I cherished growing up.   I could not believe my ENTIRE childhood and into adulthood that REO Speedwagon wrote a song about Henderson.   How did they even know our town existed?  But they did…they wrote about us in their song.

REO sings…”Instead you lay still in the grass, all coiled up and hissin'”

My version was (until my world was crushed), “Instead you lay still in the grass, all coiled up in Hinnasin'”  For real, I thought they were singing about Henderson.  And then reality devastated me.  

It’s a running joke now about being coiled up in Hinnasin.  Hey…I’m proud of where I came from.   Haters gonna hate wishing their own town was mentioned in the song.  🙂 
Next time you hear any of the songs above, especially “Keep on Loving You,” I hope you smile and think of me.

Peace out, trout!