The American writer Sylvia Wright, writing about how she misheard the words “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen” when her mother read her the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray as a child, created the neologism “mondegreen.” In a 1954 essay in Harper’s Magazine entitled “The Death of Lady Mondegreen,” she wrote:
The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.
Mondegreens are most often encountered in song lyrics, with perhaps the most famous being from the Jimi Hendrix classic “Purple Haze.” Instead of hearing, “Excuse me while I kiss the sky,” many people, including yours truly, hear Jimi out himself as gay by singing, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.” And of course there’s The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds;” I always thought the girl with the pretty eyes (“The girl with kaleidoscope eyes”) had a serious gastrointestinal issue: “The girl with colitis goes by.” Last year, The Hollywood Reporter compiled a list of “The Most Commonly Misheard Lyrics in Popular Songs;” check it out – it’s a lot of fun.
But mondegreens aren’t limited to pop or rock song lyrics. Religious songs and hymns, often learned by ear as children, are susceptible, the most famous example being the hymn “Keep Thou My Way” where the line, “Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I’d bear” is just begging to be sung, “gladly the cross-eyed bear.” And it’s not limited to hymns! As a young Catholic boy learning to pray the rosary, I was certain the line in the Our Father, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” was, “R. father, with Art in heaven, halloween thy name,” and that “Blessed art thou amongst women,” from the Hail Mary was, “Blessed art thou a monk swimmin’.”
And of course we’ve all heard about the Mexican immigrant to the United States whose neighbor takes him to see a baseball game where he is overcome by how nice everyone is; what to us looks and sounds like the traditional singing of our national anthem before the game begins – “Oh say can you see…” – José, the immigrant, experiences as the whole stadium being concerned about him and whether he got good seats – “José can you see?”