Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Mondegreens

A mondegreen is the part in a song where what you hear is not quite what the lyrics are supposed to say. The name comes from an old folk song, whose exact title and quote I don't recall (it's something about a group who killed Lord someone and Lady Mondegreen)

As an example, here is a picture of Jimi Hendrix performing Purple Haze singing "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" - listen to it again and you'll see what I mean.
(This used to be a popular feature in Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Maybe still is.)

You get them in hymns too. A particular favourite of mine is the one about what God does to the stabling arrangements for the Great Giraffe.
You know: "He is trampling on the village where the Great Giraffe is stored .."

Contributions invited.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My favourite hymn line is the one where we are exhorted to follow Julie, who is she?

Paul said...

And from a prayer we learn another name - "Harold be thy name".