I thought I knew that lyric!

Did you ever have a similar thing happen?...

With ages as a prog fan, I've known Peter Gabriel's 3rd album (the melting-face one) since it came out.  However I had a cassette of this particular record, followed by mp3 downloads in the 'modern era'. 

Just last week I found a nice vinyl copy and picked it up.  The sleeve has the words; I never had the lyrics before.  And I saw something that cracked me up.

In Games Without Frontiers, I always assumed that the refrain went "She's so funky yeah".  I know, nonsensical of course, but not out of the realm of possibility.  Plus it sounds good.

As it turns out it's "Jeux sans frontières"!  That's just French for "games without frontiers".

There are a few threads about Misheard Lyrics in the Just for Fun section - some of them are absolutely hilarious. One that has become legendary here in our home is a line at the beginning of Opeth's "The Baying of the Hounds", which goes, "Festering jackals of the earth" - but, according to one of our members, sounded like "Pass me the tacos of the earth". Needless to say, every time we eat tacos, we think of that line.

For years I thought one of the lines in the Stones song Sympathy For the Devil was :

I lay traps for troubadours who get killed before they reach my own bait

According to the sheet music it's

I lay traps for troubadours who get killed before they reach Bombay

Thing is, I think my version's better

Jim Garten wrote: American Khatru wrote: As it turns out it's "Jeux sans frontières"!  That's just French for "games without frontiers". Hence the line 'it's a knockout' - in the 1970s/1980s there was a TV show in the UK called 'It's A Knockout' where teams from various towns would compete in ludicrous games - it became so popular the format extended to include other European countries too - the name of the show? Jeux Sans Frontieres And this is how ridiculous it all was

Great information, THANK YOU.

I enjoyed that video (only had time for a minute, but will watch all later).  Holy smokes is that ridiculous.  "The Belgian dummy tried to put the GB dummy through the hole..."

American Khatru wrote: Come on.  Confess.  I can't be the only one who thought it was "she's so funky yeah" (see original post).  Can I?

From Porcupine Tree's Stranger By The Minute

I thought it was:

Ghost in the park
Appear just after dark
Careless children,
No-one has a heart

But its actually:

Ghosts in the park
Appear just after dark
Killers, children
But no-one has a harp

I got flamed for posting incorrect Residents lyrics but i couldnt work it out

Edited by AtomicCrimsonRush - March 30 2010 at 08:03

Had that many times, often with the effect that it spoiled my "consept" to actualy check the right lyrics.

I have a nice story to tell you: In Italy, in the late 70s somebody published a book of Pink Floyd songs. Unfortunately they didn't have Internet and the author tried to guess the lyrics just listening to the albums. It generated some nice stories. In Summer '68 "Ringing by phone" became "Rita Pavone" a pop singer's name of the 60s (retired few years ago at the age of 70). She was proud to have been mentioned by Roger Waters in a song. It became a legend, mainly because nobody was able to find a reason why Waters may be aware of the existence of a 150cm tall, red haired italian girl specialiased in "Shakes" and children's songs. On the same book there were other nice interpretations on Astronomy domine, Grantchester Meadows and Echoes, but I don't remember exactly which ones.

Another

My wife thought the lyrics for Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady" was Do the Funky Lady.