A mondegreen is a word or phrase that results from mishearing or misinterpreting a statement or song lyric. The term was inspired by "Lady Mondegreen," a misinterpretation of the line "And laid him on the green" from the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl o' Moray." The ballad is hundreds of years old, but in a 1954 essay, the writer confessed to misunderstanding the line. The writer wrote that she misheard the final two lines of the above verse as "they have slain the Earl o' Moray, and Lady Mondegreen." She said that she always imagined the Earl dying beside his faithful lover "Lady Mondegreen", and refused to hear the real words, because they were less romantic than her misheard version. (The real words were: 'They have slain the Earl o' Moray And laid him on the green.'
The term "mondegreen" has since been adopted for any misheard song lyric which changes the meaning of the original (Wikipedia).
When I was in junior high school (and high school), friends and I would make up our own lyrics to songs that were popular at the time. One of the few I remember (and appropriate to put here) was Herman's Hermits' line from their song "She's a must to avoid..." We changed it to "She's a muscular boy...," perhaps foreshadowing some of today's societal issues as The Simpsons seem to do a lot..
Anyhow, tonight I learned something I never knew. One of my go-to groups from the 60s was the Beach Boys. I love their sound. The opening lyrics to 'Surfin' USA are:
"If everybody had an ocean
Across the U. S. A.
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like Californi-a
You'd see 'em wearing their baggies
Huarache sandals too
A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
Surfin' U. S. A."
All these years, I thought the lyrics were, "'You'd see 'em wearing their baggies and raunchy sandals too...," which made total sense as I knew what raunchy sandals were - I had never heard of Huarache.
Anyhow, I am off to read about Monte Green's distant relative - Mrs. Malaprop.
