A mondegreen is simply the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, writing that as a girl she had misheard the lyric “laid him on the green”
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in the Scottish ballad “The Bonny Earl of Murray” as “Lady Mondegreen”. Most of my mondegreens are from song lyrics with my favorite being Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising that I still hear “There’s a bathroom on the right” with the correct line being “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise”.
A misheard lyric in the Sam Cooke song “Twistin’ The Night Away” released January 9, 1962.
“He’s dancin’ with the chicken slacks”
the actual lyric is:
“He’s dancin’ with the chick in slacks”
Back in the early 60s it was unusual to find a woman wearing pants at a social event – usually women wore skirts or dresses.
I believe that a lot of lyric misinterpretations come from mumbling singers, hard to hear sections of a song and accents of the lyricist. In the good ole days, you couldn’t just look up the correct lyrics in Google or even know a song title unless you happened to catch the DJ introducing the song.
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