MONDEGREENS

Mondegreens are misheard words and phrases.  These things fascinate me because its happened to me many times.  I suppose it has to most people not just people with seventy-year-old ears.

The word is pronounced mon-de-green.  It comes from a ballad about a Scottish lass named Lady Mondegreen whose name sounded, when sang, like she "laid him on the green."  (Not sure if he was a golfer.) Merriam Webster's example is mistaking "very close veins" for "varicose veins."  Get the picture?

I got into this the other day when I heard the great song "Blinded by the Light."  It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977.  The hit was made by Manfred Mann's Earth Band.  Believe it or not it was a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song of four years prior that went nowhere.

Springsteen wrote the refrain like this:  "Blinded by the light, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night."  Mann changed it to "Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce another runner in the night."  (deuce refers to a fast car)  Anyway, when Mann sings the words in his British accent (he also has a lisp) it sounds to most people like "wrapped up like a douche".  This caused Springsteen to remark that not until Mann rewrote the song to be about feminine hygiene products did it become a hit.  It was the only song written by Springsteen to make the Hot 100.

Here are the lyrics.  What could Bruce have been doing when he wrote this?

Madman drummers bummers
Indians in the summer
With a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps
As the adolescent pumps
His way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder
Feeling kinda older
I tripped a merry-go-round
With this very unpleasing
Sneezing and wheezing
The calliope crashed to the ground

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
She got down but she never got tight
She's gonna make it through the night

Some silicone sister
With her manager mister
Told me i've got what it takes
She said i'll turn you on sonny to
Something strong
Play the song with the funky break

And go-kart mozart
Was checking out the weather chart
To see if it was safe outside
And little early pearly
Came by in her curly wurly
And asked me if i needed a ride

Mama always told me not to look into
The eyes of the sun
But mama that's where the fun is

Some brimstone baritone
Anticyclone rolling stone
Preacher from the east
Says dethrone the dictaphone
Hit it in it's funnybone
That's where they expect it least
And some new mown chaperone
Was standing in the corner
Watching the young girls dance
And some fresh-sewn moonstone
Was messin' with his frozen zone
Reminding him of romance

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