Misheard lyrics: Take your cap, or your cat? Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like ... a what?
Posted: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 10:50 AM by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
Filed Under:
Music
The misheard lyrics comments have been hilarious. Two songs especially have started debates -- Keith Urban's "You'll Think of Me" and Toto's "Africa." In Urban's song, he does indeed sing, "Take your CAT and leave my sweater," but a reader comment saying that he hears "take your CAP" has started a bunch of readers buzzing, thinking they've been hearing it wrong all this time. Now I'm no Keith Urban expert, but the "CAT' version is indeed given on his Web site as the correct lyrics for the song. Meow!
RISES LIKE A ... WHAT?
The Toto song is even more fun. I confessed that, in Toto's "Africa," I always heard a certain lyric wrong. The actual line, according to Toto's own Web site, is "Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti." I always heard it as "Sure as Kilimanjaro rises up like Memphis above the Serengeti" (or even the nonsensical, "rises like a membrus," whatever a "membrus" is...it sounds kinda sexual to me).
Happily, I was not the only confused listener. From your comments:
• "Whoa, all this time I thought it was 'rises like an empress....' Hmmm." --Kristen
• "Oh my God. Kilimanjaro rises 'like Olympus'? I always thought it rose 'like a leopard!' What a disappointment." --Lori
• "I always thought it was 'like a leopress'... isn't that a female leopard, and doesn't that make more sense?" --Rick
• And from a different part of the song, Sue confesses "Growing up my sister and I always sang Toto's "Africa" as 'I left my brains down in Africa,' rather than 'I bless the rains down in Africa.' "
PAY THE RENT, COLETTE
Another song that came up often: Prince's "Little Red Corvette." Now for this one, I thought the title alone would give it away, but here are some of the versions you heard:
• "My sister used to sing 'Pay the rent, Colette' instead of 'Little Red Corvette' whenever the Prince song came on the radio. She's grown now, with daughters of her own, and they think that is the funniest thing in the world!" --Jen
• "My brother swore it was 'pay the rent collect' which even he admitted didn't make sense." --Rob
• My mom, when she was young, used to think 'Little Red Corvette" was 'pay the rent or else.' " --Des
• When I was a kid, I always thought Prince's 'Little Red Corvette' was 'Live in Corvette.' " --Julie
• "When Prince would sing 'Little Red Corvette,' I always thought it was 'Livin' in Quebec.' I think I was around 19 when I realized I was wrong." --Tiffany
REVEREND BLUE JEANS?
It's funny when we can't even get the song's title correct. Neil Diamond has a famous song that half the country sings one way, half the other.
It's actually called "Forever in Blue Jeans," but that hasn't stopped several million of us from hearing it as "Reverend Blue Jeans." Keith is just one reader who admits to being confused, saying "I'm surprised no one mentioned 'Reverend Blue Jeans' -- I'm still not sure what that one really is."
According to AmIRight.com, there's another misheard version of this: At least one person reports hearing it as "a farmer in blue jeans."
One thing we can all agree on: Blue jeans are somehow involved.
Keep sharing your misheard lyrics in the comments.
