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Misheard Song Lyrics -> Stories -> The Smiths

Misheard lyrics (also called mondegreens) occur when people misunderstand the lyrics in a song. These are NOT intentional rephrasing of lyrics, which is called parody. For more information about the misheard lyrics available on this site, please read our FAQ.

This page contains a list of the songs that have stories about their misheard lyrics submitted.

Song names are sorted by first letter, excluding A and The. This is sorted by song title only, not by song title and performer. So if two different performers preformed the same song, you'll see misheard lyrics for both on the same page (provided the song title was spelt the same both times, and misheard lyrics have been submitted for both!).


Singles album at Amazon.com
The Smiths', "Ask"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Chinese is nice and Chinese can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to.
The Real Lyrics:
Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to.
The Story: I was singing it like this for decades then I looked up the lyrics lol. - Submitted by: Barbi
The Smiths', "Ask"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Ginus is nice, but ginus can stop you.
The Real Lyrics:
Shyness is nice, but shyness can stop you.
The Story: Ginus is a nickname for the female genitalia that a friend and I made up. When I first heard this song, I swore he was saying 'ginus' instead of 'shyness'. So therefore, I thought 'ginus' was a real word meaning something else. Come to find out, it was 'shyness,' not 'ginus.' - Submitted by: Lindsay
The Smiths', "Ask"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Shanice is nice, and Shanice can stop you.
The Real Lyrics:
Shyness is nice, and shyness can stop you.
The Story: How I mispronounced Shanice's name, and thinking the verse was talking about a person as well. - Submitted by: Shutterbug
The Smiths', "Ask"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Shanice is nice
The Real Lyrics:
Shyness is nice
The Story: When I first heard of the singer Shanice, I mispronounced her name, pronouncing it like "Janice", and I too thought the Smiths' lyric was talking about a person. - Submitted by: Shutterbug
The Smiths', "Big Mouth Strikes Again"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Sweetness, I was only joking
When I said I'd like to masturibate in your head.
The Real Lyrics:
Sweetness, I was only joking
When I said I'd like to smash every tooth in your head.
The Story: I was sitting there playing my Wii when this song played. My friend and I both heard this. Then we started talking about how that might actually be fun. [Ed.'s note: It's not fun for the recipient.] - Submitted by: Saith
The Smiths', "Bigmouth Strikes Again"
The Misheard Lyrics:
And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her roman nose
And her hairy neck started to melt
The Real Lyrics:
And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her roman nose
And her hearing aid started to melt
The Story: I've thought these were the lyrics for over 20 years until I recently looked them up online after hearing the song in a book store. - Submitted by: Ira Davis
The Smiths', "Girlfriend In A Coma"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Girlfriend on a comet
I know, I know, it's really serious.
The Real Lyrics:
Girlfriend in a coma
I know, I know, it's really serious.
The Story: This was the first Smiths song I had heard. I had this on a compilation tape a friend gave me when I was a kid that had no title. For the longest time, I thought this song was about a girlfriend on a comet. I was a little disappointed to find out that it was just a coma. - Submitted by: Jenny
The Smiths', "How Soon Is Now?"
The Misheard Lyrics:
I am human and I'm being vulgar
The Real Lyrics:
I am human and I need to belong
The Story: This makes no difference - it has to do with hearing it that way about someone being foul-mouthed - but it's easier to tell in the Love Spit Love version that was used as the theme song for the show Charmed. - Submitted by: Cody Finke
The Smiths', "How Soon Is Now?"
The Misheard Lyrics:
I am the sultan of
nothing in particular
The Real Lyrics:
I am the son and the heir,
of nothing in particular
The Story: Always thought Moss was lyrically deft enough to not repeat himself. - Submitted by: Jay Miller
The Smiths', "How Soon Is Now?"
The Misheard Lyrics:
I am the sun and the air
The Real Lyrics:
I am the son and the heir
The Story: Based on that I used to think that song was about Jesus, actually. - Submitted by: Gerd
The Smiths', "How Soon Is Now"
The Misheard Lyrics:
I am the sun, and the air
All things shining that are criminally vulgar
On the seventh day
of nothing in particular
The Real Lyrics:
I am the son, and the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
of nothing in particular
The Story: I love this song and often quote my version of the lyrics, thinking for years I was correct... I posted the verse in an online journaling community recently and was corrected by several people in the span of 10 minutes. :) - Submitted by: Rhiannon Stone
The Smiths', "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Had a Russian party,
typical me, typical me, typical me
The Real Lyrics:
Hair brushed and parted,
typical me, typical me, typical me
The Story: Around the time this song came out 'soviet chic' was all the rage in London. This is possibly why my friend and (then) flatmate misheard this lyric as she did, I had always heard it correctly, as it seems clearly ennuciated to me. We both had a really good laugh therefore when I walked into the living room to hear Julie merrily singing 'Had a Russian party...' I remember the scene to this day. - Submitted by: Marcus
The Smiths', "Panic"
The Misheard Lyrics:
And the DJ, and the DJ, and the DJ

or
Hind the DJ, hind the DJ, hind the DJ
The Real Lyrics:
Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ
The Story: I couldn't figure out just what Morrissey and the chorus of children were chanting at the end of The Smiths' classic 'Panic'. Luckily I finally figured out it was neither 'and the dj' or ''hind the dj' in time for high school graduation. I'm sure other kids across North America sang lame contemporary pop songs at their graduations. We sang 'Panic'. And this was in 1999. That's how cool we really were. - Submitted by: Jay Banerjee
The Smiths', "The Queen Is Dead"
The Misheard Lyrics:
But the rain never threatens my hair His hair threatens her reign
The Real Lyrics:
But the rain that flattens my hair These are the things that kill me
The Story: I don't think I've ever been as disappointed as in this case to discover that the actual lyrics of a song weren't what I thought they were. When I first heard this amazing song (still one of my favorites ever), I assumed the "queen" in the song was the queen of England (I now think this was only a cover for his real meaning, a reference to a gay male "queen"). But assuming at that time that he was singing about the British monarch, I loved what I thought was Morrissey's brilliant play on the words "rain" and "reign", in an allusion to the flamboyant style of rock stars being a threat to the established social/political order. The preceding lines, "We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry / And we can talk about precious things", seemed like a natural lead-in to what I misheard, as if he were saying, "Sure, we can walk somewhere dry and out of the rain, but walking in the rain wouldn't negatively impact me (you're the one who needs to worry, because of what I represent)". - Submitted by: Starchild
The Smiths', "The Queen Is Dead"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Life is very long, when you long live
The Real Lyrics:
Life is very long, when you're lonely
The Story: I really thought it goes like this. - Submitted by: Rado
The Smiths', "The Queen Is Dead"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Pastor, Pope, they'll sex your body
And the church who'll snatch your money
The Real Lyrics:
Past the pub that saps your body
And the church who'll snatch your money
The Story: I figured both lines were commenting on the evils of the church. What I thought I heard in the first line actually made sense to me, since the next line was actually about the church, too! lol - Submitted by: Tony
The Smiths', "This Charming Man"
The Misheard Lyrics:
Country bicycle on a hill side, desolate.
The Real Lyrics:
Punctured bicycle on a hill side, desolate.
The Story: I was chatting with a friend through Internet, and wrote the lyrics so she could sing with me. And she was like 'what song is that?'. I could not believe a huge fan of Smiths was asking me that, until I noticed the mistake. - Submitted by: Ana
The Smiths', "This Charming Man"
The Misheard Lyrics:
When the lather runs smooth on the pacifist's sea.
The Real Lyrics:
When the leather runs smooth on the passenger's seat.
The Story: I think this is better than the original line and is more Morrissean in spirit anyway. I believed this line was correct for 5 years, until my then Smiths-mad man pounced on me, (me who usually knows song lyrics inside out). So my long-lyric memory was put to shame with this rather poetic misheard lyric. - Submitted by: Ember Tailford
Indexes: [#] [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [Y] [Z]

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