I have a tendency not to sing the right words to certain songs. Here are few that I have twisted over the years...
Deck the Halls
"Deck the Halls with Melancholy," fa la la la, la la la...
Sleigh Ride
Just hear those sleigh bells ringalinging...
Somewhere later:
.... "when you see an alligator eating ... pumpkin pie."
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rudolph, the dead-eye cowboy, had a very shiny gun,
and if you ever saw it, then I guess you'd better run.
These are parody, that is, changing the words to the songs to suit yourself even though you know the proper phrasing.
When you sing the wrong thing because you're hearing it incorrectly, it's called a mondegreen. You might want to check out that link because it's rather interesting. There are some great examples.
Snopes has a listing of mondegreens of Christmas carols which you can access here. Fun!
What Christmas carols do you mangle? Come on, 'fess up.
I love this one from the Wikipedia link: "The girl with colitis goes by," from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
ReplyDeleteThe Christmas song that got me as a child was Jingle bells: "Bells on Bob's tail ring." I always thought the horse's name was Bob.