Hilarious Misheard Lyrics You Still Are Singing

Hold me closer, Tony Danza

Elton John and the star of Who’s the Boss? must be really good friends for the famous singer to belt the classic “Hold me closer, Tony Danza!” Wait—the song has nothing to do with hugging Tony? It’s about a tiny dancer?

Oh.

Ohhhhh!

Perhaps, you, too, have had such an epiphany as a kid, realizing that what you thought or heard as the lyrics to a song were … not the lyrics whatsoever.

Misinterpreted song lyrics are a fairly common and usually hilarious phenomenon called mondegreens. A mondegreen is “a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of another word or phrase that we hear—with amusing results.”

WATCH: Can You Correct These Grammatically Incorrect Song Lyrics?

The Pledge of Allegiance

People of all ages are susceptible to mondegreens, but children, being perfect little conduits for all sorts of delightful curiosities, prove an especially entertaining source.

The US Pledge of Allegiance is a common casualty to misinterpretation by kiddos, who learn it but may not even know what it means! Struggling to make sense of the pledge, they come up with mondegreens like:I led the pigeons to the flag (I pledge allegiance to the flag) …and to the Republic for witches’ dance (for which it stands) …invisible (indivisible)and liver tea and just us four, all (liberty and justice for all).

Let’s take a look at some other classics. We’ll give you the mondegreen, and see if you know the actual lyric.

Mondegreen: “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” 

“Excuse me while I kiss the sky”

Mondegreen: “Down to the river, Onions!”   

“Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours!”

Mondegreen:“There’s a bathroom on the right”

“There’s a bad moon on the rise”   

Mondegreen: “I like big butts in a can of limes” 

“I like big butts and I cannot lie”   

Mondegreen: “See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen”

“… see that girl, watch that scene, / Digging the dancing queen”

Mondegreen: “Like a virgin, touched for the thirty-first time”

“Like a virgin / Touched for the very first time”

Mondegreen: “I’ve got shoes, they’re made of plywood”

“I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying”

Mondegreen: “Here we are now, in containers” 

“Here we are now, entertain us” 

Mondegreen: “A girl with colitis goes by”

“A girl with kaleidoscope eyes”     

Mondegreen: “That’s pee in the corner, that’s pee in the spotlight”

“That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight”

Mondegreen: “Wrapped up like a douche, another rubber in the night”

“Revved up like a deuce / Another runner in the night”

Mondegreen: “I’m a rhino, I’m a bottle, I’m a skittle, I’m a beetle”

(Hey, Nirvana can be difficult to understand.)