Sunday, February 21, 2010

At last--a mondegreen quiz

It’s time to see if anybody is reading this blog.

From time to time I have posted my favorite mondegreens—song lyrics that I have misheard at some point in my life. The problem is that I keep forgetting one when it comes to mind. But I’ve solved that problem in a low-tech way—I started writing them down.

So now I’ve got enough mondegreens saved for a quiz. I list the wrong line and you come up with the right one and the song. I’ve ranked them in order from easiest to hardest. The first two have been anthologized quite a bit (no fair Googling them!), but I included them because I misheard them, too. You may respond through Facebook or to this blog entry, unless you are representing the widow of a government official in Nigeria.

There are no obscure songs here. All but number 12 received significant radio airplay at some point from the 1970s to the present. Number 12 was not a radio hit, but you were still likely to hear it if you grew up in the U.S. during the ‘70s. (Think television.)

So what do you win if you get all of these? The knowledge that your mind is as warped as mine.

Just don’t ask me what a tuck hole is.

1) We were cool on Christ
2) Requesting quiet, requesting quiet
3) Religion is a lie in the fall
4) My name is Dick Cheney
5) Wraps a dollar ‘round her
6) Red Army girl
7) I got my ass wiped
8) Livin’ in the swamp
9) Rivers, Connecticut
10) Barmy, barmy, barmy
11) Break your tuck hole! Break your tuck hole!
12) Hanging to the jury