For Sunday’s Open Write at Ethical ELA, host Katrina Morrison invited participants to craft poems about their mondegreens.
What, pray tell, is a mondegreen?
In short: mishearing and misinterpreting song lyrics or lines of poetry read aloud. Katrina gave several of her own examples from the Eagles’ song “Hotel California.”
Our pattern-seeking brains are forever trying to make sense of things… I’m sure each of you out there has some hilarious lyric “mishearings” (hint: these make for fun writing, fellow Slicers-of-Life).
While there have been many mondegreen moments in my life, one of my favorites comes from my son when he was little.
My poem tells the story…
Why Would the Lord Look at THOSE?
Music is his thing.
Even as a little kid
he counted the beats,
making untallied
tally marks on his whiteboard.
At five, he joined me
at choir practice,
singing the hymns and medleys
with greatest gusto
and remarkable
musicality for one
so young and solemn.
Around Eastertime
he looked perplexed.
He finally asked:
“What does it mean, Mom?
This part: He looked beyond my
fault and saw my knees?“
When I stopped laughing
enough to breathe, tears streaming,
I told him, “That’s NEED.”
“Skinned knees“. QT1p. CC BY 2.0.
One does have to admit little knees are precious…
*******
Composed for Day 19 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers
lit bits and pieces 
So great! I love the poem and the story and the knees/needs!
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Still laughing over the idea of the Lord looking beyond my fault to see my knees…
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Well maybe there’s a metaphor in those knees – mine were always scabbed and scared. I think Jesus would appreciate that, right?
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Yes! I love that there’s a word for the misheard. A mondegreen. I had confusion about the donzerly lights that Francis Scott Key was finding so inspirational. There’s no sense in that one, just the confusion. I also loved finding out that CCR was singing about a Bad Moon on the Rise, not A bathroom on the right. We were just talking this weekend about my mother having been so concerned about the young girls in all the stories she was reading. They seemed to forever be susceptible to being MI-zeld, which is how she was reading misled in her head.
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These are so funny!
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Hilarious mondegreens, Peter! Misled is such a weird word in print. Reader’s vocabulary is a whole ‘nother thing. I was embarrassingly old before I knew “respite” was pronounced ress-pit instead of ree-spite. Phonics rules don’t always work!
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Fran, I’m still laughing over this one. I’m convinced the good Lord brings humor through children as medicine for parents who need a good laugh in the midst of living. What a fabulous memory for right when it is needed most…….which is, for some reason, at least for me, when it isn’t exactly needed but shows up at the wrong time like in church in a serious moment and gets me going and I can’t stop laughing……..
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Kim, I must have laughed for ten minutes there in the choir loft, eyes and nose flowing, when he asked this question with such earnestness. Yes, the way children make us laugh is a healing balm for the soul, indeed!
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So fun, now I am trying to remember some of the ridiculous things my kids have said to me over the years. I had no idea there was a name for it. Thanks for the lesson and the lovely story.
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I don’t recall having heard the name before, Celia – and I know I have had many mondegreens of my own that I can’t recall at present!
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I love that there is a word, mondegreen, for mishearing lyrics and poetry, and maybe other things as well? I wish I could remember some of the mondegreens by children created when they were little.
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I hope those child-mondegreens return to you, Becky – I am trying to remember some of my own! They do make for fun writing.
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What a sweet memory. And as so often happens when I read your writing, I have learned a new word. One of my favorite mondegreens is from my husband, who thought the old pop song “Roller Coaster of Love” was “Get a Little Close Now, Uh-Huh.”
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Hilarious mondegreen! Thank you so much for your response.
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LOL! What a great story!!! I remember this girl my freshman year was singing Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” *very off key.* It was a comically small class, and we were all friends. Nobody had the heart to comment on her terrible singing, but it was obvious that we were all feeling awkward. When she sang “Like the little school mate in the school yard / We’ll play jacks and UNICORNS” instead of “We’ll play jacks and UNO cards,” we ALL lost our minds. I’ve never said the correct lyrics to the song since that day 😂
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Britt – that’s hysterical! I can see this whole scene and the girl singing the “unicorn” lyric at the top of her lungs…I would never be able to get it out of my head, either! Thank you for your response and this great laugh today 🙂
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