How many times have you misheard the lyrics to a song?
I know that this happens to me at least once a day. I think that this brilliant line that I play over and over again is real until I want to post part of the lyrics on Facebook. Being lazy and hating dictation at times, I search for them online so I can copy and paste. When I find the song on some lyric site, that's when I find out the horrible truth: That one line, that one word, sometimes that one syllable that made the song amazing is NOT a part of the song!
After learning what's really there, I do hear it. But my mind always wants to go back to my original assumption. It's never the same though and you will always be fighting a battle between what you hear and what you want to hear (as with many aspects of our lives!).
We don't have to let those great lines go to waste though. Back in my undergrad years in one of my creative writing courses, I was told that when this happens to us, that we can use that line in our writing. Since it isn't a part of the song we were listening to, we have originally created that line. Now it is ours to use in our poems, prose, for titles, for anything!
I have two examples of this concept for us to marvel in:
Example #1:
Jon Secada - If I Never Knew You from Disney's Pocahontas
I thought our love would be so beautiful
Somehow we made the whole world cry,
I never knew that fear and hate could be so strong
All they leave are worthless whispers in the night
But still my heart is saying we were right.
I thought our love would be so beautiful
Somehow we make the whole world right
I never knew that fear and hate could be so strong
All they leave are worthless whispers in the night
But still my heart is saying we were right.
Here is something a little more contemporary for my pop music lovers.
Justin Timberlake - Strawberry Bubblegum
So tell me you wanna get close somewhere far away
Dont worry about your loving it won't go to waste
Dont ever change your faith cause I love the taste
And if you ask me where I wanna go, I say all the way
So tell me you wanna get close somewhere far away
Dont worry about your loving it won't go to waste
Dont ever change your flavor cause I love the taste
And if you ask me where I wanna go, I say all the way
These mishaps actually have a name. It is called Mondegreen, as define by its definition on Wikipedia:
The mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning.
Write Queeners, I want you to find your mondegreen and write a mondegreen poem! It can be any length. Here's a draft of one I wrote using (surprise, surprise) one of the examples of a mondegreen that I showed you earlier:
Knees bruised from
worshiping you
from thigh to waist.
Don't ever change
your faith
cause I love the taste.
Tilt back on
your palms while I pray
that my thirst will be
quenched
without delay.
Eh, I haven't written a poem in a while so excuse that draft! But you guys get the idea. Share your mondegreen poems with me in the comments section (or leave a link to where I can find it!).