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Original poster

I've just learned if it hadn't been for Cotton Eye Joe..

407 replies

StanleyTheCrane · 19/05/2022 19:58

He'd have been married a long time ago and not buried a long time ago. I thought that CEJ had saved his life, not stolen all of the women.

Also that he came to town like a Mid-Winter storm, not like a movie star.

Has anyone else had any lyric related revelations lately?

OP posts:
TinselTinsel · 20/05/2022 22:04

feellikeanalien · 20/05/2022 19:14

Another one who heard Tromboleese. I also thought deserts miss the rain by Anything but the Girl was desert's mystery. I only found out because I was singing very enthusiastically and DP was laughing at me.

Lord of the Dance - I am the lord of the dancing tea. Never could work out what that meant!!😂

Okayyyy, I thought deserts mystery until you posted and i had to youtube the video with lyrics just to check😂

Troublewithtribbles · 20/05/2022 22:10

LadyFlumpalot · 19/05/2022 20:18

I've said this one before but I spent a good amount of years idly wondering what a "Tromboleese" was in the lyric "my love has got no money, he's got his tromboleese". Turns out it's "strong beliefs" I'm slightly disappointed tbh.

Yes - me too! My DD simply despairs at my lyrical understanding ineptitude!

Mollymoostoo · 20/05/2022 22:11

Always wondered if my breasts were small and humble so people didn't confuse them with mountains....

jaynecooper · 20/05/2022 22:12

I LOVE these! 😂🤣😂🤣🤣

GailTheSnail · 20/05/2022 22:15

GraceandMolly · 19/05/2022 23:06

Black eyes peas - Hey ya!

“Shake it like a Hollywood picture, hey ya!”

“Shake it like a Polaroid picture, hey ya!”

My husband had a good belly laugh when he heard me and I’d been singing like that for good 10 years

It's not black eyed peas . It's outkast. And now my ear worm for the night which I'm not sad about

Inklingpot · 20/05/2022 22:23

I was listening to Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark the other day on the radio and a line which I’d never heard properly before just jumped out at me, suddenly crystal clear.

You can't start a fire
You can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancin' in the dark

It was so weird. I obviously have heard the song numerous times but never knew what that line was.

ViciousChicken · 20/05/2022 22:44

ChazzaGirl · 19/05/2022 22:15

😆
I always thought the “Wombles of Wimbledon common are we” meant that the wombles were common, as in, aren’t we common! Was many years before I realised what the song meant!

I also thought Elvis was singing about an emotion cup, but apparently he was all shook up!

Show quote history

@ChazzaGirl i thought I was the only one who heard this. There’s a pause between Wimbledon and Common so I assumed there was a comma there as in ‘Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we’. I thought maybe they called themselves common because there were lots of them, or just that they weren’t posh!

LoopyLube · 20/05/2022 22:47

Do you come from a land down under?
Where women fail and women chunder
Can you hear, can you hear them chunder?
You'd better run, you'd better take cover

LoopyLube · 20/05/2022 22:49

Harls1969 · 20/05/2022 20:14

I thought that Driving Home For Christmas was a bit racy but then I really that soon there'll be a freeway...not a three way😂

I can't wait to see their faces...

LittleRedYoshi · 20/05/2022 22:53

Not even a song, but for many years I was under the impression there was a meal called Flaming Young. Didn't know what it was, but often heard it mentioned on TV - e.g. on Friends, when Monica is cooking on Rachel's behalf - "I thought I was making him Flaming Young?"

Filet mignon... 😂

JonSnowIsALoser · 20/05/2022 23:05

I was sure in "Cracked Actor" David Bowie was entreating the girl, "Crack baby crack, show me your rear!"

It's actually "show me you're real".

How disappointing.

wildasthewind · 20/05/2022 23:22

The one what shall we do with a drunken sailor . I" use to sing he ho and up she rides him " instead of he ho and u she rises, hobby even told his work mates about my new lyrics

Pinkbuttons08 · 20/05/2022 23:29

LadyFlumpalot · Yesterday 20:18

I've said this one before but I spent a good amount of years idly wondering what a "Tromboleese" was in the lyric "my love has got no money, he's got his tromboleese". Turns out it's "strong beliefs" I'm slightly disappointed tbh.

Me too!!!!

Kona84 · 20/05/2022 23:35

NotExactlyHappyToHelp · 19/05/2022 20:24

I only learned recently that Cotton Eye Joe is about STDs Shock.

I used to hear The Kooks song as ‘I know she knows I’m not from Nebraska’ instead of ‘I know she knows I’m not fond of asking’ which makes a whole lot more sense.

HHaha I sing this ‘ I know she knows that I’m not fond of pasta’

SiobhanSharpe · 20/05/2022 23:44

Apparently Bob Marley didn't sing 'Youth and Culture people' in Exodus.
It's 'movement of jah people. '
Very disappointing.
and an oldie but goodie, the Lovin' Spoonful in 'Groovin' didn't actually sing
'That would be ecstasy, you and me, LSD'
Sadly it was only 'you and me, endlessly'. It was the sixties.

Imy06 · 20/05/2022 23:50

Thanks to a car advert I recently discovered that Donna Summer sang 'I Feel Love' not 'Puppy Love'

LizzyA123 · 21/05/2022 00:43

Yep “ Lord of the dance settee” followed immediately by “ and I’ll eat you all wherever you may be for I am the Lord of the dance settee.”😂

Poopootatty · 21/05/2022 02:20

This has just reminded of Pray by Take That. There’s a high pitched bit where it sounds like Gary Barlow is saying ‘oh mummmmmyyyyyy’ but it’s actually ‘harmony’. Took me a while to figure that out as a kid!

I thought the Wombles were common too!

Lunar2020 · 21/05/2022 04:01

I totally had this one down as “source of passion too”, though 90s teenage me always heard it as “it’s a source of padkyun” which I thought was some kind of hippie enlightening substance that people that went raving got to experience. In light of that I was far too afraid to ask anything about said “padkyun” as I wasn’t old enough at the time to go to raves and was pretty certain my parents would get suspicious of was I was into. What can I say it was the age of the E, I was too young and sheltered to no anything about mysterious ravey things (other than the music) and we had no internet back then to find about out these things, and sooooooo my teenage mind was convinced of the existence of the magic substance of ‘padkyun’ as there was a song about it, and people that went to raves got it from there 😂

Lunar2020 · 21/05/2022 04:06

A feelin you don’t like it, Rock the casbah, rockin the casbah

Lunar2020 · 21/05/2022 04:16

Ow on the whyly wind it moans, sweet rolls you’ll fall in greed, you had a temple like my jealously too hard too greedy.

Taramorol in the night, told me I was going to lose the diet, leave me high in the Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliffe, it’s me macafee now come homah
so cold as selena your window

As far as me and my 10 year old cousin were concerned that’s how it went and we made goodness how many tapes of ourselves singing it. Our poor Nan had to put up with our concerts of us singing this in the front room!!! Until we discovered Blondie’s Heart of Glass which gave us free reign to use the word ‘ass’ in every line and make up dances flinging around bits of greying tea towel.

Lunar2020 · 21/05/2022 04:19

My little brother was convinced Madonna wasn’t actually a Vergy but she was like one. No one ever dared ask him what he thought a Vergy was

Lunar2020 · 21/05/2022 04:21

Oooops up side your head I said ooops up side your head, everybody say ooopsallon

Lunar2020 · 21/05/2022 04:25

A ba bah bo bo bow ba ba bow bow you taste like cherry aid

Lunar2020 · 21/05/2022 04:27

I thought this too 🤣

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