Kids have entertaining misunderstandings of song titles and lyrics. Recently, mine have both been asking for “Bowmp Bowmp” on repeat. What they mean is “Second Hand News” by Fleetwood Mac. Go listen to the song if you don’t know it—they have a legitimate basis for their nickname on this one.
The song is one of my own favorites—so catchy, so fun to harmonize!—so I don’t mind pressing the back button as the music starts fading and Luke shouts out from his car seat, “Again! Bowmp Bowmp! Loud!”
Other songs Miryam has butchered span several genres.
“Mom, can you go back to that song where you feed it?”
(Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”)
“Daddy, I want I won’t let the moon.”
(Hank Williams’s “Howlin’ at the Moon”)
Sometimes they don’t know what to call it: “Mommy, I want that first song we heard before this one.”
(Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me”—my secret jam)
I can’t help but wonder what she thinks these songs are about. She can sing along with the choruses, but I hope most of the content is over her head. Sometimes it’s still over my head, even as I sing along.
When I was a kid, my sister and I sang along with a country song called “Single White Female” by Chely Wright (whom, until two minutes ago when I looked up what year the song came out, I honestly thought was named Shelly Ride. Oops!), having no idea what it’s actually about. There’s a line, “to put it in a nutshell,” which I assumed was referring to her putting a note into a walnut shell to be delivered like a fortune cookie to its recipient. By now I know that’s an idiomatic expression not meant to elicit images of walnuts, but 8-year-old me didn’t know that.
Much less a 2- and 3-year old, right?
Tell me a funny song lyric mishap you’ve heard, or a song you misunderstood as a kid, in the comments below.
My uncle apparently used to blast Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker” in his car growing up, and my Grandma thought the lyrics were “Hard bagel, dream bagel…” 😂
That is HILARIOUS!!!
I was waiting for you to talk about when you thought “lying in a hammock over fresh cut grass” was “lying in a half a cup of fresh cut grass” 🤣🤣🤣 (Love Remembers by Craig Morgan)
Oh snap I’d forgotten about that, probably on purpose. Embarrassing!
Another Craig Morgan one: “cut that coupon out” I thought he said “cut that cue ball out” as in “yo let’s play pool” (from That’s what I love about Sunday) 😂