Mondegreen: The problem of misheard lyrics

I canât comment. My own breasts havenât been savage in years. Everything goes south with age I guess. What I do know is that music has the power to confuse. Time and again, a singerâs muttered delivery has caused me to create a strange alternative to the songwriterâs original lyrics. Itâs called a mondegreen. A mondegreen is itself a mondegreen. It was coined in 1954 by American writer Sylvia Wright who heard âand Lady Mondegreenâ, instead of the line â...and laid him on the greenâ from the Scottish ballad âThe Bonnie Earl Oâ Morayâ.
Many of my mondegreens started as a youngster and theyâre very hard to shake off. Life is straightforward when you are five. There are things you understand and things you donât. The things you donât understand donât bother you. Theyâre for grown-ups. If grown-ups want to sing silly songs that donât make sense, thatâs their look out. Take pop-star and soon-to-be judge on the The Voice UK, Boy George, for example (although be careful). In September 1983, Boy sang âKarma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleonâ. But as far as I was concerned, he sang âBecome come a come a come a come a comedianâ. Given that he has spent time in jail for drugs offences and imprisoning a male escort, Boy George would not be everyoneâs first choice as a career guidance counsellor, but he was oddly prescient about me.