Lady Mondegreen

It's probably just me. Maybe it's because I spend too much time these shuttling between Aspen Hill and Herndon. Okay, it's not that, because I've always heard it this way. Even when I had never heard of a certain theater company.

Most mondegreens, I can shake once I learn the real lyric. Like in REM's "End of the World as We Know It," I now hear Time I had some time alone, not, oh, Time I had some Tylenol. And in Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers," it's definitely Jeux sans frontieres, not She's so funky now. (In the interests of full disclosure, these are not my actual mondegreens, but the real lyrics have imprinted on me to the degree that I can no longer remember my actual mondegreens.)

The exception is REM's "Man on the Moon." Just to review, the real lyric is: Hey, Andy, are you goofing on Elvis? Hey baby, are we losing touch? But, even now,years after learning the real lyric, when that song comes on the radio, my brain will only supply me with Hey Andy, are you goofing on Elden Street....

I've decided to accept it and sing it that way. REM will never hear me, so they don't care. And the folks at the Elden Street Players will probably never hear me and they already think I'm weird, so it's not like it going to hurt my reputation with them or anything.