What Are They Saying?

I’ve always found misinterpreted song lyrics to be quite amusing. A person can hear a song countless times and get the lyrics wrong. It’s even more humorous when they sing along. That is until one day they stumble across the actual lyrics. Yet, before that happens, one could swear that was what they were saying.

I, myself, have interpreted several song lyrics. Some of these misinterpretations make no sense whatsoever leaving me thinking, how could I have thought they were saying that!

“Before He Cheats” — Carrie Underwood

I remember when this song came out. It is a country / pop song about someone seeking revenge on someone that was unfaithful and cheated. As many times as I’ve heard this song play on the radio, I still got the lyrics wrong! For the longest time I thought they were saying:

“…Carved my name into his legacy.”

It took me a little while to learn that I had been hearing part of the chorus wrong this whole time. It is really:

“…Carved my name into his leather seats.”

Which makes much more sense as it is about someone destroying the cheater’s car as their way to seek revenge. How could you even carve a name into a legacy? I think it made sense to me at the time because I interpreted it as that person doing everything they could to ruin the cheater’s reputation.

“I Like the Way the Way You Move” — OutKast

This is actually a song lyric that I misinterpreted as a kid. I remember when this song first came out and would play fairly frequently on the radio. Maybe not, but I think we are more prone to getting song lyrics wrong as kids. Not sure how I got the lyrics wrong when the lyrics are in the title! Oh well!

“I like the way you move.”

As dumb or humorous as this sounds, as a kid, I thought they were saying:

“Out of the way, fool!”

That is until my mom laughed and told me what they were really saying. Hey, I thought it was about some guy that was just in a hurry to be somewhere!

“Old Town Road” — Lil Nas X (Feat. Billy Ray Cyrus)

This is yet another song that played very frequently on the radio during the year of its release and was another of which the lyrics are included in the title, but alas! I still got the lyrics wrong.

Of course, they’re saying:

… “I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road.”

I thought they were saying:

“I’m gonna take my horse to the hotel room.”

Which doesn’t make any sense. But then again, there are plenty of actual song lyrics out there that don’t make any sense. I think this is why I really didn’t pay much thought to my initial interpretations of many of these song lyrics.

“Kodachrome” — Paul Simon

For the life of me, I could not figure out what in the world they were saying in this song. I’ve heard this song play on the radio just a handful of times and every opportunity, I would listen carefully to the main chorus.

The chorus moves rather fast or at least fast for someone that is trying to analyze the lyrics. Mama’s gonna take my what away? Row home? Someone’s home? Gah!

One day when hearing the song yet again and still not understanding what they were saying, I pulled up a music app on my phone which I’ve found very useful, Sound Hound. It is a music app that recognizes songs. Just open the app, follow the prompts, and hold your phone towards the music preferably in a place with little to no background noise.

That’s what I did. Ohhh! Kodachrome!

Wait. What’s a Kodachrome? I think a huge factor as to why I misinterpreted the lyrics was because I admittedly didn’t realize such a word existed.

Sounds like some brand of camera.

I looked Kodachrome up and I’m close. A Kodachrome is a brand name of Eastman Kodak color reversal film that first came out in 1935. Huh. Looks like I learned something new.

Any song lyrics out there that you’ve misinterpreted? Hopefully it wasn’t the same ones I’ve been misinterpreting!