The Great Lyric Massacre

Have you ever had a moment when you realize that a song you have sung for weeks, or even years, does not have the words you thought it did? You have been belting out your very own tune and not at all what the songwriter wrote?

The kids and I had a huge chuckle about this the other night. Our oldest daughter is involved in show choir and as the competition season progresses the entire family feels we could sing the songs from all the East High teams in our sleep. The other night our youngest, who is nine, was singing along with his sister when we discover he had a couple of the lyrics wrong.

One of the songs that New Sound sang was Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water". The opening line of this song is "We all came out to Montreux". My son was singing, "We all go out for Nachos". I am laughing just typing that. Perhaps it is one of those "you had to be there" moments. The Headliners sang a song called "Welcome to Wisconsin", in the song they are lamenting cold Wisconsin winters and one line is "gorgeous under all those clothes" and Cameron was quite certain the line was "gorgeous Cinderella's clothes". Which is a good lyric, but not the one that belongs in the song!

I love, love, love the Casting Crowns song "East to West" it is one of my favorites, the ringtone on my phone and one that is cranked up in the car and sung along with on the radio. However, when this song first came out, and for an embarrassing length of time after, I was singing one verse totally wrong. It made sense, but the way Mark Hall wrote it was much better. Still makes me laugh when I hear it. 

The bridge where Mark sings "I know you've washed me white". I thought it was "I know you've watched me whine". It is true. I am sure God gets tired of our whining and I was only one consonant off, but it is still funny.


Here is a nice YouTube video with lyrics of the song: East to West, Casting Crowns must not have an official version because I couldn't find one. You know what is humorous about this YouTube version? It has a lyric error, too!  Almost at the end the video creator has "your truths were revealed" when the actual lyric is "About the truth Your Word reveals".

Can you relate? Have you massacred a song lyric that makes you laugh now? I would love to hear your story!




In His Peace -