Metallica classic tops list of misheard song lyrics
It appears that people have finally figured out that Jimi Hendrix did not sing “’scuse me while I kiss this guy” on “Purple Haze” (the correct lyrics, in case you are late to the party, are “’scuse me while I kiss the sky”). Metallica’s classic “Enter Sandman” has seized the mantle of the song with the most commonly misheard lyrics, according to a new survey by WordFinder.
Of the 1,016 music fans who offered feedback, about 70% of the respondents were convinced that James Hetfield growled “Eggs and light end all nights” in the chorus of the 1991 single, not the
actual line “Exit light, enter night.”
Thinking the Metallica frontman was singing about his late-night dining habits is nothing new. Americans have misheard song lyrics for decades, according to the report. The phenomenon even has a name, called “mondegreen,” which writer Sylvia Wright coined in 1954 to describe “a word or phrase that results from a mishearing, especially of something recited or sung.”
Drake’s “The Motto” and Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” are also among the most misheard songs on the list, joining classic tracks by the Beatles (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”), Queen (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) and Madonna (“La Isla Bonita”).
It also turns out Rihanna’s “We Found Love” does not include the line “We found love, and I bought this place,” but rather correctly, “We found love in a hopeless place.” Those surveyed also believed the chorus of Kings of Leon’s self-explanatory “Sex on Fire” goes, “His exes are fired.” And more than half of the listeners think that on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Kurt Cobain sang, “With the lights out, it’s Las Vegas / Hear me all now, entertainers,” instead of, “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous / Here we are now, entertain us.”
Metallica may have topped the list after its song “Master of Puppets” was used in the season four finale of the Netflix show “Stranger Things,” bringing the band’s classic tracks to the attention of Millennials and Gen Z-ers.
But a majority of the respondents said they are not too eager to bust out liner notes for their favorite albums, indicating they prefer their versions of the songs.
“As individuals, we all relate to art in unique ways which the creator may or may not have intended,” WordFinder stated. “Maybe that’s why, even after discovering the correct lyrics to a song, 69% of fans preferred their misheard lyrics to the original words.”