Your Adhesive Will Turn Him On Or My Most Hilarious Misheard Song Lyrics

There’s a moment in the movie The Long Kiss Goodnight where Samuel L Jackson’s character is singing along to I’d Really Love to See You Tonight by England Dan and John Ford Coley. Jackson warbles ‘I’m not talking’ bout the linen’ and Geena Davis sneers because the actual words are ‘I’m not talkin’ ’bout movin’ in’. This was news to me. I had spent my life until that moment thinking it was, in fact, a song about laundry.

For years, I also thought Hot Chocolate sang ‘I believe in Milkos’ in You Sexy Thing. The correct lyric is ‘I believe in miracles’. I was never quite sure what Milkos were, but I imagined they were a type of biscuit. This begs the question—why did I think the band was singing about their faith in a type of cookie?

In my defence I’ve discovered that others found that line equally confusing. Friends have reported hearing ‘I believe in Michael’, ‘I believe in milk, oh’ and even ‘I’ve been eating marigolds’. Apparently they’re quite good with a couple of Milkos on the side.

It’s not easy to get others to admit to such errors. However, people are quite happy to call you up on your own lyric fails. I was singing along to Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy in the car when my husband informed me that nice guys don’t ‘get washed away like the snow in Lorraine’. The actual line is ‘the snow in the rain’.

Lorraine, it turns out, is quite the socialite—Creedence Clearwater Revival are looking for her (‘Have you ever seen Lorraine?’), Billie Myers wants to smooch her (Kiss the Rain misheard), and Johnny Nash is relieved she’s gone (‘I can see clearly now Lorraine is gone’). In the last song I always imagined Lorraine was standing in front of Johnny while he was trying to watch television. Get out of the damn way, Lorraine!

Or perhaps it wasn’t even Lorraine but a piece of masonry masquerading as her. When Bruce Springsteen put out the song Brilliant Disguise I thought the final line of the chorus was ‘Is that you baby or just a brick in disguise?’

I always felt sympathetic for Freda Payne who in Band of Gold has to ‘wait at night, in the darkness of my lonely room. It’s filled with sand and it’s filled with glue.’ In actual fact the room is ‘filled with sadness, filled with gloom’ which I suppose is marginally better than being stuffed with alluvium and epoxy.

However, glue is apparently an aphrodisiac. Why else would ABBA sing ‘your adhesive will turn him on’ in Dancing Queen? Or perhaps they’re actually singing ‘tease him and turn him on’.

Still, glue is far more appetising than some other substances. In Diary Bread sing ‘I found her diary underneath a tree’ but it sounds alarmingly like ‘I found her diarrhea beneath a tree’. Whose diarrhea? Lorraine’s probably.

Then there’s ‘curried ants, on the floor, in the ground’ in Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. In reality he’s saying ‘who will dance, on the floor, in the round’. In that same song Jackson sings the ‘kid is not my son’ but it could just as easily be ‘the chair is not my son’ or ‘the jelly’s not my son’.

There’s more gelatin in the Destiny’s Child song Bootylicious which contains the words ‘I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly’. I, however, was certain they were singing ‘I don’t think you’re ready for spaghetti’ which, frankly, also works. In Independent Women the Destiny’s trio sings ‘throw your hands up at me’ but I can only hear ‘throw your handsome puppy’.

While we’re on the subject of mistreating animals, who can forget that famous Queen song Another One Bites the Duck? Queen are responsible for possibly the most incomprehensible song of all time—Bohemian Rhapsody. In my fevered attempt to make sense of this song I present my misheard lyrics and the real thing:

‘Gotta moose, gotta moose, will they do a fun tango?’
(‘Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the fandango?)’

‘Hit me where the wind blows’
(‘Any way the wind blows’)

‘I’m just a pork boy, from a pork family’
(‘I’m just a poor boy, from a poor family’)

‘Spare him his life from this warm sausage tea’
(‘Spare him his life from this monstrosity’)

‘The elves above have a devil for a sideboard, me!’
(‘Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me’)

That last one is my personal all-time favourite misheard lyric. Can’t you just imagine Satan as a nice piece of occasional furniture? Just the sort of thing on which to serve some spaghetti if you’re finally ready for it or even a nice plate of Milkos.