Jump to content

Misplaced ear worms


trog

Recommended Posts

In response to :

"Who's got a head like a pingpong ball?" (Sung round a scout/guide campfire)
 
And anyone else know "Oh father, look at Uncle Jim, diving in the bathtub, learning how to swim" ? That's the one that really gets me.
 
(Perhaps these misplaced earworms need their own section, so people don't alight on them unexpectedly and get caught!!!)


I know it's a bit early in the year but

While shepherds washed their sox by night
All seated 'round the tub
A bar of Sunlight soap came down
And they began to scrub.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The version I know is

 

Oh Jemima, look at your Uncle Jim,

in the duckpond learning how to swim.

First he does the breast stroke and then he does the side,

now he's under the water swimming against the tide!

 

My school has just had its annual performance - certain pieces of music became impossible to get out of my head after a concentrated rehearsal!  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Melody:  As a Scot, I do wonder about the 'Mondegreen' business and was quite surprised when I first came across it as a phenomenon for I'd never been in any doubt concerning those words of "The Bonnie Earl O' Moray."  And as it's now ringing in my ear, excuse me whilst I assume a suitable heldentenor pose to declaim:

 

Ye Hielands and Ye Lowlands,

O whaur hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl O' Moray

And ..... Lady Mondegreen????

 

Surely not?  Is 'laid him on the green' so impenetrable?  (But there are words that probably need footnotes later on!)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The version I know is

 

Oh Jemima, look at your Uncle Jim,

in the duckpond learning how to swim.

First he does the breast stroke and then he does the side,

now he's under the water swimming against the tide!

 

My school has just had its annual performance - certain pieces of music became impossible to get out of my head after a concentrated rehearsal!  

 

The version I know has two verses!

 

Oh Jemima, look at your Uncle Jim,

He's in the duckpond learning how to swim.

First he does the breast stroke and then he does the crawl,

Now he's under the water and he can't be seen at all!

 

 

Oh Jemima, look at your Uncle Jim,

He's in the duckpond learning how to swim.

First he does the back stroke and then he does the side,

Now he's under the water swimming against the tide!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Melody:  As a Scot, I do wonder about the 'Mondegreen' business and was quite surprised when I first came across it as a phenomenon for I'd never been in any doubt concerning those words of "The Bonnie Earl O' Moray."  And as it's now ringing in my ear, excuse me whilst I assume a suitable heldentenor pose to declaim:

 

Ye Hielands and Ye Lowlands,

O whaur hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl O' Moray

And ..... Lady Mondegreen????

 

Surely not?  Is 'laid him on the green' so impenetrable?  (But there are words that probably need footnotes later on!)

 

Well, I think it was an American writer who claimed her sister had misheard it - maybe she didn't know what a green was.

 

We have a small reindeer toy thingy as well as a life-size-ish one among our Christmas decorations; after hearing the wonderful mondegreen in Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, we've taken to calling the small one Olive ("Olive the other reindeer, laughed at him and called him names...") Sad, really, but there it is.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

This used to be a popular feature on certain radio programmes back in the day, Noel Edmund's daily Radio 1 show for example.  I remember well 'It's a hard egg, nothing but a hard egg' and that all-time favourite 'Oh, Oh, my ears are alight'.

 

Linda

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember Paul Young's song - Everytime you go away, you take a piece of meat with you.

There was also Abba's Gimme Gimme Gimme ( a man until/after midnight). I always heard the line Take me through the darkness as Take me to the doctor's at the break of the day. 

S'pose either could be right. :)

Edited by Jacqueline
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was at primary school when Grease came out. None of us had seen the film yet and only  a very lucky few had the double album. But we all used to sing Olivia Newton John's song as Hope He Divorces You !!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

Current tv ad earworms for me are "Easter cr*p" at insert supermarket name here. They must be saying Easter crack, as in eggs. But it doesn't sound like it. Come to think of it, neither version sounds too good.

The other ad is for a brand of fabric conditioner which will provide "comfort in tents." Must be powerful stuff as that is quite a big ask, unless you are glamping perhaps.:huh:

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, Quintus said:

for me, Adele's James Bond theme song goes "is it trifle? is it crumble?"

Isn't it trifaw, cwumbaw? Our Adele being the queen of estuawee English? :rolleyes:

Then there's that famous ditty by Billy Jo Spears - Blanket on the Ground. For years I thought she was singing Just because we are married, don't mean we can't sleep around.

Funny, that's exactly what I thought marriage did mean. I have since discovered, having heard the song again recently, she was actually singing  We can't SLIP around. Presumably a reference to the possibility that despite being married, folks can still have fun. With the person to whom they are married. Oooh I see.:)

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny that people have bumped this thread all of a sudden.  I was just doing the washing up when I realised that it's over a month now since I went to see An American in Paris, and I still have "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" intermittently on the brain!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 17/05/2016 at 16:16, trog said:

In response to :

 

I know it's a bit early in the year but

 

While shepherds washed their sox by night
All seated 'round the tub
A bar of Sunlight soap came down
And they began to scrub.

 

Very posh, Trog.  We used to sing the last two lines:

 

The angel of the Lord came down,

And gave their bums a scrub. 

 

And while we are on the subject of Christmas carols, when We Three Kings was being sung, my brother used to sing:

 

We 4 kings of Liverpool are,

George in a taxi, Paul in a car,

John on a scooter, beeping his hooter,

Following Ringo Starr.

 

That may have to be explained to the youngsters on here!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Years ago there was a programme on the BBC World Service, presented by Gordon Clyde, where you could send in requests for music. A man wrote in asking for an aria from Rigoletto which his very young son persisted in calling 'elephant's ears'. It was "La Donna e' mobile", and I've never been able to get it out of my head since. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 14/04/2017 at 01:26, alison said:

I was just doing the washing up when I realised that it's over a month now since I went to see An American in Paris, and I still have "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" intermittently on the brain!

 

Currently ousted, since the BBC Young Dancer final, by "If I Didn't Care".  Aaaagh!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

Dave you really need to keep off the sauce....!!  :lol:

 

My ear worm since last Friday night is the Giselle Act 2 pdd music.  This happened to me last run of Giselle too;  the music just never went out of my head.  I even had Led Zeppelin on my headphones on my to work this morning, and Giselle is still going round my brain.  Luckily I love it!!  :)

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lucky you, Sim!  One performance of Giselle, it turned out, wasn't actually enough to evict various bits of La Sylphide, which keep coming back - the reel in particular!

 

Not to mention that yesterday morning, or possibly the day before, I had the Brotherhood of Man's "Save All Your Kisses For Me" on the brain (for our younger readers, UK 1976 winner of the Eurovision Song Contest!) - I have no idea where that came from!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, zxDaveM said:

When you swim in the sea

And an eel bites your knee

 

That's a moray

 

 

That's been going round in my brain since the weekend!!!!

Next lines:

 

When you're diving at night, and you get a deep bite, that's a Moray.

 

And yes, we did have an earworm thread somewhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...