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You are here: Home / Music / The Hungry Mom Song (Sunday Morning Open Thread)

The Hungry Mom Song (Sunday Morning Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  March 18, 20128:22 am| 81 Comments

This post is in: Music, Open Threads

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Back in the days before you could just plug an iPod into your car stereo, we used to listen to CDs. On one family road trip (with dogs riding INSIDE the vehicle), I was playing DJ, and my daughter, who was about four years old at the time, asked to hear the “Hungry Mom Song.” We had no idea what song she meant, but after getting her to sing a few bars of it, we realized she meant Bob Marley’s classic, “Them Belly Full.”

Them belly full but we hungry.
A hungry mob is a angry mob.

The poor kid mistook “mob” for “mom.” We laughed our asses off. There are entire sites devoted to misheard song lyrics, of course, but I never tire of the topic. What’s the funniest one you’ve ever heard? Open thread.

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Reader Interactions

81Comments

  1. 1.

    KD

    March 18, 2012 at 8:28 am

    We All Live in a Yellow Soup-tureen.

  2. 2.

    Emily

    March 18, 2012 at 8:32 am

    When I was ~6 years old I totally misunderstood “Silent Night” “Holy infant so tender and mild.” Not knowing that an infant was a baby, I thought it was something to eat–roast beef maybe. And then there was the line about the “heavenly peas.”

  3. 3.

    Wag

    March 18, 2012 at 8:33 am

    I’m your P*nis
    I’m your client of joy and desire

    Venus
    Shocking Blue

  4. 4.

    cmorenc

    March 18, 2012 at 8:34 am

    The all-time classic mis-heard lyric is from CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising”…the line “there’s a bad moon on the night” is (deliberately) mis-heard as “there’s a bathroom on the right”.

  5. 5.

    donnah

    March 18, 2012 at 8:35 am

    This one’s pretty common, but a childhood friend of mine misheard Creedance lyrics, “There’s a bad moon on the rise” as “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

  6. 6.

    Wag

    March 18, 2012 at 8:36 am

    There is a party
    everyone is there
    Everyone but me
    had exactly the same time

    Heaven
    Talking Heads

  7. 7.

    Riilism

    March 18, 2012 at 8:41 am

    Wrapped up like a douche, another roller in the night…

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    March 18, 2012 at 8:52 am

    ‘Scuse me, while I kiss this guy. Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze

    For those who delight in this, it’s a large part of the book, Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs. Ya’ll been warned.

  9. 9.

    FridayNext

    March 18, 2012 at 8:52 am

    CD’s? Luxury, luxury, luxury. On our family trips we listened to music on magnetic tape. Many had not one, not two, not five, but EIGHT tracks!! Before we were that rich we listened to music on this thing called a radio which included people called deejays who would just not shut the f*ck up in between songs and then there were these things called commercials. Kids, you won’t believe what commercials were. They were how companies tried to get us to buy their crap before someone invented Google Adsense. We had to listen to people try to sell us their crap even when we had never listened to their commercials before, been in their store, or read these things called catalogues. They literally had no reason to believe we actually wanted to hear their commercials. No one traced our buying or catalogue viewing habits at all.

    Scary, huh?

    Oh, and we were thankful for that!

    (I second Riilism’s douche)

    Edit: and when I first heard the Ramone’s song on a college version of this thing we called radio, I thought they were singing “I want to be a Comedian.”

  10. 10.

    Wonkie

    March 18, 2012 at 8:54 am

    Corsby, Stills and Nash’s version of Woodstock is hard to decipher. I thought the “we are stardust, we are golden” line ws “we are starving, we are freezing”

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 18, 2012 at 8:57 am

    @Emily:

    Heh. I also misunderstood a line from Silent Night: “Round young version.”

  12. 12.

    Montysano

    March 18, 2012 at 8:57 am

    Our son, when small, used to love “Jelly Belly Butt Boy” (Botticelli black boy, from Joni’s “The Only Joy in Town).

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    March 18, 2012 at 8:58 am

    @FridayNext: To this day, when I hear certain songs, my brain still expects the “chuk chuk” of the track change.

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    March 18, 2012 at 9:04 am

    Who’s the cat who won’t come out, when there’s danger all about?

    What the hell good is Shaft?

  15. 15.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    March 18, 2012 at 9:05 am

    The Ants are my friends.

  16. 16.

    jeffreyw

    March 18, 2012 at 9:05 am

    @WereBear: Damn, there’s another! I always heard it as “ker-chunck”.

  17. 17.

    Persia

    March 18, 2012 at 9:06 am

    I thought for a long time it was ‘a hungry mon (man) is an angry mon.’

  18. 18.

    cathyx

    March 18, 2012 at 9:07 am

    We talked about this topic a few months ago. The term for misheard song lyrics is called a mondegreen.

  19. 19.

    FridayNext

    March 18, 2012 at 9:09 am

    @WereBear:

    Even today when listen to a download of a song I haven’t listen to since I had the album or 45 I am still a little surprised when it doesn’t skip in the right place.

  20. 20.

    c u n d gulag

    March 18, 2012 at 9:10 am

    I was with a friend and his friends once, years and years ago, and the Police classic, “How My Poor Heart Aches” came on the jukebox, and one of my friend’s buddies started singing, “I’m a pool hall ace…”

    On top of spilling my beer, I damn near wet myself!

  21. 21.

    cathyx

    March 18, 2012 at 9:11 am

    @FridayNext: I had that problem when I hear a certain Linda Ronstadt song. The 8 track skipped on a song that I would hear on the radio and expect that skip to be there. I’m really glad 8 tracks have been technologically replaced.

  22. 22.

    rreay

    March 18, 2012 at 9:12 am

    carry a lazer
    Down the road that I must travel
    carry a laser
    Through the darkness of the night

  23. 23.

    lapinga

    March 18, 2012 at 9:13 am

    I’ve been lurking since before John’s conversion, but you got me on this one. One day I heard my (then) 8 year old daughter sing “and the man in the suit has just bought a new car from the profit he’s made on your beans.”

  24. 24.

    neil

    March 18, 2012 at 9:18 am

    When my niece was little she thought that the McCoys hit was “Hang on Snoopy”.

  25. 25.

    cathyx

    March 18, 2012 at 9:19 am

    @neil: Are you saying it’s not? I thought that’s what they sing too.

  26. 26.

    Constance

    March 18, 2012 at 9:21 am

    Bringing in the sheep, bringing in the sheep
    We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheep.

    I was in my 30s, visiting some church for some reason and following along in the hymn book when I discovered I’d been singing the wrong words my whole life.

    Bringing in the the sheaves…

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    March 18, 2012 at 9:24 am

    @FridayNext: And even though I’ve listened to CDs and MP3s for years, certain classic albums still levitate my butt off the couch halfway through.

  28. 28.

    c u n d gulag

    March 18, 2012 at 9:24 am

    I didn’t see anyone mention the classic misunderstanding of Jimi Hendrix – “‘Scuse me, while I kiss this guy!”

    That predates The Stonewall Riot.

  29. 29.

    MikeJ

    March 18, 2012 at 9:24 am

    Two years ago today Alex Chilton died. He’d had chest pains earlier in the week, but didn’t have insurance, so he didn’t get it checked.

    Sorry, no Big Star mondegreen to share.

  30. 30.

    WereBear

    March 18, 2012 at 9:25 am

    @Constance: Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.

  31. 31.

    c u n d gulag

    March 18, 2012 at 9:25 am

    @Constance:
    I think the way you thought it was, is a more accurate assessment.

  32. 32.

    Jennifer

    March 18, 2012 at 9:26 am

    Silent Night:

    Round John Virgin, mother and child

  33. 33.

    Mont D. Law

    March 18, 2012 at 9:26 am

    drinking chicken boo for breakfast.

    Which, since chicken boo is a real thing you might drink for breakfast, is a better lyric. Sorry, Mick and Joe.

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    March 18, 2012 at 9:26 am

    Is it the Swede, Magnus, or Miss Gloria Sadler
    That brings mead to my niece?

    I made up that mondegreen for a couple of lines from Sarah McLachlan’s Angel, and now it’s the only way I hear those lines.

  35. 35.

    Persia

    March 18, 2012 at 9:27 am

    @FridayNext: Sometimes I’ll remember what the DJ said over the end of the song I taped off the radio.

  36. 36.

    Dylan

    March 18, 2012 at 9:31 am

    My wife and her sisters used to think the line was:
    “Take your pants off, and make it happen.”
    in Flashdance.

    Real line:
    “Take your passion and make it happen.”

    I still hear version A every time the song comes on the radio.

  37. 37.

    WyldPirate

    March 18, 2012 at 9:32 am

    @c u n d gulag:

    The title to that Police song is “Every Breath You Take” and it’s a creepy stalker song.

  38. 38.

    MikeJ

    March 18, 2012 at 9:35 am

    I love the fact that in a thread about mondegreens the pie filter presented: She was a pie-making machine, she kept her roller clean, she made the best damn mincemeat that I’ve ever eaten.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    March 18, 2012 at 9:48 am

    @Dylan: Hahaha! A friend of a friend somehow heard the title lyric to the BeeGee’s “More than a Woman” as “Bald-Headed Woman.” At first, I couldn’t see how anyone could make that mistake, but the next time I heard the song, damn if it didn’t sound that way.

  40. 40.

    c u n d gulag

    March 18, 2012 at 9:50 am

    @WyldPirate:
    Thanks, I stand corrected.

    And, yeah, it is a creepy stalker song.

    But, it’s not about a pool hall ace. :-)

  41. 41.

    Cat Lady

    March 18, 2012 at 9:50 am

    @MikeJ:

    Whatever became of cleek? He’s not been here in a long time.

  42. 42.

    Karounie

    March 18, 2012 at 9:54 am

    One of my college roommates told me that when he was a kid he thought the line in the Beatles “Paperback Writer” was “and I want-ta-me to pay for that Chrysler. Pay for that Chrysler!” It was a song about earning more money, after all.

    Whatever he had was catching. Once we went out to a dance club together and heard a song playing with the lyrics “super nature” (sounded of course more like “supah naytcha.”) We both said “Oooh, they’re singing about Zubin Mehta. How upscale!”

  43. 43.

    Tom Levenson

    March 18, 2012 at 9:56 am

    “Who’s going to shave me?”

    Midnight Oil, Blue Sky Mine.

  44. 44.

    scav

    March 18, 2012 at 9:57 am

    Was the small girl not so much entirely mishearing as being en investigator and empiricist? I’d certainly be looking out for any and all clues about what made mom mad.

    Speaking of noises, what about the big whirr-kerchunk-unk-whirr between records when they dropped down?

  45. 45.

    merrinc

    March 18, 2012 at 10:06 am

    Emanating from my daughter’s carseat when she was around 4: Three red rocks, three red rocks, three red rocks…Instead of “Cleveland rocks.”

    From a drunken friend at a Bob Seger concert many, many years ago: “Everyone wants to put the whore on the bottom” instead of “everyone wants to do the horizontal bop.”

  46. 46.

    Schlemizel

    March 18, 2012 at 10:14 am

    @cmorenc:
    Stuck in old Lodi again

    Came across as nonsense

    Suckin an ol diaper pin

    Fogerty mumbled a lot!

  47. 47.

    WyldPirate

    March 18, 2012 at 10:14 am

    @c u n d gulag:

    The “pool hall ace” bit was funny, but it couldn’t quite override my post-hangover, pre-coffee pedantry.

  48. 48.

    Nicole

    March 18, 2012 at 10:18 am

    As I mentioned in Doug’s post on ear worms, my worst one was “I Want to Kiss You All Over.”. It was on every one of my father’s 8-track mix tapes. However, I thought it went, “I want to kiss you on the road.”. And, as I heard the song over and over on trips to my grandparents when I was little, I would imagine a couple making out on the shoulder of Route 11/15 and get concerned that an oncoming car wouldn’t see them in time.

  49. 49.

    Schlemizel

    March 18, 2012 at 10:23 am

    @FridayNext:

    What gets me is when a song ends and in my mind I start the next song on the LP! SHuffle will end that curse for future generations 8-{D

  50. 50.

    A Ghost To Most

    March 18, 2012 at 10:37 am

    Not a song, but as a filthy heathen, when I hear the pledge of allegiance, my brain replaces “under god” with “fvck your god”

  51. 51.

    TaMara (BHF)

    March 18, 2012 at 10:39 am

    Little cousins, singing Reminiscing by Little River Band:

    We’ll go dancing in the dark
    Walking through the park and GRANDMA’S MISSING

    at the top of their lungs.

  52. 52.

    Dave Trowbridge

    March 18, 2012 at 10:46 am

    Two come to mind:

    Many years ago my father exploded in disgust while listening to some singers on a variety show. “Why the hell are they singing about Michael Rose buying a store?”

    I used to go to an aerobics class, and for the longest time kept hearing a song as “You’re my fetus, you’re my desire.”

  53. 53.

    Neil

    March 18, 2012 at 11:10 am

    Morning of feeling by Boston

    or

    “crooked spin can’t calm tourettes” (Elliott Smith from the song Say Yes)

    ..and of course the already mentioned bathroom on the right.

  54. 54.

    smintheus

    March 18, 2012 at 11:14 am

    “Let me remember things I don’t know” (Green River)

    So much truth in that nonsense version.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    March 18, 2012 at 11:15 am

    Michael Jackson
    Billie Jean

    “the chair is not my son”

  56. 56.

    halteclere

    March 18, 2012 at 11:29 am

    “She had a fax machine, she kept her modem clean, she was the best damn woman that I ever seen..”

    From a friend’s 8 year-old son.

  57. 57.

    chrome agnomen

    March 18, 2012 at 11:32 am

    @Constance:

    you were singing the right wing version.

  58. 58.

    TOP123

    March 18, 2012 at 11:37 am

    My favourite has always been from Bob Marley and the Wailers, appropriately enough: as a very little kid, in the carseat in the back of my mom’s car, I used to love singing along to ‘Pajamas’… believe it’s on ‘Exodus’.

  59. 59.

    YellowJournalism

    March 18, 2012 at 11:38 am

    “I got fashion on my pants, and I ain’t afraid to sew it.”

  60. 60.

    handsmile

    March 18, 2012 at 11:45 am

    The lyrics to the entire Yes catalogue are improved-or perhaps at least rendered more comprehensible-by one’s own mondegreens.

  61. 61.

    Xjmueller

    March 18, 2012 at 11:58 am

    Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you. (Paul Young / Hall and Oates)
    While sad that she’s leaving, he knows she won’t be hungry.

  62. 62.

    boss bitch

    March 18, 2012 at 12:20 pm

    Sade’s “Sweetest Taboo” where she says “If I tell you, If I tell you..”

    I used to think she was saying “hip Italian, hip Italian”

  63. 63.

    Anna Granfors

    March 18, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    The Rascals’ “Groovin'”: correct lyric–”you and me endlessly”; mondegreen version–”you and me and Leslie”.

    Which introduced me to the concept of a triad at the tender age of nine.

  64. 64.

    cckids

    March 18, 2012 at 12:31 pm

    From the Broadway musical “Oklahoma”, my sister & I would sing along; “Farmers dance with the cowboy’s daughters, cowboys dance with the farmer’s cows”. Seemed like a good reason for the animosity & fighting to us.

  65. 65.

    Constance

    March 18, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    @WereBear: LOL

    @c u n d gulag: Now that you mention it.

    @chrome agnomen: I grew up in Orange County, California.

  66. 66.

    skippy

    March 18, 2012 at 1:30 pm

    my wife used to think that hollies were singing “all i need is some lsd and to love you….”

    and i always thought aretha franklin, in her bridge on ‘respect,’ was saying

    r – e – s – p – e -c – t
    tell me what it means to me
    r – e – s – p – e -c – t
    take some… pcp!

    tells you more about my wife and my penchant for recreation drug use than the songs.

  67. 67.

    Ruviana

    March 18, 2012 at 1:39 pm

    You ever wonder who actually had that 19th nervous breakdown?

    “Billy Tom, Billy Tom, here comes your 19th nervous breakdown”

    courtesy of my younger brother at around age 10.

  68. 68.

    c u n d gulag

    March 18, 2012 at 1:44 pm

    @WyldPirate:
    No worries!

  69. 69.

    FridayNext

    March 18, 2012 at 2:06 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    But sometimes, admittedly rare, you want the next song to be the same every time. We Are The Champions must follow We Will Rock You. Eclipse must follow Brain Damage. This is what the rarely used “Consolidate Files…” iTunes command is for.

  70. 70.

    opie jeanne

    March 18, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    @Dave Trowbridge: I’m sorry, I can’t figure out which song your dad reacted to when he said this:

    Michael Rose buying a store

  71. 71.

    Tonal Crow

    March 18, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    And then there are the impenetrable lyrics that nearly every person hears differently, as in those to “My Back Pages” as sung by The Byrds. One person hears:

    Crimson flames tide through my years flowing high and mighty,
    Trapped (pause) countless file and flaming row using ideas as my map….

    While another hears:

    Crimson flames tied through my ears….

    That song is like aural LSD.

  72. 72.

    Betty Cracker

    March 18, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    I read this one elsewhere, from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:”

    Instead of: “The girl with kaleidoscope eyes…”

    This: The girl with colitis goes by…”

  73. 73.

    loretta

    March 18, 2012 at 2:57 pm

    Funniest one was the George Harrison song “I got my mind set on you” which my daughters thought said, “Get up I might sit on you”.

  74. 74.

    Death Panel Truck

    March 18, 2012 at 3:15 pm

    On “Stairway to Heaven,” the lyric “The tune will come to you at last” sounds suspiciously like “The Jew will bother you a lot.”

    Who knew Robert Plant was an anti-Semite? ;)

  75. 75.

    Juju

    March 18, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    I know it’s late to this game,but I thought I’d post anyway. I thought that Donavan song was “wear your love like headphones”. The actual lyrics make about as much sense.

  76. 76.

    Patricia Kayden

    March 18, 2012 at 6:21 pm

    A little boy that my mom used to look after in her daycare thought Van Halen was singing “Chomp”, instead of “Jump”. Thought that was really cute.

  77. 77.

    Vlad

    March 18, 2012 at 7:15 pm

    The mother and child reunion
    Is only an ocean away!

  78. 78.

    Quaker in a Basement

    March 18, 2012 at 11:23 pm

    My Sal, she is a spunky cow…
    Polly wolly doodle all day.

  79. 79.

    HobbesAI

    March 19, 2012 at 3:17 am

    “You thought that you were divine
    Yeah well so did I.” — Tori Amos, ‘Spark’

    And, for those of you who don’t remember Woodstock.

  80. 80.

    The Crafty Trilobite

    March 19, 2012 at 5:29 am

    On “Stairway to Heaven,” the lyric “The tune will come to you at last” sounds suspiciously like “The Jew will bother you a lot.”

    Agreed! And no matter how many times I listen, I CANNOT make out the ‘official’ lyric, “the tune will come to you at last.” I think he totally blew the line and hollered gibberish, and they decided to leave it in b/c the rest of the take was good.

  81. 81.

    brantl

    March 19, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    I’ve got two chickens to paralyze – Eddie Money.He was Dj’ing on a local station as a lark. One of the funniest things I’d ever heard.

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