You’ve been listening to a new song on repeat for a few days - singing it while doing dishes, while in the shower, and while driving to and from the gym. You’re in the car with your friends and someone plays the song. You serenade your friends, confidently belting the lyrics, only to be corrected and be told that the actual lyrics say something else. You feel a mixture of emotions - slight embarrassment, a bit of annoyance, and a tinge of pride telling you to defend your mishearing of the lyrics.

There’s a term for that. No, not the feeling, the act of mishearing/misreading words in a work - “mondegreen”. The term was coined by Sylvia Wright in 1954 when she heard “Lady Mondegreen” instead of “laid him on the green” in a song.

The songs in this tritone also have mondegreens. I thought Adele was commenting on the hard-knock artist life when she was singing “chasing payments,” but she was actually singing “chasing pavements.” I found it weirdly specific that Carly Simon would highlight someone’s vanity by implying they spend time with “the wife of a postman.” In reality, she was saying that they spend time with “the wife of a close friend.”

The last one is kinda cheating since the language barrier might be a big contributing factor. Nevertheless, Angèle was saying “C’est oui ou bien c’est non” (It’s yes or it’s no) not name dropping Beyoncé Knowles in her song.