You know the classic anguished lyrics from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," don't you? "I'm a lion! I'm a vinyl! I'm a Skittle! I'm a Beatle!"*
What, that's not what Kurt Cobain was singing? Well, OK, how about in the "Friends" theme song, when we learn that "It's just like you're always sucking second beer."
It's "stuck in second gear," you say? Huh. OK.
But C&C Music Factory, they sing "Everybody's dead, now,"** don't they? And The Backstreet Boys sing "Tummy why, I never want to hear you say, I want it fat way,"*** right? Some kind of diet song or something? And in the Matchbox 20 song "3 A.M.," they sing "She only sleeps when training, and she screams, and her horse is strange."****
No, no and no. Except in Jeff Wysacki's hilarious YouTube video, "Misheard Song Lyrics 90s Edition," where Wysacki has spliced together snippets of 1990s videos with captions proclaiming how the lyrics actually sound. Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, Marilyn Manson, MC Hammer and other 1990s musical stars all come in for their share of mockery in the video.
You'll have trouble hearing Pearl Jam's "Jeremy spoke in class today" line the actual way it's meant to be once you've seen it translated as "Terribly spoken, glass bidet."
Wysacki publishes new videos every Wednesday on YouTube and at Pleated-Jeans.com. Note: Two small swear words in the video below, but really, it's worth it.
* "A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido."
** "Everybody dance, now!"
*** "Tell me why I never want to hear you say, I want it that way."
**** "And she only sleeps when it's raining, and she screams and her voice is straining."