One of things I find most endearing about my husband is his ability to make me laugh.

Granted, I am not always, technically laughing with him, but he makes me laugh nonetheless.

Amongst his repertoire of accidental funnies, is his habit of getting song lyrics wrong.

During our courtship, the Hubbster and I worked in an Australian themed pub in the UK called The Walkabout.  One morning as I set up the bar, and Hubbster took the benches down from the table tops, he turned to me and said “It’s the last train…not plane.”

Jimmy Barnes’ rough voice was belting out Khe Sahn over the speakers.

“Huh?”  I looked at him bewildered.

“You’re singing the words wrong.  It’s the last train.”

“Oh yeah, silly me.  I completely forgot about the train that flies from Sydney to Hong Kong!”

Der!

Well, I was rolling on the bed laughing hysterically when he confessed his latest blunder to me.

One of his favourite songs is Great Southern Land by Aussie rock band Icehouse.  He used to listen to it on his mini-disc man over and over when we met.  He listens to it in his car.  When he has had a few too many drinks he likes to stand in his man cave and watch the movie clip of it on the big  projector.  Hell, it’s the ring tone on his mobile.

For some unknown reason he decided to google the lyrics last week and was horrified to find that for over twenty years, while he was singing his heart out with them, he had been singing the wrong words.

Standing at the limit of an endless ocean
stranded like a runaway, lost at sea
city on a rainy day down in the harbour volvo
watching as the grey clouds shadow the bay
looking everywhere ’cause I had to find you
this is not the way that i remember it here
anyone will tell you its a prisoner island
hidden in the summer for a million years

Great Southern Land, burned you black

so you look into the land and it will tell you a story
story ’bout a journey ended long ago
if you listen to the motion of the wind in the mountains
maybe you can hear them talking like I do ga-ga goo
“. . they’re gonna betray, they’re gonna forget you
are you gonna let them take you over this way . .”

Great Southern Land, Great Southern Land
you walk alone like a primitive man
and they make it work with sticks and bones
see their hungry eyes, its a hungry home
I hear the sound of the stranger’s voices
I see their hungry eyes, their hungry eyes
Great Southern Land, Great Southern Land
they burned you black, black against the ground

Great Southern Land, in the sleeping sun
you walk alone with the ghost of time
they burned you black, black against the ground
and they make it work with rocks and sand
I hear the sound of the stranger’s voices
I see their hungry eyes, their hungry eyes
Great Southern Land, Great Southern Land
you walk alone, like a primitive man
you walk alone with the ghost of time
and they burned you black
yeah, they burned you black
Great Southern Land

Considering hubby’s substitutions are both unlikely and nonsensical I am surprised he hasn’t googled the lyrics before.

The trouble is, I like his lyrics so much better and can’t help singing his version now every time I hear it.  

Try it, you might like it!

Which song lyrics have you mis-sung?