Mondegreen: Lyrical Blunders We Secretly Love

Remember that powerful Bollywood song from the movie Kajal (1965) —
“Achhon ko buraa saabit karnaa, duniya ki puraani aadat hai”?

Well, for years, I sang it as:
“Bachchon ko buraa saabit karnaa, duniya ki puraani aadat hai.”

And honestly? It still made sense to me. I mean, I was backing kids during that phase of life ..so it kind of fit perfectly. I genuinely thought it was a deep, emotional line that spoke about how the world keeps judging children harshly.

Turns out, the actual line was about “Achhon” – the good people, not kids. Oops. But hey, I wasn’t completely wrong either, right? 😄

It was only recently that I discovered there’s actually a term for this kind of mix-up. It’s called a Mondegreen – A word that sounds fancy but basically means: when you mishear or misinterpret a phrase, especially in a song or speech, and give it your own version.

A Mondegreen is when we mishear a word or a phrase, especially in a song, and come up with our own version that makes perfect sense in our heads (even though it’s totally wrong). This concept goes way beyond just me and my Bollywood songs, though. It’s actually quite common, and it happens all the time.

The term was first coined by writer Sylvia Wright, who as a child misheard a line from a Scottish ballad. The original went: “They have slain the Earl of Moray, and laid him on the green,”but she heard: “They have slain the Earl of Moray, and Lady Mondegreen.”There was no Lady Mondegreen, of course, but the name stuck.

Take my friend, for instance. She and her brother used to sing Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” as “Eat it” when they were kids. Because that made a whole lot of sense, right?

And if you pause and think, we’ve all done it.

And guess what? This whole misheard lyric thing isn’t just a funny side-effect of bad hearing. It’s a psychological phenomenon, and once I discovered the word Mondegreen, I got hooked. I started to wonder, why does it happen? Why do we mishear things so confidently, only to find out we were completely off track?

Apparently, our brains just want to make sense of what we hear (or see). If something is unclear or ambiguous, our mind jumps in, adds some context, and fills in the gaps with its own logic. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle where pieces don’t fit, and instead of stepping back, we just force them together. So when I first heard “Aati Kya Khandala”, and I was thinking of an elephant ride in Thekkady, “Haathi ka anda la” seemed to fit perfectly in my mind.

After learning about Mondegreens, a thought hit me, they’re not just limited to song lyrics, are they? They happen in life too. We mishear, misread, misjudge. We assume. We build entire narratives around what we think we heard or understood.

So how do we avoid these Mondegreens in life?

Well, first things first, when something’s unclear, don’t rush to fill in the blanks with your own assumptions. Pause. Ask. It’s okay to say, “I don’t know” or “Can you explain that again?” Because clarity often comes not from knowing, but from being willing to admit we don’t.

And when someone challenges what you’ve always believed, instead of shutting it down, try asking yourself, “Could they be right?” Maybe they are. Maybe you’ve just been singing the wrong lyrics all along, confidently and repeatedly.

At the end of the day, Mondegreens are more than just funny lyrical goof-ups — they’re little reminders of how easily we create our own version of reality. Whether it’s a song, a memory, or a moment, the version in our heads might not be the truth, just what made sense at the time.

Next time you catch yourself humming a tune with the wrong lyrics- Smile. You just found your Mondegreen.

And maybe, just maybe, life is gently asking you to pay a little closer attention.

This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla.