A song popped into my head, I looked it up, and I found that I’d been hearing it wrong from kidhood.
The song: “In the Middle, in the Middle, in the Middle,” by Vic Mizzy. New Yorkers of a certain age will remember it from PSAs during kids’s TV programming. Here’s the song, as sung by Mizzy’s daughter Patty Keeler. (I’m unable to find the PSA itself.) There was another PSA with an instrumental version of the song. And there’s a more recent version of the song by They Might Be Giants, with Robin Goldwasser singing.
My mondegreen: “Keep your eyes to look out, keep your ears to hear.”
But the song says, “Teach your eyes to look out, teach your ears to hear.”
And a more minor mondegreen:
Me: “And wait, and wait, until you see the light turn green.”
The song: “And wait, and wait, until you’ve seen the light turn green.”
Well, I’m glad I got that straightened out.
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
A kidhood mondegreen
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comments: 2
I remember a different song on the same theme. The melody was somewhat similar but not quite as perky. I distinctly recall the lyrics "Your life is a riddle / if you cross in the middle / Don't cross in the middle of the street / Don't cross in the middle of the street."
It's not familiar to me. I hope it's out there somewhere waiting to be found.
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