A mondegreen and a m’onderstanding

A mondegreen long in my ears:

Down on the corner, out in the street
Sayin’ both boys are playin’
Singin’ Mister, tap your feet

But what Creedence Clearwater sang:

Down on the corner, out in the street
Willy and the Poor Boys are playin’
Bring a nickel, tap your feet

And a m’onderstanding long in my head:

Poor boy twangs the rhythm out on his Kalamazoo
Willy goes into a dance and doubles on kazoo

I always thought that Kalamazoo was just an fanciful variation on kazoo. But now I know that a Kalamazoo is a guitar. Kalamazoo was Gibson’s budget brand of stringed instruments. Depression-era Kalamazoo guitars now sell for non-budget prices.

You can see Tom Waits pick up and play a Kalamazoo at the 1:54 mark in this video. You can hear CCR’s “Down on the Corner” and follow along with the lyrics here.

OCA readers may recall that m’onderstanding is a word that Elaine coined to denote a lyric heard correctly but misunderstood. It captured my obtuseness about the Erie Canal song “Low Bridge, Everybody Down”.