Mandela Effect & The Mama''s & Papa's

Here's one of my favorite more recent songs with misheard lyrics.
youtu.be...

It's not misheard lyrics... the song did say "began to pray"...

Think about the 'tense' of the lyrics..

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way..
Well I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray

It's not likely an artist would use license to change the tense of one word from the whole phrase.

To me, that's reaching.

This is correct:

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way..
Well I got down on my knees
and I began to pray

The song is about wanting to be warm on a winters day, so they are dreaming about being in California, in LA.

The lyrics here:

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees (got down on my knees)
And I pretend to pray (I pretend to pray)
You know the preacher like the cold (preacher like the cold)
He knows I'm gonna stay (knows I'm gonna stay)

Shows how they went into a church where it was warm, and in order to stay, they pretended to actually be praying.

I was in choir in high school and we did this song: it was always "pretend".

originally posted by: Pearj
It's not misheard lyrics... the song did say "began to pray"...

Think about the 'tense' of the lyrics..

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way..
Well I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray

It's not likely an artist would use license to change the tense of one word from the whole phrase.

To me, that's reaching.

This is correct:

Stopped into a church
I passed along the way..
Well I got down on my knees
and I began to pray

But the tense was changed from that point forward for the entire rest of that verse, not just for that one word:

♪♫ Stopped into a church
I passed along the way..
Well I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray
You know the preacher likes the cold
He knows I'm gonna stay

...although some say it's:

♪♫ Stopped into a church
I passed along the way..
Well I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray
You know the preacher, like the cold,
He knows I'm gonna stay

But either way, the tense shifts for the entire 2nd part of that verse, not just for "pretend".

When I was growing up back in the 1970s, that was an already well-known misheard lyric. I remember having discussions with my friends specifically about whether it was "began to pray" or 'Pretend to pray" a long, long time ago. You can argue what you think the lyric should be (grammatically or artistically), but the fact is that this is by no means a Mandela Effect thing going on.

If it were that, I would not remember that there were people 40 years ago discussing the same issue.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

If it were that, I would not remember that there were people 40 years ago discussing the same issue.

...but isn't your memory bad?

I remember "began".

...

All that matters is that we keep bumping these threads, so more people become aware.

(keep up the good work)

originally posted by: Pearj

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

If it were that, I would not remember that there were people 40 years ago discussing the same issue.

...but isn't your memory bad?

I remember "began".

...

All that matters is that we keep bumping these threads, so more people become aware.

(keep up the good work)

Let them be aware; it's fine by me.

My point about remembering that this is a 40+ year-old issue is that I specifically remember that people misheard this lyric in the past, and is isn't a Mandela effect issue.

Some people simply going through life blissfully ignorant in believing that a misheard lyric to a song is the correct lyric (when it isn't) is quite different than me having a specific memory of me and my friends discussing that the lyric was misheard. Mine is a specific memory, and the others are simply something they misheard.

The people who misheard that lyric may have great memories, but a bad ear for lyrics.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Everybody already knows lyrics are misheard.

This is about what the line was, not what it could of been.

originally posted by: Pearj
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Everybody already knows lyrics are misheard.

This is about what the line was, not what it could of been.

Yeah -- but what it was was "misheard" by many.

That's why the two versions of that line (the correctly-heard line and the misheard line) are both commonly known, and have been commonly known for some time. Plus, it has been commonly known for some time that some people heard the line wrong.

Now, if nobody ever talked about that misheard lyric before, and suddenly EVERYONE is now saying 'huh -- I thought it was 'began to pray'", then maybe you would be on to something. However, the knowledge that the lyric was commonly misheard is as old as the misheard lyric itself.