When Lady Mondegreen Sings

For those of you who don't know what a mondegreen is, may I suggest a quick look at Wiki? Now I am notorious when it comes to mondegreens, probably as a result of my hearing. For the longest time I thought that song "Reach Out, I'll Be There" by The Tremeloes was actually "Oliver" and I was always confused as to just why Oliver needed to be reached out to, or if he was reaching, but either way...

And let's not get into the time when I informed my wife that the refrain to a SMAP song was sake bananas.

But a mere adult cannot hope to possibly match the masters of mondegreens, children. Given limited vocabulary and thus a small problem with anticipating the correct words and, well, the results can be rather humorous.

Take for example my two sons. Hikaru loves to sing, what we mostly sing are Thomas (Engine Roll Call) or the Japanese version of Country Road. Makoto's song list is of course slightly longer, but not exactly correct. Last night when coming out of the bath, a naked and dripping Hikaru launched into Engine Roll Call that sounded more like:

They 2 They 4 They 6 They 8
Na na na na na having fweght
Red blue brown
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na play
na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Thomas Thomas Thomas
Thomas he's cheek one
Hiro
James
Hikaru
Kakoto
Toby Toby Toby Toby

They 2 They 4 They 6 They 8
Na na na na na having fweght
Red blue brown
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na play
na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Thomas Thomas Thomas

Which isn't bad for a two year old, but hearing his beloved song mangled so brought out a naked and dripping Makoto who belted out:

They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight
Hunting trucks and hauling weight
Red and green and brown and blue
They're the Really Use Crew
All with different moles to play
Round Tinder Sheds or far away
Down the hills and round the fence
Thomas and his friends

Thomas, he's the cheeky one
James is pain but lots of fun
Percy pulls the rails on time
Gordon hunkers down the line
Emily really knows her stuff
Henry huffs and huffs and puffs
Edward wants to help and share
Toby, well let's say he's square

They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight
Hunting trucks and hauling weight
Red and green and brown and blue
They're the Really Use Crew
All with different moles to play
Round Tinder Sheds or far away
Down the hills and round the fence
Thomas and his friends

Which, again, ain't that bad for a 5 year old, except that he did get a few words wrong and when challenged I had to sing:

They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight
Shunting trucks and hauling freight
Red and green and brown and blue
They're the Really Useful Crew
All with different roles to play
Round Tidmouth Sheds or far away
Down the hills and round the bends
Thomas and his friends

Thomas, he's the cheeky one
James is vain but lots of fun
Percy pulls the mail on time
Gordon thunders down the line
Emily really knows her stuff
Henry toots and huffs and puffs
Edward wants to help and share
Toby, well let's say he's square

They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight
Shunting trucks and hauling freight
Red and green and brown and blue
They're the Really Useful Crew
All with different roles to play
Round Tidmouth Sheds or far away
Down the hills and round the bends
Thomas and his friends

Which of course brought out a dripping and naked Beloved to congratulate me on learning the words to Thomas the Tank Engine so well.

Bathroom singing at its finest folks!