6 Misheard Taylor Swift Lyrics from '1989' and Why We Keep Hearing Them
Dec 15, 2014 21:46
Taylor Swift's 1989 album has its fair share of misheard lyrics. And they're actually kinda funny. Here's a list of the songs with lyrics that have been most mistaken for something else.
Misheard lyrics: “Got a long list, Starbucks lovers”
Actual lyrics: “Got a long list of ex-lovers”
Misheard lyrics: “Your neck is hanging from my neck”
Actual lyrics: “Your necklace hanging from my neck”
Misheard lyrics: “It’s a new sound jock”
Actual lyrics: “It’s a new soundtrack”
Misheard lyrics: “Cause baby now we got bed bugs.”
Actual lyrics: “Cause baby now we got bad blood.”
Misheard lyrics: “Bakers gonna bake, bake, bake, bake, bake.”
Actual lyrics: “Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break.”
Misheard lyrics: “Say it’s been a long six arms.”
Actual lyrics: “Say it’s been a long six months.”
Though, Got a list of Starbucks lovers, does not actually make any sense.
Blank Space
Misheard lyrics: “Got a long list, Starbucks lovers”
Actual lyrics: “Got a long list of ex-lovers”
Out of the Woods
Misheard lyrics: “Your neck is hanging from my neck”
Actual lyrics: “Your necklace hanging from my neck”
Welcome To New York
Misheard lyrics: “It’s a new sound jock”
Actual lyrics: “It’s a new soundtrack”
Bad Blood
Misheard lyrics: “Cause baby now we got bed bugs.”
Actual lyrics: “Cause baby now we got bad blood.”
Shake It Off
Misheard lyrics: “Bakers gonna bake, bake, bake, bake, bake.”
Actual lyrics: “Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break.”
How You Get The Girl
Misheard lyrics: “Say it’s been a long six arms.”
Actual lyrics: “Say it’s been a long six months.”
Why do we keep mishearing these lyrics?
Research into the psychology of misheard lyrics argues that it is our expectations that have a strong influence over what we hear. Which means, this can actually alter our interpretations of the sounds.
Hearing is a two-step process:
Auditory perception - the physics of sound waves making their way through your ear and..
Meaning-making - the part where your brain takes the noise and tries to make sense of it.
Human speech occurs without breaks
It's hard to tell when one word ends and another begins when you listen to songs, so we look for verbal cues and try to understand the different general principles of inflection and syllabification, combined with semantic knowledge.
Lastly, it's because sounds can be logically divided in multiple ways
Oronyms - word strings in which sounds can be divided in multiple ways may result in incorrect pasing of sounds when context or prior knowledge is lacking.
Our brain's first cue when we hear a word or phrase is its actual sounds and the order in which they were produced. There's also a number of related words that are activated all at once in our heads. Finally, our brain just chooses the one that makes the most sense.
