Misheard Song Lyrics -> Stories -> Coldplay

The Story: I love Coldplay and was listening over and over to 'Clocks' on YouTube -- in the next stanza after Chris Martin sings, "....shoot an apple off my head" I swear I hear him sing "...it's like a haggis waiting to be tamed... " -- Now, a haggis is the Scottish national dish -- a sheep's stomach filled with oats and other grains, suet, onions, etc., and served with 'Scot's gravy' -- single malt whiskey. I really don't think Coldplay meant this song to be 'An Ode to a Haggis' but I can't sort out the lyrics in that one stanza. - Submitted by: Beth

The Story: For the longest time I tried in vain to figure out what he was really saying until I finally gave up and looked up the lyrics. The timing is all screwed up the way he sings it, as if 'thingelse' is one word. It's more like 'And noooooooooo thingelse compares' - Submitted by: Brian

The Story: Boy, does Chris Martin mumble. And yes, I actually did mishear the lyrics as this. It's kind of weird to think of him singing about children pulling his hair considering he barely has any! (hair, that is.) - Submitted by: Cat

The Story: The idea of a 24hr, always-busy coffee shop somehow fits in nicely with this song. - Submitted by: Andrea

The Story: I played this to a friend from the East Coast to give her a taste of Coldplay, and her eyes bugged out. Then she almost choked & swallowed her gum. I had no idea why she was so shocked. Then she replied, 'You listen to that kind of stuff?!' It took a lot of explaining & looking up the real lyrics on the net before she figured out what was really going on! - Submitted by: Fanelia

The Story: And all this time, I thought they were talking about the dying race of mystical China Gnomes. - Submitted by: Kevin D!

The Story: This is what it sounded like. Quite different from what Chris really is saying . - Submitted by: Dianne

The Story: In Spanish, the misheard phrase means "Vomiting through the nose". - Submitted by: Glenn O'Brien

The Story: I thought it was "there's evil in my heart" until today! - Submitted by: Spencer Jackson

The Story: My mum misheard it. We were watching one of Coldplay's concerts and she looked at me confused during the song and said, "He put his red coat on? Red doesn't suit him" - Submitted by: Emma

The Story: First time I hear the song, I asked my friend if he was saying "rainboots." He's totally saying rainboots. The song's about waterfalls, right? - Submitted by: Taylor

The Story: Thought the song had a nice mediaeval ring to it but ah well - Submitted by: SK

The Story: I always wonderer why Chris Martin was singing 'Don't ever say you're on your way downwind.' Then I realised in another part of the song he just sang 'Don't ever say you're on your way down' and that was it. Part of me woke up and thought maybe he's not singing 'downwind',maybe it's just 'down' followed by 'when',then the next line. Sure enough, every time I listen to that song now I wonder how I could've been so stupid! - Submitted by: melendez

The Story: I've heard this song heaps of times, being a massive Coldplay fan, but it suddenly occurred to me that this could be the lyric instead. Now, I always hear it that way... - Submitted by: Andrew

The Story: Since it's a break up album, I thought Chris was singing about covering/hiding his wife's name that was tattooed on his skin, because they broke up so Chris was in pain and had to find ways to let his wife go. - Submitted by: Mattias

The Story: It sounds exactly the same, so my brain heard it as "pair a' dice" - Submitted by: johny

The Story: I actually lived in Chippenham for a while and thought it was really cool that it was mentioned in the lyric. I'd assumed that Chippenham was famous for its china - it was only upon realising that this was not the case that I began to suspect I'd misheard... - Submitted by: EH

The Story: I always wanted to know what a fire-tube was. I had visions of those circus acts of a bloke being catapulted through a tube, but one that was on fire. - Submitted by: tastyfish

The Story: Chris sings really high. I couldn´t hear what he was singing. BTW, kompis in Swedish means 'friend'. I understood he wasn´t singing in Swedish, but it really sounds like kompis. - Submitted by: Tove

The Story: Once again, why we hear "silence" instead of "science", and vice versa. - Submitted by: Cody Finke

The Story: This story is about the greatest date that has ever been pulled off by Chris Martin. - Submitted by: Gwyneth Palmchowder

The Story: I literally thought these were the lyrics since the song came out. It just happened that the lyrics were on Pandora and I realized that I was wrong! - Submitted by: tori

The Story: I think this is self explanatory, but funny. - Submitted by: Arnold

The Story: I was really into Pokemon when this song came out. - Submitted by: Cat

The Story: I heard it always while listening to Heart. - Submitted by: BrilliantJ8

The Story: Now, it's not really funny, but it is weird. I think I thought it said this because I usually heard it on the bus's radio in high school, so you couldn't hear it that well. But they played it all the time. I was kinda religious (Christian) at the time, and also struggling with depression and my own thoughts about my friends going off to fight in the military (a lot of them did after high school), but my health wasn't good, so I knew I wasn't going, even though they talked about it all the time, even asking me what branch I was going into, even though I never said I was going. And I think I thought that this was a song about being seen as an extreme person, just being you were religious. That's why I thought the song implied that the singer was going to Hell when he died. I also didn't know how I felt about all of it, because I didn't know much about why they were fighting back then. So, I think I thought it was about how, eventually, if you didn't understand it, a person would have to turn to the other side or something, and the singer is coming to terms with accepting that---which is NOT true at all! I think I thought that my friends were all leaving me b/c they thought I was a bad person for not understanding wars/ having a religion. Also, I thought it was about ending up alone, and just having God, that's why I thought it said "when she won't", like, the singer never finds love b/c everybody hates him and thinks he's a bad person b/c of his religion. He almost is so lonely he wants to off himself, but he wrote this song to tell himself, "Well, no. There are still lonely people out there, just like myself, so if they can still roam around and sing, then so can I! Even if they are seen as bad people for loving God." I was like 15-16, though, which, looking back, hormones can make you really emotional around that age! And, truth be told, I had only heard bits and pieces about wars/ etc. - Submitted by: Carrie S.

The Story: My boyfriend really thought those were the words. When we battled it out, his argument was "'And it was all yellow' helped it make sense". - Submitted by: Lauren

The Story: The mishearing is in Danish, and means "I s**tted, oh yeah, I s**tted a pimple". - Submitted by: Glenn O'Brien

The Story: Makes sense, kind of like a caterpillar spins and turns into something beautiful that is a butterfly :) - Submitted by: Dianne

The Story: Thought he was saying "cotton stars". - Submitted by: Cody Finke