Excerpt from June 16 River Teeth, “Mondegreen,” by Diane Gottlieb:
A mondegreen is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.
Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar.
American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, recalling a childhood memory of her mother reading the Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Earl o’Moray,” and mishearing the words “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen.”
Diane’s piece begins like this:
“I found a lost memory today. Discovered it inside a writing prompt: recall something you’ve misheard. The title of the 1971 Sly and the Family Stone song is ‘It’s a Family Affair,’ but I swore it was ‘A Family of Bears.’ How wonderful it felt to belt out a song about bears and more bears, a family of bears.”
A mondegreen inspired from “Blue Jay Way,” by the Beatles:
Misheard Lyrics: There’s a frog upon a lake.
Original Lyrics: There’s a fog upon L.A.
Prompt: Write about a mondegreen.
#justwwrite #iamawriter #iamwriting
