Golden sings.

Fifth day of Christmas and what do we get? 

This is not my Smudge meme, but surely we've all screwed up lyrics, by accident or on purpose or maybe both. 

I've related my soap story about "Jingle Bells" before, how Child Fred had barely any idea what a sleigh was, let alone an open sleigh or worse a one-horse sleigh, so I would sing loudly, as kids do when they're not asked to sing, "Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse soap and sleigh!" But I could not figure out where the soap came in. As it turns out, soap may be used in place of wax to protect runners on sleds and make them slippery, and I presume on sleighs as well, so I may have been onto something unwittingly. 

But that's a classic mondegreen. A more purposeful Christmas mis-sing was related by Dave Barry in his novel The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog. The narrator, a boy dragooned into playing a Wise Man in the pageant, had a hard time not laughing when friend and fellow Wise Man Mike would sing "We three kings of Orient are / Smoking on a rubber cigar." And Mrs. Elkins would get mad.

Another I recall from a kids book, I think it was in the Mrs. Coverlet series, featured "Good King Wence's car backed out / On a piece of Stephen."  

"Jingle Bells" alone seems to bring out the lyricist in young children, who have over the years taught us with the song that Batman smells and what fun it is to ride in a beat-up Chevrolet, among other lessons.

But the accidental words often come from circumstances like my soap issue, where I just didn't understand what was being said so I applied what I did know to the sounds. 

One time in junior high I was in a chorus that was planning to attempt the "Gloria in excelsis Deo" for a concert involving multiple schools. I do not know if it was Bach's or Handel's or one of Vivaldi's or someone else's; I've listened to them and they didn't sound like ours, which was probably our fault.

As a public-school kid I'd never heard much Latin before, and being presented with a choral piece in which all the words were in Latin was a shock. To this day I can still hear the public school music teacher with the midwestern twang working through the tenor part with us:

Gloria in excelsis Deo
et in terra pax hominibus
bonae voluntatis.
Laudamus te
benedicimus te
adoramus te
glorificamus te!

Fortunately for me and for the choir, fate intervened that year and I had to drop out. I don't recall why but I don't think it was my idea. In any event it saved the choir from hearing me resort to Pig Latin in desperation.

Years later I heard the "peanut butter and jelly" trick. Supposedly, if you're singing a choral arrangement and are in danger of forgetting the words, the tip says to sing "peanut butter and jelly" instead. Your words will blend in with the correct words until you find your place, and meanwhile your voice is still heard. I immediately imagined that public school choir, faced with the Gloria in Latin, hearing that tip and resorting to it en masse:

Peanut buh Ter in Jel-LEE
Peanut butter pax in jellybooss
Peanut butter jeh LEE

I decided that it actually works better on the Hallelujah Chorus:

PEAnut BUTter
PEAnut BUTter
And JELly
And JELly
And Jeh heh heh LEEEEE

Mostly these days I keep my singing to when I'm alone in the car. Safer that way.