“Games Without Frontiers” by Peter Gabriel

Dad’s Song of the Day #35, Oct. 3, 2025

On Mondegreens:

There’s an old Scottish ballad, called “The Bonny Earl o’ Moray”, whose lyrics go:

They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray, and laid him on the green

In the 1950s, a humorist named Sylvia Wright misheard “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen,” and coined the term mondegreen. Ever since brilliant friend Jim told me about the above a couple of months ago, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with them, as I’m terrible at recognizing lyrics.**

I’d say the most famous mondegreen is from Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” where for about 60 years people haven’t been sure if Jimi was singing, “Scuze me while I kiss the Sky”…or is it “…kiss this guy”? Other famous ones include CCR’s, “…there’s a bathroom on the right” (instead of “there’s a bad moon on the rise”), and the Beatles singing, “…the girl with colitis goes by” (instead of “…the girl with kaleidoscope eyes”).

Those examples are from the hippy boomer age just before mine, and I didn’t experience them in real time. For today’s DSOTD, brilliant friend Sue reminded me of the confusion our generation had over Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers”, wherein Gabriel managed to baffle the average 16-year-old by introducing French to his lyrics.

As a result, many of us at Cedarbrae CI were confidently singing along to “she’s so pop-u-lar”, (or maybe it was “she’s so funky, yeh!”) instead of the direct French translation of the title: “Jeux san frontières.”

So, as we were fumbling around with a mondegreen, we were also drawn into the meaningful, timely messaging of this song—released in the year Ronald Reagan became President of the USA—which compares war to children’s games, but with much more serious consequences.

Spotify:

YouTube:

** Personally, my most persistent mondegreen is in “Hotel California”, really one of the most famous and overplayed songs of my lifetime: I was at least in my early 30s when I learned that I was NOT hearing:

“What a nice surprise;

When you’re out of ice”

In fact, The Eagles were singing:

“What a nice surprise;

Bring your alibis”

I’m sorry Don and Glenn, but my mondegreen clearly makes wayyyy more sense within context of “Hotel California”, as in:

“Oh honey, we’re out of ice: would you mind filling the bucket? I think I saw an ice closet across from the elevator”

“Sure sweetie…oh LOOK! These ice cubes are lovely! Big and square, and perfectly clear with no cloudiness: What a nice surprise!!”