hold me closer, tony danza

I try to keep up on current events and local happenings, but without television and a newspaper subscription, sometimes I lose track of the goings-on. Such was the case yesterday (or so I thought) when I heard this on the radio while changing out the laundry in the basement:

"The South Asian Army is accepting applications for its 2009 Boys and Girls summer camp. To apply, simply visit one of our ten locations in Manhattan."

First of all, The South Asian Army? Second, since when do foreign armies need domestic summer camp and TEN LOCATIONS in Manhattan?

The spot wrapped up with: "The South Asian Army. Doing the Most Good." Hmm. Weird, that's the slogan for the Salvation Ar--- Oh. Right.

This reminds me of a similar phenomenon, the mondegreen, which is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, due to near homophony, in a way that yields a new meaning to the phrase. Like when you're driving with your friend, windows down, belting out Prince's "Raspberry Beret." And then you realize your friend is shouting "Raspberry Parade." In her defense, it really does sound like "parade," but come on. Think it through. That's not the kind of thing you find in a second-hand store.

Then there's my brother, who for most of his primary years at church, misinterpreted the second verse of Book of Mormon Stories (the one where you pound out the rhythm with your fist into your palm) as, "And the Lansoom Welcome Doll who wanted to be free." The actual lyric is, "and the land soon welcomed all who wanted to be free," but for years he thought it was a story about some kind of caged Cabbage Patch Kid.

My personal favorite is a former co-worker's mistaken interpretation of the second verse in Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," which goes:

Bittersweet... Man Maurice.

It has been two years since I first heard about his mondegreen, but it still makes me giggle out loud when I think about it (sing it in my head).