Misheard Song Lyrics -> Stories -> Kraftwerk

The Story: This is what my mother heard it as, way back in the '70s. - Submitted by: david lincoln brooks

The Story: I was just a grade school kid and I didn't really know one music act from another - yet. The classic "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk synthesizer melody registered in my mind easily, and for years I thought the sung words were something like "ba ba ba..." ala Beach Boys. When I was a teenager I recognized the Beach Boys ba ba ba characteristic and I also heard the song "Autobahn" used as background music for ads on the radio. I thought, "there's clearly a synthesizer here, mixed with a Beach Boys chorus (?!)". Years later I'm an adult and I drive to Cleveland to visit the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and Museum which had just opened a month prior. There's a station there where you can listen to songs from and read about albums pivotal to rock history - all sorted by decade, displayed on a computer terminal. For the 1970's I saw a picture of Kraftwerk's Autobahn album. I knew about the classic title track so I figured "Let's see what's so classic about this one". I touched the icon on the screen and the picture gets bigger. The classic hit starts to play and I realized that the words were in German (I know some German) and I recognize that synth melody and I think "I KNOW THIS!". I recognize it completely now and mentally I'm going "YEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!....". Alright! - Submitted by: Autobahn Fahrer

The Story: I've misheard this lyric since the album, "The Mix" came out in the early-1990s. I still don't know it, but it simply cannot be, "Bitch bit" because Kraftwerk songs are always clean. - Submitted by: Craig Johnson

The Story: The word “Tschak”, while made up, has apparently led enough people to believe it is saying “Chuck” according to web search suggestions. They sound very familiar, given the voices are computerized. - Submitted by: Iris

The Story: I've misheard the word, "Crime" as, "Time" for many years; this was in large part due to the fact that a vocoder was used to process the vocals in this song. - Submitted by: Craig Johnson

The Story: I misheard these lyrics from 1977 until just several days ago (early-February 2014). :-/ - Submitted by: Craig Johnson

The Story: Part of the lyrics are sung through a vocoder and are in German; in some instances it really does sound like they're singing, "expo...twelve thousand" - Submitted by: Craig Johnson

The Story: I've misheard this lyric ("see the light" instead of "sieben acht") since the album with this song on it came out many years ago; only "getting it" within the last couple of years. - Submitted by: Craig Johnson

The Story: This was the only line in the song I tripped over. I found that trying to comprehend Florian Schneider's soft , low, dopey-sounding, German-accented-English vocals throughout the album is dicey at best. - Submitted by: Akira

The Story: Found about this from a YouTube comment. - Submitted by: MC Blargenfedibblenohip

The Story: I once went to a branch of Dolcis and said, 'I want some shoes, you know, like in that Kraftwerk song.' The spotty staff looked confused until I played them the seminal electro classic, at which point they brought me a pair of moccasins. However, they did draw my attention to my erroneous interpretation of the above lyric. - Submitted by: Oliver Levy

The Story: This is probably understandable... I was listening to "The Robots" thinking it's fully in English. I didn't even know that some of the lyrics are in an eastern European language (Most likely Russian) until I looked them up due to mishearing another lyric set within the song... mishearing "We are the Robots" as "Waiting like a robot." - Submitted by: Jessica Sterikoff-Smith

The Story: I've misheard this lyric for many years -- even now that I know it's incorrect, I still hear them say "Reflection is automatic". - Submitted by: Craig Johnson

The Story: It sounded like that when I first heard it, since they have a robotic voice. - Submitted by: Cody Finke

The Story: I thought it had to do with parenthood! - Submitted by: Cody Finke