Vol. 07 · Misheard ·1857
"Gold and friends and cents."
That isn't the lyric.
What you hear
"Gold and friends and cents."
What's actually sung
"Gold and frankincense." We Three Kings — John Henry Hopkins Jr. (1857)
Why the ear defaults
"Frankincense" is not in a child's vocabulary. The nearest phonetic neighbours — "friends" and "cents" — get substituted in.
Hear another line wrong?
Play the misheard duel — pick the real lyric, round by round.