Vol. 07 · Misheard ·1985
"Taking wood, taking wood."
That isn't the lyric.
What you hear
"Taking wood, taking wood."
What's actually sung
"Take on me, take on me." Take On Me — a-ha (1985)
Why the ear defaults
Morten Harket's falsetto pushes every vowel to the front of the mouth. Non-Norwegian listeners hear the phrase as whatever scans — "taking wood" has become the meme-canonical mondegreen.
Hear another line wrong?
Play the misheard duel — pick the real lyric, round by round.