Vol. 07 · Misheard ·1895
"O beautiful, for spacious guys."
That isn't the lyric.
What you hear
"O beautiful, for spacious guys."
What's actually sung
"O beautiful, for spacious skies." America the Beautiful — Katharine Lee Bates (1895)
Why the ear defaults
Classic schoolroom mondegreen. "Skies" and "guys" only differ by one consonant; group singing in gymnasiums destroys the S.
Hear another line wrong?
Play the misheard duel — pick the real lyric, round by round.