Vol. 07 · Misheard ·1967
"The girl with colitis goes by."
That isn't the lyric.
What you hear
"The girl with colitis goes by."
What's actually sung
"The girl with kaleidoscope eyes." Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds — The Beatles (1967)
Why the ear defaults
Lennon's drawn-out "kaleidoscope" compresses in the chorus; American listeners with no familiarity with the word default to the nearest medical term they know.
Hear another line wrong?
Play the misheard duel — pick the real lyric, round by round.