The Monkees have been in my head for the last two days.

This is not an alcohol induced hallucination involving small primates but because of the catchiness of Daydream Believer, the 1967 hit recorded by the American pop group.

Forty eight years later it still has the power to linger in the brain after hearing it in the background on a pub’s music system.

They don’t write songs like that anymore, I commented, and have been singing it ever since. Except that I only knew the chorus: “Cheer up, sleepy Jean, Oh what can it mean, to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen.”

What on earth did that mean? I mean Davy Jones sang it. I had to look up the lyrics and found an explanation in an interview with the song’s writer John Stewart, in which he explained the singer was the daydream believer and sleepy Jean was his girlfriend, the homecoming queen.

Confusion often reigns in song lyrics that are misinterpreted or misheard.

People have been singing the wrong words in the shower for decades.

Some think Johnny Nash could see clearly now Lorraine has gone (instead of the rain has gone); they may have wondered about the Police confessing to “a massage in a brothel” (message in a bottle); and wonder why Jimi Hendrix in Purple Haze said: “Scuse me while I kiss this guy” (kiss the sky).

Jimi Hendrix - kissing this guy?

Way back in the 1960s, every wannabee hippy had the record of the musical Hair and revelled in it being the Age of Aquarius. But young newcomers to this period of enlightenment think the chorus is actually: “This is the dawning of the Age of Asparagus.” I blame all the cookery programmes on television.

Abba’s Dancing Queen has come in for more than its fair share of adulteration: “Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tangerine” (instead of tambourine) and “see that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.” Which is hardly in the spirit of the good natured, squeaky clean Swedish pop stars.

There have been many others over the years: Crystal Gayle’s “doughnuts make my brown eyes blue,” Dylan’s “the ants are my friends and they’re blowing in the wind” and Kenny Rogers lamenting: “You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, with 400 children and a crop in the field.” Kenny actually sang about four hungry children, not 400.

It’s not just pop songs that suffer: all of a sudden Rudolf had a new rival when Olive came on the scene: “Olive (all of) the other reindeer”; and children singing a hymn changed the line: “gladly the cross I’d bear” to “Gladys the cross-eyed bear.”

Getting words wrong, of course, can start in childhood, as these two classics from youngsters at prayer testify: “The Father, the Son and the Holy Toast” (possibly said at breakfast) and “Our Father who art in heaven, Howard be thy name.”

I rather like the idea of God being called Howard.