Funny!
"I’m gonna run around with dessert spoons" (Never gonna run around and desert you) and "your aunt’s been naked" (Your heart’s been aching) are just two of the rib-cracking misheard lyrics people with hearing loss have lived with for years while delaying seeking help.
The lines come from a 1987 hit song by Rick Astley, a good sport now living with hearing loss himself, who re-recorded Never Gonna Give You Up as part of a Specsavers publicity tickler to boost awareness. Watch the singer re-recording The Misheard Version of Never Gonna Give You Up here.
It’s funny. Do it, and get the right lyrics so you can examine the difference. With more than 12k YouTube views, it seems the ploy is achieving.
“You wouldn’t catch nits from any other guy” (…get this from any other guy) is another of the lines Astley resang while trying to keep a straight face. He’s not laughing, however, about his hearing loss. “I’ve noticed my hearing changing over time so recently had a hearing test at Specsavers. It showed I have some hearing loss, which I was not fully aware of. It’s probably a result of playing the drums as a kid and working in the music industry, so they’ve given me my first hearing aids,” Astley explains.
Specsavers research found that Rick’s hit is one of the UK’s top ten most misheard songs. The research also found that one in six blame mishearing song lyrics on struggling to hear properly, despite over half (56%) confessing to never testing. Half of people find conversations with background noise difficult (51%) and over a quarter (28%) say they can’t hear the TV or radio properly.
Specsavers audiologist Gurleen Brar, who conducted Rick’s hearing test, comments: “We believe that everyone deserves to hear life in their own unique way and we are determined to help close the 10-year gap that exists currently.”
Source: Specsavers. One Poll survey carried out by Specsavers among 2,000 UK adults in September 2023
