Turns Out We’ve Been Singing Hanson’s ‘MMMbop’ Wrong For The Last 20 Years

Did you know that the chorus to Fedde Le Grand’s ‘Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit’ says “our lovely city,” not “I love this city”? Or that, sadly, the refrain of Father John Misty’s ‘Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings’ is “someone’s gotta help me dig” and not “someone’s got a healthy dick”?

Now there’s another song to add to the pile of misheard lyrics — Hanson’s 1997 single ‘MMMbop’, which we’ve apparently all been butchering for the last 20 years.

The group — who are currently in the middle of a 25th anniversary tour — dropped by Kylie & Jackie O’s radio show in Sydney last week to have a chat ahead of their gig at the Enmore Theatre. After kind of apologising for that controversial roast of Justin Bieber, they dropped the bombshell that heaps of us are fucking up the lyrics to their most famous song.

“Too many people put a ‘wop’ in there,” Zac Hanson told Kyle and Jackie O. “What happens is people go to sing that song and they start making it up as if it’s nonsense. But it’s actually a repetitive part, it came from doo-wop songs. So it’s a background part.”

This is what we should actually be singing:  “Mmmbop, ba duba dop / Ba du bop, ba duba dop / Ba du bop, ba duba dop /Ba du / Yeah-e, yeah!”

I mean, it’s still nonsense, but at least we can now try and sing the right nonsense.