History Main / RefrainFromAssuming

** "A Hymn to Him" from ''Theatre/MyFairLady'' is sometimes referred to by the first line of its refrain, "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?" [[NonAppearingTitle The real title never appears in the song.]]

** [[NonAppearingTitle At no time are the words "chop suey" ever mentioned]] in "Chop Suey", which may well explain why it's been called "When Angels Deserve to Die". Those words are the last line of the refrain, though; and it seems to be part of the central meaning to the song's lyrics. Also there's "Wake Up!", "I Don't Think You Trust," and "Self-Righteous Suicide" for that song. The working title was "Suicide", hence [[ThrowItIn the engineer saying "We're rolling 'Suicide'"]] at the start of the recording. Still, it isn't "Self-Righteous Suicide".

* "The Impression That I Get" by Music/TheMightyMightyBosstones is sometimes mistakenly called "Never Had To Knock On Wood". Both phrases are in the chorus, it's just that the latter is the catchier part of it.

* Fetty Wap's "679" has the title appear exactly once (in the third verse), but may be known as "Wonder When She'll Be Mine" or "Got This Sewed Up" (both lines in the chorus).
** Similarly, Fetty Wap's "Trap Queen" is sometimes known as "Hey! What's Up? Hello!" (the opening that has been [[MemeticMutation memed]] ''a lot'') or "I Get High with My Baby" (the line that opens hook).

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E14NewKidsOnTheBlecch New Kids on the Blecch]]," the song featured in Bart's boy band, the Party Posse's, music video is called "Drop Da Bomb." It's more commonly known to fans as "Yvan eht Nioj" due to [[spoiler:the [[SdrowkcabSpeech backwards lyrics]] meant to hypnotize people into joining the Navy]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E14NewKidsOnTheBleech New Kids on the Bleech]]," the song featured in Bart's boy band, the Party Posse's, music video is called "Drop Da Bomb." It's more commonly known to fans as "Yvan eht Nioj" due to [[spoiler:the [[SdrowkcabSpeech backwards lyrics]] meant to hypnotize people into joining the Navy]].

* Music/The Bee Gees don't have a song called "Mr. Jones" or "Have You Seen My Wife, Mr. Jones?", the song is called "New York Mining Disaster 1941". It's worth noting that the ''actual'' title appears nowhere in the song.

* The most iconic song from the Music/GooGooDolls is called "Iris", not "I Just Want You To Know Who I Am" or "I Don't Want The World To See Me". Though, to be fair, the title isn't mentioned anywhere in the song, nor does it have anything to do with [[Film/CityOfAngels the movie it was written for]].
** If you've been to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and seen their ice skating show ''Turn It Up!'', you might think the song that played at the end of said show was the same. Instead it's "Over and Over".

* Music/{{Sum 41}}:

->''"I wish I had the fucking sense to change the name of the song. 'I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well' is what everybody calls it."''
-->-- '''[[Music/HarveyDanger Sean Nelson]]''', on "Flagpole Sitta"

->''"I wish I had had the fucking sense to change the name of the song. 'I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well' is what everybody calls it."''

As a general rule, if the song title is given as "Phrase 1 (Phrase 2)", it's probably this type of song. Phrase 1 is the official title and Phrase 2 is the line that repeatedly appears in the lyrics that everyone ''thinks'' is the title. Or sometimes the other way around, which apparently represents the musicians giving up and titling the song what everyone calls it anyway, but retaining their original title in parenthetized form.

* Cinderella doesn't have a song called "Last Train Out of My Heart". That would be the title track to ''Heartbreak Station'', a phrase which is not in the song's lyrics.
* Cinnamons and Evening Cinema's popular [=TikTok=] song is titled "Summertime" instead of "Kimi no Toriko".
* The words "Train in Vain" [[NonAppearingTitle never appear in]] Music/TheClash's song of that name. It's commonly known as "Stand by Me" for lyrics that ''do'' appear in the song. (The title is probably a reference to the Music/RobertJohnson classic "Love in Vain".) Part of the problem with this example is that it [[HiddenTrack wasn’t on the track listing]] for Music/LondonCalling due to being hastily added after the album sleeves were already produced.

* Music/Fun's most well known song is called "We Are Young", not "Fire", "Tonight" or "I'll Carry you Home Tonight".

* Mike Posner's 2016 comeback hit is not called "High Like Me", "Sad Songs", "All I Know Are Sad Songs" or anything like that. It's called "I Took a Pill in Ibiza" (or simply "In Ibizia"), which is the very first line of the song and said nowhere else.

* Even many die-hard Music/{{Rush}} fans will mistakenly refer to "Red Barchetta" as "Ride Like the Wind".

* Zig-zagged to hell and back with "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)", which has been officially and unofficially referred to by three different titles derived from lyrics in the chorus. The original recording by Merry Clayton, titled "It's in His Kiss", faded into obscurity after failing to chart. The most well-known version by Betty Everett released a year later as "The Shoop Shoop Song" to avoid losing sales to Ramona King's version [[DuelingWorks which had released just a week prior]]. Then it went ''back'' to being known as "It's In His Kiss" when Linda Lewis released her disco version in 1975; it wasn't until Cher's 1990 cover for the ''{{Film/Mermaids}}'' soundtrack that the world finally settled on "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)" as the definitive way to refer to the song. That doesn't stop people from erroneously mistaking one version's name for the other, however.

* In 1965, Len Barry never did a song called "Like Taking Candy From a Baby." That was "1-2-3." The inverse of the Three Dog Night example several files down, the words (or numbers) "1, 2, 3" are heard only twice, at the very start and during the reprise at the end while "like taking candy from a baby" is repeated in the bridges.

* In 1965, Len Barry never did a song called ":Like Taking Candy From a Baby." That was "1-2-3." The inverse of the Three Dog Night example several files down, the words (or numbers) "1, 2, 3" are heard only twice, at the very start and during the reprise at the end while "like taking candy from a baby" is repeated in the bridges.

** They never did a song called "Entertain Us", nor "Waif Me". The first one's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from ''Music/{{Nevermind}}'' (yes, even that song is called by the wrong name sometimes), the last one is "Rape Me" but the title was altered for Walmart to sell ''Music/InUtero''.[[note]]A few people have also called "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as "Hello, Hello", but in their defense, those are [[SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein just about the only words in the song that you can actually understand]].[[/note]]

* Alvvays's song "In Undertow" is often referred to as "There's No Turning Back".

* Music/BobMarle:

* Music/BobMarley and the Wailers' "Three Little Birds" from ''[[Music/ExodusBobMarleyAlbum Exodus]]'' is often called "Don't Worry About a Thing" or "Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright". The "three little birds" of the title technically get mentioned twice, because both verses of the song are identical, but the chorus is still what sticks in most people's minds more.