The A to Z Challenge 2017 was successfully conquered on all of my blogs and I took a month off from writing to recharge (posting four entries almost every day can be draining), but it's time to get back into the swing of things in regards to our regularly scheduled program. And that means Mandela Monday!

Ironically enough, last week a discussion about the Mandela Effect phenomenon came up with friends when I kept referring to KitKats as being an evil non-hyphenated candy. Almost everyone thought they remembered the hyphen at one point, thinking it simply a change in logo/branding; not that it never existed ever. This in turn lead to discussing the Mandela Effect (ME), mostly touching on movies and music. The latter subject prompted today's entry.

In Part 10 of my Con[CERN]ing the Mandela Effect series, I highlighted a song by the band Queen (covered in my Generation Jak A to Z 2017) which has been cited as changing. Here was the question from that fourth ME quiz:

Queen - "We Are the Champions" - What are the final words of the iconic song?

Is the song how you remember it? Was there anything different? Specifically with how it ended?

When it comes to song lyrics, my friends and I discussed how sometimes it's hard understanding exactly what a performer is saying. Their voice isn't always clear, whether drowned out in music, impeded by an accent, or even simply the chosen singing style. If you don't have the official lyrics printed inside a cassette/CD jacket (or elsewhere), it's up to the masses to discern what is being sung. More so, once you have it in your head that you think you have said lyrics correct, you can't help but hear it sung that way, even if not correct.

When it comes to Queen, however, it's more than just a misunderstood lyric or a replaced word. Many people affected by the phenomenon swear that the ending of the song has changed. That a pivotal climaxed ending ("Of the World") has been completely removed.

Here is what may be residual evidence of others having remembered the song ending the way they do, either influenced creatively or otherwise:

Here we have The Simpsons again, a show somehow intertwined quite regularly with the Mandela Effect and residual evidence.

There are some more recent examples from the song being featured and/or covered on more popular late night TV talk shows as well.

Only a handful sung "Of the World" at the end of Jimmy Fallon's montage cover.

With James Corden's carpool karaoke, however, everyone was struck with confusion over the ending of the song missing the lyrics! Are they all unknowingly experiencing the phenomenon? What factors may be playing a role in people misremembering the end of "We Are the Champions"?

There is a factor of Freddie Mercury singing the end of the song differently during some of Queen's live performances, in which he does add "Of the World"...

Could these live performances (which I'm assuming were made into Live CDs?) be the main culprit behind so many remembering the end of the song differently? Were they so popular that that were more dominant than the studio recording/album of "We Are the Champions"?

There are plenty who swear up and down that they've never seen Queen live and/or heard live versions and remain adamant that they are only referencing Queen's 1977 studio album, News of the World.

I personally remember "Of the World" at the end, but is my brain just formulating that in tandem with the recognition of the lyrics being repeated other times earlier in the song in the same fashion? Has most of my exposure to the song come from live performance recordings featured in media and elsewhere, being unaware of it not being the official studio version?

Is this a Mandela Effect and all of these live performances and covers/influences potential residual evidence of a timeline/parallel Universe that's been altered or lost completely?!

Was "We Are the Champions" how you remembered it? Was "Of the World" never sung at the end of the song on the studio recording of News of the World? Have you ever seen Queen live? Do you think that live performances and media sources featuring the song sung with "Of the World" at the end of the song (like covers via The Voice, American Idol, etc) play a large role in people misremembering the end of the song? What about those who haven't been exposed to those sources?

Have you found any different residual evidence associated with the subject matter above?