Song lyrics I got wrong (Billy Joel)

I was listening to Billy Joel this morning.  Some songs played that I used to hear as a kid, when my brother had Billy Joel's "Innocent Man" tape.

There's a line in "Tell Her about It" where Joel sings

give her every reason
to accept that you're for real

As a kid, I thought it was either "accept that Joe for real" (like the singer is just an ordinary Joe) or "accept that chump for real" (like the singer was a, well, chump).  In retrospect, those interpretations appear to be stupid.

From the same album comes the most hated Billy Joel song of all time, "Uptown Girl," which was naturally my favorite as a little kid.  The line in question goes

but maybe someday when my ship comes in
she'll understand what kind of guy I've been

Now.  As a wee bairn I was not familiar with the phrase "when one's ship comes in," so I was at a bit of a loss to translate that line.  I came up with two possibilities.  The first was "when my **** comes in," which sounded like something my mom would say.  It didn't make much sense, but had the advantage of being profane, which was certainly exciting.  The fact that the song was a radio hit, however, made me doubt that particular solution.

What I went with was "someday when my shirt comes in," which made sense to me because at that point in history my family was getting all of our clothes from the Sears catalogue.  It was a big deal with "shirts came in," because that meant we got new clothes.  Someone whose shirt had come in was certainly a better catch than someone wearing old clothes.

There's also a line in that song about "white breaded world" or "white threaded world" that I still haven't figured out.