Oh yeah, it is definitely strange, but given how many times things that have come up as Mandela Effects fall under this "I thought it was one way when I was a kid in the 80s, and can remember the exact point where I realized my assumptions were wrong", makes me think there's absolutely a subset that fall strictly under "your memory codifier might be wrong".

As for this one, in 5th grade we ended up singing the song, and while they did change the lyrics in a hilarious manner for some lines (for example "children of thalidomide" became "people using road map quides", whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean) the Ayatollah line was not one of them. I had to ask my parents what an Ayatollah was.

I didn't get a really satisfactory answer that made a whole lot of sense to me at 10, but still. I recall that exact event, my parents and my brother (who also had this song in 4th grade, same year same confusion which definitely came from me explaining shit to him) recall most of those events.