I have seen both 

> Set something on its ear 

and

> Turn something on its ear

to mean *make a surprising change* in a certain area. 

I've been looking for its origins, which google [ngram][1] registers as far back as the 1920s, but have come up dry. Does anyone have any knowledge--etymological or anecdotal--of where this came from and why "ear"? 


  [1]: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=set%20on%20its%20ear,%20turn%20on%20its%20ear&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=