# "Bad" grammar and music: How universal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 17, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786 "2014-08-17T22:49:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/41 "2014-08-22T00:32:48Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > For what it’s worth, I think this would be an interesting Thread topic. It would be awesome if someone would write an OP asking this question. Oh, wait . . . > > Crazy enough, I opened this Thread because I wanted to read a discussion of what the OP (and Thread title) actually asked (yes, yes, I should know better by now). As soon as I read the OP I was betting myself on how long it would take for the thread to get derailed. I won with post #2. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/42 "2014-08-22T00:48:03Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > There’s one from the Doors that I can’t remember but googling around I found these by various artists…[INDENT]“I can’t get no satisfaction” Probably “LA Woman”: “If they say I never loved you You know they are a liar” As for the other examples, I think “I feel well” sounds dumb (or at least non-colloquial), as does “Whom do you love” and “I and Bobby McGee” or “Bobby McGee and I.” ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/43 "2014-08-22T02:11:09Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Probably “LA Woman”: > > “If they say I never loved you > You know they are a liar” > > As for the other examples, I think “I feel well” sounds dumb (or at least non-colloquial), as does “Whom do you love” and “I and Bobby McGee” or “Bobby McGee and I.” With no other context, “Me and Bobby McGee” sounds wrong, but if I said “Who was there?” You might answer, “Well, there was me, and there was Bobby McGee.” If you think about the song, that may be the intention of it. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/44 "2014-08-22T04:53:30Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > As soon as I read the OP I was betting myself on how long it would take for the thread to get derailed. I won with post #2. :smack: Yes. I neglected to carefully read the post, and I owe an apology for that. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/45 "2014-08-22T05:10:13Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The one that always sets my teeth on edge is “Touch Me” by the Doors. > > _'Til the stars fall from the sky, for you and I._ > > Especially since there is a perfectly cromulent way to write the line that says the same thing, correctly: > > _'Til the stars fall to the sea, for you and me._ I made a similar suggestion [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13404080&highlight=fish#post13404080). There are other echoes (prechoes?) of this thread in that one. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/46 "2014-08-22T05:10:22Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > So now I’m wondering: Do song lyrics in other languages subvert their respective rules of grammar like American songs often do? Or is this an American thing likely stemming from the roots of rock and roll in black culture? Haven’t poets been torturing/refining the English language for donkey’s years? I doubt the phenomenon is recent. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/47 "2014-08-22T06:30:31Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > “Me and Bobby McGee” > [/INDENT] “Me and Bobby McGee” is grammatically correct. Every time the title phrase (or anything close to it) actually occurs in the lyric, it is is in the object position. “Bobby McGee and I” would be wrong. Song _titles_ are not (usually) sentences, and thus are not usually, in themselves, either grammatical or ungrammatical. Kris Kristofferson, who wrote “Me and Bobby McGee”, had a B.Phil. in English from Oxford, so he knew what he was doing. 😉 ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ Normal rules of grammar, logic, or even taste and euphony, do not apply to lyrics by the band _America_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/48 "2014-08-22T09:34:02Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > “Me and Bobby McGee” is grammatically correct. Every time the title phrase (or anything close to it) actually occurs in the lyric, it is is in the object position. “Bobby McGee and I” would be wrong. Song _titles_ are not (usually) sentences, and thus are not usually, in themselves, either grammatical or ungrammatical. I haven’t heard the song in years, so I will defer to you that the phrase is always objective. Like I said above, there is nothing inherently wrong with “Me and Bobby McGee”; convention has English speakers put personal pronouns last (Bobby McGee and me), but that is a convention, not a rule. Children are used to saying “Me and So-and-so,” and having their parents correct them with “So-and-so and I,” that they come to think the placement of the personal pronoun is just as important as the nominal form. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/49 "2014-08-22T14:23:31Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > With no other context, “Me and Bobby McGee” sounds wrong, In my dialect, it sounds perfectly fine. For example, a photo of somebody with their dog might be titled “me and my dog” or “me and Spot.” I don’t know very many people who would write “my dog and I” or “Spot and I,” even though they may know it’s more correct. There is something about starting a sentence with the subjective case first person pronoun in a compound subject that just sounds a bit “off” to most speakers in my dialect. You’ll even commonly hear construction like “Me and Bob are going to the store.” That’s very common when you want to put yourself at the head of the sentence. Informal or colloquial? Sure. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/50 "2014-08-22T16:19:36Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > In my dialect, it sounds perfectly fine. For example, a photo of somebody with their dog might be titled “me and my dog” or “me and Spot.” I don’t know very many people who would write “my dog and I” or “Spot and I,” even though they may know it’s more correct. There is something about starting a sentence with the subjective case first person pronoun in a compound subject that just sounds a bit “off” to most speakers in my dialect. You’ll even commonly hear construction like “Me and Bob are going to the store.” That’s very common when you want to put yourself at the head of the sentence. Informal or colloquial? Sure. In the circles I travel (I’ve moved too much to say I have a regional dialect, but I tend to hang out with people with the same colloquialisms, except when I’m hanging out with auto mechanics, and then things pop out of my mouth I’d never expect), people sometimes do want to put themselves first in a sentence, but they will say “I’m going to the store with Bob,” or even “I’m taking Bob to the store.” It depends on who’s driving. As the title of a song, or a picture, there’s nothing wrong with “Me and So-&-so,” but as a sentence fragment, it seems less stand-alone than “So-&-so and I,” even though both are fragments. I guess it’s because the objective fragment could be the beginning of a sentence, the way English is usually spoken (ie, not in the passive voice). ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/51 "2014-08-22T16:39:24Z")
[Is you is or is you ain’t (my baby)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_You_Is_or_Is_You_Ain%27t_My_Baby) just wouldn’t be the same if the grammar were fixed. > [@monstro](#): > > So now I’m wondering: Do song lyrics in other languages subvert their respective rules of grammar like American songs often do? Or is this an American thing likely stemming from the roots of rock and roll in black culture? We may never know… ETA: You know, you should start a thread on that! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/52 "2014-08-22T16:45:34Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > In the circles I travel (I’ve moved too much to say I have a regional dialect, but I tend to hang out with people with the same colloquialisms, except when I’m hanging out with auto mechanics, and then things pop out of my mouth I’d never expect), people sometimes do want to put themselves first in a sentence, but they will say “I’m going to the store with Bob,” or even “I’m taking Bob to the store.” It depends on who’s driving. And in my circles, it sounds perfectly colloquial. Not everyone will use the “me and Bob” type construction, but the majority of my peers would have no issue with it. I’m a bit surprised you don’t come across it very often. Just looking online, it seems to be fairly common. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/53 "2014-08-22T17:40:27Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > And in my circles, it sounds perfectly colloquial. Not everyone will use the “me and Bob” type construction, but the majority of my peers would have no issue with it. I’m a bit surprised you don’t come across it very often. Just looking online, it seems to be fairly common. I didn’t say you were wrong, I just said it hits my ear differently. If someone I converse with regularly used “Me & So-&-so” as a subject, it would be as a joke. Even my seven-year-old doesn’t use that construction. People can use whatever they want colloquially. They need to know that it’s not acceptable in their doctoral dissertation, inaugural speech, or submission to _JAMA_. That’s all I ask. No, I also ask that when one of my doctors writes a letter to another, he make sure all his subjects and verbs match in number, he doesn’t switch from third to second person mid-paragraph, have comma splices, dangling participles, or use “I” in the accusative. (I wish I still had a copy of that letter. Guy was a freaking neurologist, and could barely spell “cat.”) ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/54 "2014-08-22T18:05:11Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > One from John Mellencamp from “Small Town.” > > _No I cannot forget from where it is that I come from._ > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I’ve been to Seymour, Indiana. His high school English teachers probably pronounced “cannot” “cain’t.” He’s doing pretty well. I was actually commenting on the redundant use of the word “from.” It’s like saying, “Cause there ain’t no one there for to give you no pain.” ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/55 "2014-08-22T18:11:16Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > In my dialect, it sounds perfectly fine. For example, a photo of somebody with their dog might be titled “me and my dog” or “me and Spot.” Or me and you and a dog named Boo. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/56 "2014-08-22T18:29:40Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > People can use whatever they want colloquially. They need to know that it’s not acceptable in their doctoral dissertation, inaugural speech, or submission to _JAMA_. That’s all I ask. Absolutely agreed. > [@](#): > > No, I also ask that when one of my doctors writes a letter to another, he make sure all his subjects and verbs match in number, he doesn’t switch from third to second person mid-paragraph, have comma splices, dangling participles, or use “I” in the accusative. (I wish I still had a copy of that letter. Guy was a freaking neurologist, and could barely spell “cat.”) That one, I have a lot more wiggle room on. Some of the most brilliant people I know are just terrible when it comes to that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/57 "2014-08-22T18:43:50Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] Absolutely agreed. [/quote] Actually, I should amend that a bit. I believe it is in everyone’s interest to learn formal “prestige dialect” English because it’s generally a skill better to have and not use than not have. When you submit articles to JAMA or are writing a doctoral dissertation, you have to follow a style guide, and it is expected that you follow these rules. I’m not quite with you on the inaugural speech, though. If the speaker wants to effect a more folksy or colloquial tone, that’s perfectly fine, in my opinion. Anyway, back to “Me and Bobby McGee.” As mentioned above, it’s not even bad grammar in the context of the song. It’s fine as a title (as you admitted), and lyrically, the way it is used in the song, the grammar is correct. Even if it were being used as a subject, it’s a colloquialism, and song lyrics tend not to be high-diction affairs, rather going more for the sound of spoken speech. Plus, you know, “Bobby McGee and I” isn’t exactly euphonious like “Me and Bobby McGee” is. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/58 "2014-08-22T20:01:55Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > No, I also ask that when one of my doctors writes a letter to another, he make sure all his subjects and verbs match in number, he doesn’t switch from third to second person mid-paragraph, have comma splices, dangling participles, or use “I” in the accusative. Do you insist on parallel construction, too? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/59 "2014-08-22T20:10:22Z")
“It sounds more ethnic if it ain’t good English” - Tom Lehrer, Folksong Army ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786/60 "2014-08-22T20:21:07Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Or me and you and a dog named Boo. 😃 And it’s you and me and the bottle makes three tonight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-grammar-and-music-how-universal/695786.md?page=4)