# Help Identify This Song

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-identify-this-song/403304>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 8, 2007, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-identify-this-song/403304 "2007-05-08T21:27:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-identify-this-song/403304/1 "2007-05-08T21:27:21Z")

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I have a couple of lines of a song running through my head that for the life of me I can’t identify the song. I think it was from the 70s (ok I’m old). It was a male singer. Possibly Cat Stevens or Leonard Cohen, but I could well be wrong about that.

Anyway they lines are -  
“If you were we, what would you?  
Don’t tell me I don’t need you to,  
It won’t help me now.”

Any help to save my sanity, much appreciated.

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**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-identify-this-song/403304/2 "2007-05-08T21:30:10Z")

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Check here:

[http://www.strawbsweb.co.uk/lyrics/nearfely.asp](http://www.strawbsweb.co.uk/lyrics/nearfely.asp)

Maybe “down by the sea”?

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-identify-this-song/403304/3 "2007-05-08T21:34:41Z")

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Elton John [If You Were Me](http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Elton-John/If-You-Were-Me.html) (more recently remade by Lindsay Lohan)

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**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-identify-this-song/403304/4 "2007-05-08T21:39:18Z")

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[QUOTE=wasson]  
Check here:

> **[STRAWBS ALBUMS](https://www.strawbsweb.co.uk/lyrics/nearfely.asp)**

Maybe “down by the sea”?  
[/QUOTE]

Damn, you did it in 3 minutes, I have been wracking my brains for about 3 weeks for this. Now you say it I remember it. I have the album “Bursting At the Seams” which is where I first heard it.

I wrote a poem using those lines as a starting point. I recently found the poem again and recognised that those lines were from a song, I just couldn’t remember which one.

Thanks muchly.