(I thought of the following after the edit window closed.)
The character singing Marie has some of the same awkwardness that the singer of Your Song has, although in a much darker vein. In the second verse he praises Marie with some rather unpoetical metaphors:
You’re the song that the trees sing
When the wind blows
You’re a flower, you’re a river
You’re a rainbow.
No serious poet or lyricist would put these words down in a love song. I think of them as “dumb-guy poetry.” But in their unadorned simplicity and plainness they have a honest beauty that’s rather startling.
He then goes on to confess a whole string of sins that no one else has ever admitted in a love song:
Sometimes I’m crazy, but I guess you know,
And I’m weak and I’m lazy, and I hurt you so
And I don’t listen to a word you say.
When you’re in trouble, I turn away.
But he redeems himself (or tries) the only way he knows how:
But I loved you the first time I saw you,
And I always will love you, Marie.