Poor grammar in music

James Brown: “It’s Man’s, Man’s Man’s World”

Practically the whole song, but this part especially:

Man thinks of our little baby girls
And the baby boys
Man make them happy 'Cause man makes them toys
And after man make everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man

Tom Lehrer

I always took it as irony on top of irony. I don’t remember if someone told me this, or if I read it, but the fact that the kids singing in that song weren’t allowed to user the improper grammar just makes me chuckle.

I’m sure I’m missing the point, but it should be the conditional “If I were”. As should your second and third sentences. :wink:

Amanda Marshall’s “Beautiful Goodbye”:

Cause I still remember you and* I**
And that beautiful goodbye

Do you ever think of you and** I**
And that beautiful goodbye*
They’re trying so hard for that rhyme that it makes me wince.

I agree. I find this the most egregious example I can think of.

In the context of the preceding lines it makes a modicum of sense - he would be a liar, were he to say to her that they couldn’t get much higher: ergo it is possible for them to get higher.