In regards to the Bismarck, Johnny Horton sings of guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees.
“Only time will tell if we stand the test of time.” (Why Can’t This Be Love, Van Halen)
WHAT???
And in their song “Cities”: “Did I forget / Forget to mention Memphis / Home of Elvis and the Ancient Greeks…”
Memphis is in Egypt.
The B-52s inform us that they’ll meet us by the third pyramid about 100,000 years ago.
That’s going to be a long wait.
Although they also sing “Before I talk I should read a book.”
KISS’ “Goin’ Blind” has a couple of grammatical errors:
and
“From me,” dude, “from me.”
… which was home to (some) Ancient Greeks - the Ptolemies - for 300 years.
Maybe not a goof, but it’s always bothered me just a teensy bit whenever I think about it:
In Stevie Wonder’s song “Rocket Love,” he compares a woman’s gracefulness to “symphonies by Bach or Brahms.” Symphonies by Bach, Stevie? Bach didn’t write any symphonies. The symphony, as such, hadn’t been invented yet in Bach’s day.
In Stevie’s defense, there just aren’t that many famous symphonists whose names are one syllable and would thus scan correctly. “Symphonies by Beethoven or Brahms”? “Symphonies by Shostakovich or Brahms”? It just doesn’t fit as well.
And, to be fair, Mr. Wonder could have been referring, not to Johann Sebastian Bach (which is what people usually mean nowadays when they refer to “Bach”), but to one of his sons, like C. P. E. Bach or J. C. Bach (or even P. D. Q. Bach), who have been known to write a symphony or three (albeit slight, early ones).
I’ve mentioned this one before, but it’s worth repeating:
“Coast to coast, L.A. to… Chicago?”
This thread is not complete without mention of Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die:
“…but if this ever changing world in which we live in…”
From Run DMC’s song King of Rock:
And no, this line didn’t reference the fact that there were three living Beatles when it came out. DMC just thought there were only three members of the Beatles.
Now, I’m not a fan at all of the Fab Four, and they were broken up before I was born, but even I know how many people were in the band.
I thought that line was “…but if this ever-changin’ world in which WE’RE livin’ makes you give in and cry…”
America’s Horse With No Name:
“In the desert you can’t remember your name.
'cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.”
Count the grammatical errors in that one.
never mind, looked up the actual lyrics
I’ve tried in the past to give Sir Paulie the benefit of the doubt and accept that this is the real line, but the printed lyrics in the All the Best CD have “in which we live in” right there in black & white.
I think that Guns N’ Roses actually used the corrected line in their cover of the song. I always wondered if Axl might have fixed up the grammar himself.
Frankly only idiots can’t understand the intended meaning of double negatives. the double negative is the proper way of constructing negative sentences in many many languages (including a whole bunch of non-standard English dialects).
I will concede that there are some cases where a double negative is confusing, but these are few and far between and mostly occur in writing. The reason so many of us get twigged out by double negatives is that we’ve been taught they are wrong.
“As God has shown us, by turning stones to bread…” (We Are The World)
Grumble. This was ignorance best left unfought.
I’m gonna pretend I didn’t read this. It’s too disappointing.
This one just sounds wrong- but I’ll need a grammarian to confirm- Barry Gibb singing in “Shadow Dancing”- ‘You are the question and the answer am I’.
Well, that was from Sammy Hagar, who (in one of his solo hists) sang about “hot, sweet cherries on the vine.” He’s got to be tied with Jim Morrison for "least literate lyricist " ever.