From the Sound of Music:
“La, a note to follow sol.”
Lazy, lazy, lazy, and annoys me every time.
Just for the cliche of it all, or for some other reason?
This morning I heard “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn, and I remembered that I’ve always hated the line, “walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale”. There are just too many feet in it. Besides, if Beale Street is so special, picture this: You could walk right on it! :eek:
That reminds me, Walking In Memphis also contains the line *"But do I really feel the way I feel?
*
Yes you do.
But does he? Really?
I’ve been convinced of that, too. Listening to the song on the radio, it isn’t clear, and alternate repeats of the line sound opposite to me. Of course, there are plenty of goofy Beatles lyrics, so feel free to mock.
+1
snort
Well, it’s the Man in the Moon that disappeared, not the Moon, so the location of the Moon isn’t exactly relevant, as the Man in the Moon is an optical illusion. I’m not sure how the illusion disappeared in the stratosphere - or why he cites Haley’s comet (as opposed to any generic comet).
It’s a metaphor for holding onto the feeling of being 16, the feeling of youth, not necessarily about the actual age.
The complaint seems to be that the song is lamenting 1 case of misjustice, and pretending that that 1 case of misjustice is somehow unique and the only blemish on an otherwise spotless record. It ignores the history of lynching and such based upon racial lines, where many an innocent man was murdered by a mob. It’s not that the protagonists of the song must be white, it’s that injustice sure happened more than just that one night.
Nope, “real estate novelist”. Cite:
Cite of a cite, without an active link to original, but there you go.
No, the case is a alternative condition that is proposed. “Were” would be correct, grammatically.
“That” isn’t a contradiction to “anything”?
Eh, it’s a common enough way to speak, to personify inanimate objects in order to make them the subject of a sentence. I grant you that wounds do not rush anywhere, so that simile is busted, but there is no problem with personifying “Big Circumstance” (whatever that is) and saying that it looms like a train (bearing down on you and you are stuck on the track), nor recognizing anything to distract it (not stopping for anything). And “compass rose” relates to the way a typical depiction of a compass with actual points at the significant directions, like
http://a07015.uscgaux.info/Compass.jpg
I had one that I can’t recall at the moment.
Very cliched–and the former is rather an obvious well, duh.
Once in a while, you can do something with it–the Doors’ “Woke up this morning and I got myself a beer” is a pretty succinct way of saying “Jim, you’ve got a problem,” for example.
“He’s drunk, Jim.”
Semisonic has a song called “Chemistry,” which features this gem:
“All about chemistry
Won’t you show me everything you know
Ah wonder what you do to me
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh”
Dylan practically invented WTF lyrics. Here’s some from Desolation Row.
Here comes the blind commissioner
They’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortune-telling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the doorknob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
I love it, though!
That’s always annoyed me, too, and while out walking today, it occurred to me that it could have been “La, the French for the, you know” (those last two words are rather contrived), or “La, it means the in Bordeaux.” Either beats what Oscar Hammerstein wrote.
So thanx for providing the inspiration (finally!) to answer the question “Well, how would you write it, then?”
Damnit, Bones, I am the Lizard King, not a bartender!
Allison Durbin “I have Loved Me a Man” *
“He has my heart tied in his hands”
Yuck - what a visual!
- Its probably a cover
The last half of the middle verse of The Galaxy Songalways jars because of the lack of a rhyme.
Gin Blossoms, “Follow You Down”
The point of the song seems to be saying how devoted he is and will do anything, but then the refrain puts immediate constraints on the trivial things he does all the time, “those I know by heart”.
Um, yeah, you’re so devoted you won’t do anything commonplace. 
What I’ve always hated are words that are only in a song to make a rhyme. For example, from one of my favorite songs “Love Will Find a Way” by YES
Here is my heart
Waiting for you
Here is my soul
I eat at chez nous
:dubious: Really? That’s the best they could come up with?
And one, I’m not sure was ever a single, but another favorite of mine, “Rivers (of the Hidden Funk)” by Joe Walsh
There’s a master plan, or so they say
I’m a patient man. s’il vous plait
Which is why I’ve always hated Neil Diamond’s I Am I Said
to no one there
& no one heard at all
not even the chair
Really? Did you expect the table or lamp hear you as well Neil?
“We don’t need no education”
Well, it might teach you to avoid double negatives.
You think that it might have been part of the point? That pedantry about things like double negatives is a part of society’s effort to kill independent thought? I’m not saying that that is the o sole possible interpretation or that it is the intended message, but I do believe that the intentional violation of that particular “rule” – a rule that does not apply to every register of communcation — makes the message more trenchant.
I was listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown”, and though I’ve heard the song many times before, this time these lyrics caught my ear:
Sometimes I think it’s a shame
when I get feelin’ better
when I’m feelin’ no pain
Why is that a shame? Would he prefer to be feeling worse and in pain?