Well, the singer is going on about how they were meant for each other forever, and how he can’t imagine loving anybody else in his life–but then he throws in the trite question, “How is the weather?” which kind of makes the listener wonder just how serious the singer was with his sentiments.
FWIW, I seem to recall the Turtles took very little seriously. For example, their song “Elinore” contained the line, “You’re my pride and joy et cetera” which you don’t expect to hear in a love song (today’s equivalent would be saying, “Yeah, I love you, yada, yada, yada”); while “She’d Rather Be With Me” started off like any other pop song but towards the end, went for the laughs in timing. I almost expect silly sound effects to be incorporated. And when I caught Flo and Eddie (the 80s incarnation of the Turtles) in an oldies revival about twenty years ago, they sure weren’t taking themselves seriously.
Bewildered, Bewildered, you have no complaint
You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up, Buster, and listen up good,
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood Signed, Dear Abbey
If that doesn’t do it for you, maybe you can just listen to the song. The line that follows it is “Makes you give in and cry”. Wouldn’t make much sense to say “But in this ever changing world makes you give in and cry”, would it?
It’s pretty clear he’s saying “But if this ever-changing world in which we’re livin’ makes you give in and cry, say live and let die.”
I don’t know about the Guns 'N Roses version, but, I’ve queued the original song up, listened to that line over and over and no, it’s not clear. There’s no “r” sound there that you’d need for “we’re.”
Millions of people don’t hear what you say is “pretty clear,” which suggests it’s not. The first part is definitely “But IF this,” that I buy. The last part absolutely does sound like “in which we live in.” There’s nothing there that sounds like “we’re livin,” not either time it’s sung.
Nothing wrong with my ears. If Sir Paul meant to sing “in which we’re livin’,” he should have taken the marbles out of his mouth.
shrug I have no idea why people get so worked up over this. I can’t help it if you’re not hearing what he’s saying, but what I meant by “pretty clear” is that the following line makes it pretty clear. It wouldn’t even be artistic license to make a sentence like “In this everchanging world in which we live in, makes you give in and cry.”. It just wouldn’t be English.
I was referring to the fact that Cosmic Relief used an ellipsis and left out the important part, one that might help him (and you) realize the true line.
Remember also that “Elinore” appeared on an album called “Battle of the Bands,” an album on which the Turtles lampooned the sounds of 12 different pop or rock artists.
“Elinore,” as I understand it, was written as a parody of the Turtles themselves!