Tag Archives: song lyrics

August 6, 2010 · 8:13 am

Sounds easy enough

You’ve seen me refer to the Fake AP Stylebook before. The group puts out funny little comments about language every day on Facebook and Twitter. If you don’t use these, you can go elsewhere to see some great examples. Some really get me thinking.

Case in point:  A recent post observed, “there/their/they’re – What, seriously? This confuses you?”

I have never had trouble distinguishing among the three. I don’t find it confusing at all. But it’s not because I’m good at remembering rules necessarily; otherwise, I’d have gotten this bring-versus-take thing down long ago.

What I realized is that it says something about the way my brain works.

When I hear and when I speak, I see the words written out. I suppose this means I am a visual learner or perhaps a visual thinker. I envision words as they are spelled. Maybe that’s why I have such a sensitive ear when it comes to pronunciation. If people saw “sherbet,” maybe they wouldn’t say “sherbert.”

Like the Fake AP Stylebook, when I see there/their/they’re confused, I am tempted to wonder how anyone can get it wrong. I also wonder how anyone graduated from second grade without mastering it, but perhaps I’m too quick to judge.

“There,” “their” and “they’re” are homonyms. They sound exactly the same. It’s no wonder people who are not visual learners might be homonymphobic.

If we had to spell according to how words sound (“sound it out,” we were always told), especially in this confusing language we call English, how can we be expected to commit the difference to paper?

Maybe I can offer some tips.

Let’s start with “there.” “There” is often the answer to “where?” “Where are my glasses? There they are.” On top of my head, usually. So that one’s easy:  Where?  There! Spelled the same (after their respective consonant digraphs).

“They’re” is a contraction of “they” and “are.” Until I had a baby, I thought contractions were easy. You begin with what you are (you’re) trying to say and shorten it; for example, “They are” doing something. With a contraction, typically a letter and a space come out, an apostrophe goes in and, voilà, two words become one. In a sense, they’re getting married. To use song lyrics as a prompt, “They’re Playing Our Song” or, for readers of my generation, “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa.” By now they probably are.

I haven’t come up with a tip for “their.” Maybe you have one. For now, let’s just say it’s the other one, and remember, “i” before “e” except after “c.”  Oops, and except in “their.”

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August 5, 2010 · 8:09 am

Girl power

Thirty-six hours after the concert, I still have an estrogen hangover. Make no mistake, that’s a good thing. 

The night before last, I had primo seats and VIP privileges at the final stop on the Lilith Fair tour, thanks to some well connected friends.

It feels like years since I’ve been to a concert. I was just glad they didn’t confiscate my Tums at the door.

You will recall that Lilith Fair began in the late 1990s and ran three years as an annual concert celebrating women in music.  Founded by Sarah McLachlan in response to concert promoters’ alleged bias against all-women shows, Lilith Fair featured women solo artists and women-led bands. After 10 years, Lilith Fair resumed this summer and culminated its multi-city tour in the Washington area  Tuesday night. Truly, it was music of women, by women and for women. 

I have nothing against male musicians—in fact, I have secret crushes on many of them—but it’s a rare and stirring experience to wallow in the glory of one’s gender on a sultry evening, enjoying a cold beverage under the stars, in the company of terrific people of both genders.

Following a number of smaller acts appearing throughout the afternoon, the main stage kicked off with Sara Bareilles, new to the Fair and white hot these days, who opened with several familiar hits. She was followed by Cat Power, whom  I didn’t know, but are in the very large cyber-basket I carried out of iTunes yesterday.

For me, the treat of the night was getting to hear Martie Maguire and Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks, performing as their new group Court Yard Hounds.  They dazzled the audience with their strings (fiddle, mandolin and banjo) and earth-moving vocal harmonies. Best line of the night: “The Dixie Chicks stay at The Ritz. The Court Yard Hounds stay at Motel 6.”

Indigo Girls sprayed a geyser of energy into the pavilion, finishing up with my—and I think everyone’s—favorite singalong, “Closer to Fine.” Then Sarah McLachlan brought it home with a set comprising her classic cry-in-your-chamomile ballads and more upbeat selections from her new record. Whether she’s at the piano, burning up the guitar or demonstrating one of the richest voices in the business today, every one of her songs stirs emotion.

As a student of song lyrics, it struck me at the time how many appealed uniquely to the female spirit. I don’t intend sexism, but I also don’t suspect many men think, let alone sing, “Your love is better than chocolate.” (Maybe “your love is better than a Chipotle double meat burrito with extra guacamole”)

For the finale, Sarah invited all of the preceding acts—and their crews—on stage, where they sang “Because the Night,” written by Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. It was fitting for the last words of the last song in the last show in what I hope isn’t the last Lilith Fair tour, to be “because the night belongs to us.”

I expect my next hangover will arrive with my iTunes bill.

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July 5, 2010 · 8:11 am

The Boss

Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. 

(Belmar, actually, but I wanted to open with the name of the album.)

It’s been many years since I’ve been to this stretch of the Jersey Shore.  Some good friends were kind enough to invite us to join them for the holiday weekend.  We are thrilled to see them and to be back “down the shore,” in that order.

This is hallowed ground for fans of Bruce Springsteen.  And I am definitely one.

In the summer of 1975, having never heard of him, I saw Springsteen perform at a concert hall in Norfolk, Va., and my life was forever changed.  The Born to Run album had just come out and, to a girl of fifteen, Bruce’s energy and stage presence were electrifying.  Once I knew what he was actually singing, I was inspired. 

It can be hard to understand Bruce when he sings but, within no time after the concert, I had the album and was reading and memorizing the lyrics.  That, boys and girls, was back when an album cover was large enough to print all the lyrics in readable type.

At fifteen, I was already disillusioned with the sappy pop music of Top 40 radio.  The Captain and Tennille just didn’t capture the pain and angst that kids my age were feeling.

But Bruce?  No candy coating there, his songs were real.  They were life in the streets and broken hearts and hard knocks.  They ripped your heart out and offered hope at the same time.

I’ve always considered Bruce Springsteen a modern poet.  On this occasion of my visit here, I’d like to share some of my favorite of his lyrics.

From the song, “For You”

We were both hitchhikers but you had your ear tuned to the roar
of some metal-tempered engine on an alien, distant shore

From “Growin’ Up”

I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch
I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and came out with my soul untouched

From “Thunder Road” 

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street, your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn, you hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they’re gone, on the wind, so Mary climb in
It’s a town full of losers, and I’m pulling out of here to win

From “Jungleland”

In the parking lot the visionaries dress in the latest rage
Inside the backstreet girls are dancing to the records that the DJ plays
Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners desperate as the night moves on
Just one look and a whisper, and they’re gone. 

I’m going to sign off now.  I have a lump in my throat.

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April 27, 2010 · 5:25 am

The ants are my friends

They’re blowing in the wind.

Mondegreens.  What a cool name for a mistake.

The term reportedly was coined in 1954, in Sylvia Wright’s “The Death of Lady Mondegreen,” published in Harper’s Magazine.  In the essay Wright wrote that, as a child, she misheard a line in a ballad and subsequently sang “and Lady Mondegreen,” instead of “and laid him on the green.”

Ten years before there was a term for it, a novelty song based on the concept had listeners all over the world singing:   “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.”

Humor columnist Dave Barry wrote occasionally about such matters.  I remember one in particular that appealed to my inner Sylvia Wright.  The song was “Help Me Rhonda.”  For those of the Beach Boys generation, stop and think; can you sing the first line?  Here’s a hint.  It begins with “Since you put me down…”  Barry felt compelled to point out that the second part is not, “there’ve been owls puking in my bed.” I am still not sure what the lyrics really are because the liner notes make no sense.  Puking owls make more sense.

There are plenty of other famous mondegreens:  CCR’s “there’s a bathroom on the right” and Jimi Hendrix’ “’scuse me while I kiss this guy.”  And everyone loves that favorite Christmas carol, “Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly.”

I had a friend in college who sang The Police’s “Canary in a Coal Mine,” as “Mary in a coma.”

Another told of her little brother singing “Cracklin’ Rosie peed on the floor.”

And who can’t name two mondegreens in the same line of Manfred Man’s “Blinded by the Light?”  Please keep those to yourselves, as this is a family blog.

Anyone have any clean ones?

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April 17, 2010 · 8:16 am

Poetic license suspension

It’s tough duty being a fan of good word usage and classic rock. 

I spent my formative years in front of the radio, appreciating the Great Poets of my time—Elton John, Jackson Browne, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt, to name a few.  To this day, the lyrics of the 60s and 70s occupy most of my cranial hard drive, leaving room for little else.

While so many of the classic lyrics are nothing short of pure poetry, there are some that still assault my ears like teeth on a fork.  I am betting you have a few examples of your own.

Now I’m not talking about the obvious no-no’s that give rock music its character.  This may come as a surprise, but I’ve got no beef with “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”  “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” happens to be one of my favorite songs ever.  And a phrase from The Vogues’ “Five O’Clock World” — “livin’ on money I ain’t made yet” — has become my personal tagline.

Further, I have less of a problem with liberties taken to force a meter or a rhyme than I do lyrics that their writers assumed correct, or likely deemed smart-sounding.  If only for their place just under the radar, there is a small sampling of well-known lines that mustn’t in good conscience go unchallenged.

So, at the risk of offending fellow fans of some of the greatest artists of my generation, I must take issue with:

“Touch Me” by the Doors – “til the stars fall from the sky for you and I”

“Heard It in a Love Song” by the Marshall Tucker Band – “I was born a wrangler and a rounder and I guess I always will”

“Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney – “But if this ever-changing world in which we live in…”

I plan to someday write in this forum about lyrics I do find poetic and will ask you to share your favorites, irrespective of the genre.

But for now, what’s your lyrical peeve?

Reminder:  Word Nymph rests on Sunday but welcomes (and reads) your comments.

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April 16, 2010 · 7:54 am

Boogie on down the road

We’ve taken a lot of road trips lately, Rosebud and I.  I’ve never been one to name an inanimate object such as a car or anything else, but iTunes makes you give your iPod a name when you register it.  Anyway, mine’s Rosebud; I’ll just trust everyone knows the origin.

In the car I have been listening to Rosebud’s entire song list, more than 1,000 songs in all, in alphabetical order.  No play lists, genre affinities or artist groupings.  I am enjoying the way in which the random play renders no noticeable theme or pattern, except that multiple songs begin with the same word. 

Yesterday, songs beginning with “Boogie” carried me a good long way down the New Jersey Turnpike.  Which got me thinking.  Now that I have overanalyzed my magazine rack, and enjoyed the comments on yesterday’s post, I will turn to search for meaning in my MP3.

Does the fact that 61 songs on my iPod begin with “I” or “my” but only 31 begin with “you” or “your” make me an egoist?  Does the fact that I have as much Mormon Tabernacle Choir as I do heavy metal make me schizophrenic?

What other words dominate my song titles?  Setting aside “how,” “what,” “when,” “where,” subordinating conjunctions and other minor words, I watched for a theme to emerge.   “Love” popped most prominently but that’s no surprise.  Except on the devices of a few evil souls, Love dominates everyone’s iPod.  So let’s take Love out of the equation, just for balance.

What’s left in my top five?  “Boogie” to be sure, along with “dance,” “rock,” “crazy” and “bad.”

In the absence of any logical conclusion, I leave it to Avril Lavigne, who sums it up aptly in “Anything but Ordinary,” as she observes, “Sometimes I get so weird, I even freak myself out.”

Note:  After another brief look at song lyrics tomorrow, Word Nymph will turn to another topic.  At least until she is On the Road Again.

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