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Corrected grammar in song lyrics
- Thread starter dougjwray
- Start date
The erosion of English. Young kids with great creative musical but poor English skills write very catchy (and rather wrong) lyrics that become the words of a generation. Those codified mistakes become the norm shape what everyone accepts as "correct"
devnulljp
Supporting Member
Most of your examples aren't grammar, just use of contractions. And the whole thing about ending a sentence with a preposition applies to Latin but not English.
The ones that get my goat are Lay Lady Lay and Lay Down Sally. It's lie dammit.
The ones that get my goat are Lay Lady Lay and Lay Down Sally. It's lie dammit.
I don't use no double negatives.It's a world of war, famine and tribal hatred. But nothing bothers me more than incorrect grammar in song lyrics.
To feel better, I like to imagine corrected versions. Like...
"I cannot get any... satisfaction..."
"You are nothing but a hound dog... you have never caught a rabbit and you are not a friend of mine..."
"You will not see anything like the mighty Quinn..."
"Dig if you will the picture of you and *ME* engaged in a kiss..."
And, of course...
"Nothing is real... and there is nothing about which to get hung..."
His own father told him it should be "She loves you yes yes yes".
It should be “until you were there”, or possibly “until you came along”. But then the song, in the original context, was sung by a librarian in the midwest, circa 1912, so there’s all sorts of contradictions going on.
Yes, Yes, Yes
“We’d written the song ‘She Loves You’ in the next room, and my dad was in the other room,” McCartney recalled. “So we came in to play it to him [for the] first time.”
Paul said he and Lennon proceeded to sing the tune, including its famous chorus, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” As they sang, his dad listened and nodded along.
McCartney remembered with amusement that when they finished the song, his father said, “Boys … it’s very nice, but couldn’t you sing, ‘She loves you, yes, yes, yes’? … There’s enough of these Americanisms around.”
“We’d written the song ‘She Loves You’ in the next room, and my dad was in the other room,” McCartney recalled. “So we came in to play it to him [for the] first time.”
Paul said he and Lennon proceeded to sing the tune, including its famous chorus, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” As they sang, his dad listened and nodded along.
McCartney remembered with amusement that when they finished the song, his father said, “Boys … it’s very nice, but couldn’t you sing, ‘She loves you, yes, yes, yes’? … There’s enough of these Americanisms around.”
Max Martin is quite militant about using incorrect grammar if it sounds better to him. The most egregious example in Euro-produced pop I can think of is (I think the lyrics were written by Zedd, who is German) in that one Ariana Grande song with the line "now that I've become what I really are" repeated several times in a very exposed spot.
That's just silly, but please do not correct South American metal English from the 1980s. "If you are a false don't entry" are words to live by, because otherwise your correct grammar "will be burned and died".
That's just silly, but please do not correct South American metal English from the 1980s. "If you are a false don't entry" are words to live by, because otherwise your correct grammar "will be burned and died".
I agree about "lay" vs. "lie", but that involves the incorrect choice of words, not incorrect grammar.
Paul McCartney tells the story of writing “She Loves You” with John and when they played it for Paul’s dad he said “that’s a lovely tune, boys, but shouldn’t it be ‘she loves you, yes, yes, yes?’"
FullumMusic
Commercial User
- Oct 13, 2022
- 2,008
- 5,683
- Disclosures
- Audio/Music software developer, contracted with a company you've heard of and deving my own stuff.
Touché. I only correct song grammar, not my own.In the USA, maybe. Proper formal British English (not "British english," by the way) is "different to . . . "
British English uses "different to" and "different from". "Different from" is considered more formal. "Different to" is considered more for spoken language. "Different than" is considered American or just improper. But really, i think most people, even grammarians, don't consider any version much at all to be right or wrong.
Different from, different to or different than ?
Different from, different to or different than ? - English Grammar Today - a reference to written and spoken English grammar and usage - Cambridge Dictionary
In the US people definitely use "different than" the most. When i lived in Scotland, i heard a mix of "different than" and "different to." But Scots English is different from British English, English English, and The Queen's English.
But i think the differentiation is only really made by the most uptight pedantic grammar police, and all three are fine and make perfect sense. Not once have i heard any of the three and not understood the sentence.
About "She Loves You":
I remember that in 1964, "yeah, yeah, yeah" was one of the key things that the old folks seized on when they wanted to ridicule or parody the Beatles. That, and their hair ("Are they boys or girls?") and that horrible, pounding beat!
I remember that in 1964, "yeah, yeah, yeah" was one of the key things that the old folks seized on when they wanted to ridicule or parody the Beatles. That, and their hair ("Are they boys or girls?") and that horrible, pounding beat!
Lyrics are/is the one place that I don't mind these mis-uses of the language. To correct them just does not work and sounds worse than the original problem. For me, it falls under "don't sweat the small stuff".
But doesn't this change the person to whom the line is directed from singular to plural?
