Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are mine alone. If you disagree, I will still respect you even if you’re wrong.
My husband and I were in the car when the song, “Lay, Lady, Lay” came on the radio. I said, “Unbelievable.”
He said, “What is?”
“That Bob Dylan could win a Nobel Prize for Literature and not know the difference between lie and lay. Lay, lady, lay isn’t grammatically correct. Lay means to place something. I’m sure he means lie, recline.”
“Lie, lady, lie wouldn’t sound right.” He’s a fan. Of course he’d stick up for Dylan.
“Everyone would be used to it by now,” I argued. “And I think there’d be less confusion about lie and lay among Bob Dylan fans if he’d done it right.”
He turned off the radio.
And that’s how I ruin music for him and a lot of other people too. I’m a word person. I can’t help but pay attention to lyrics. And not just to the grammar either.
Every time “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” comes on the radio, no matter who I’m with, I say, “I wish that song had a happy ending.” When I hear Carly Simon sing the words, “You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you,” I say, “He may be vain, but he’s right.” Every Christmas, I point out that Celine Dion says “pee-pel” instead of “people” in “Don’t Save It All for Christmas Day.” And every time Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” comes on the radio, I say, “I love everything about that song—except the title and the lyrics.”
“What does that leave,” asked a friend as we drove across town.
“The music! It’s catchy. But doesn’t it concern you that a young boy was left alone in his nursery with Fanny the naughty nanny?”
She said, “Thanks for ruining that one for me.”
Then “Under My Thumb” came on the radio and I accused the Rolling Stones of being misogynists.
“I like that song,” she said.
“So do I. But you wouldn’t want to be under anyone’s thumb would you?”
“No I wouldn’t,” she said. “And I wouldn’t want to take a cross country road trip with you either.”
Just because I editorialize doesn’t mean I don’t like the song. In fact, I usually do. That’s why I’m happy to offer suggestions on how it could be better. For example, one day, I told my husband that while I think Neil Diamond did a really nice job on “I Am…I Said,” I think he got a little lazy when he wrote the words, “no one heard at all. Not even the chair.” “The chair—really? He could have said, “no one was aware” or “nobody cared.”
“And nobody did…except you,” he said.
Frankly, I’m concerned that more people don’t pay attention to song lyrics. Grammar errors, forced rhymes and misogyny seep into everyone’s unconscious while they’re humming along. Someone has to point it out.
That’s why when Norman Greenbaum sings, “Never been a sinner, I never sinned,” in “Spirit in the Sky” I can’t help calling him a liar. And when I hear Gary Puckett sing, “Run girl, you’re much too young girl,” I remind anyone in hearing range that they probably don’t want him hanging around their children. And every time I hear Paul Simon sing, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” I say, “Whatever they were doing down by the schoolyard must be pretty bad if they can’t even say it on the radio. Also, it should be Julio and I.”
Dorothy Rosby is the author of ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate; Holidays, Special Occasions and Other Times Our Celebrations Get Out of Hand and other books. Contact her at www.dorothyrosby.com/contact.