S/FJ

GRAMMAR IN POPULAR MUSIC

1. Avril Lavigne's “Sk8ter Boi” contains the lines "He wasn't good enough for her/Now he's a super star,/slamming on his guitar." Bing! Someone over the age of 30 was involved in writing this song. One: The idea that a boy wouldn't be good enough for a girl is the kind of low-affect feminism that someone of my generation might write into a song, but it isn't a common sentiment in chart pop now. (Watch this space for a parsing of Exit To Eden, a movie that simply wouldn't be made the same way now. [It's terrible, but that's not the point.]) Two: "Slamming" hasn't been current since Prince's 1987 single "U Got The Look," which contains the couplet "Your face is jammin'/Your body's hecka-slammin'." (Say it to someone you love today.) This profile confirmed my guess that The Matrix are my contemporaries. I assumed that affection for Prince and need of a rhyme led to use of "slamming" but I did not know that "Sk8ter Boi" is the story of Lauren Christy's and Graham Edwards's romance. This is totally adorable.

2. From the same album as "U Got The Look," Prince's "I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man” starts with this awakward couplet: "It was only last June when her old man ran away/She couldn't stop cryin' 'cause she knew he was gone to stay." Reversing the direction established by The Matrix reaching back to the 80s, I rewrite these words in the present vernacular every time I hear the song: "It was only last June when her old man left the hood/She couldn't stop crying 'cause she knew he was gone for good." It bears mentioning that this song is mighty and perfect and I have no right to even think this way.

3. Kelly Rowland’s “Stole”. This entire song could use a high school English re-think. Stole = lame use of non-standard English. Fitted in = big fat limpy. Line reading can make any word choice the right choice, Strunk & White be damned, but this song sounds as bad as it reads.

Posted by Sasha at November 4, 2003 12:34 PM | TrackBack