Monday, April 8, 2024

"Little Girl"

When I listened to Good Times! recently, I noticed a lyrical ambiguity in "Little Girl," specifically in the lines "Cheer up; I'll turn your frown sunnyside up / Come fill your cup."  "Come" could be either a continuation of "I'll" ("I'll turn your frown sunnyside up / [And I'll] come fill your cup") or an imperative that's separate from the preceding line.  The structure of the following verse (with its lines "Stand up; we'll go to town / Go for a ride") suggests the former, but I think the latter is also viable.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

"Me & Magdalena"

A few weeks ago, I happened to read some of the lyrics in Bob Dylan's "Romance in Durango" (from the Desire album), and I noticed the phrase "me and Magdalena" in the first verse:
Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun
Dust on my face and my cape
Me and Magdalena on the run
I think this time we shall escape
Of course, this reminded me of the Monkees song "Me & Magdalena."  The phrase stood out to me because, unless I'm mistaken, it's rather ungrammatical since the pronoun should come last ("Magdalena and me").  I listened to both songs recently, but I don't think there's really any connection between the two aside from this phrase.  While it might be just a coincidental similarity, I thought I'd note it all the same.