Listenin' To The Oldies
Heard another great old song recently--Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour." It got me thinking.
The first five syllables of the first verse are "My cherie amour...." The first five syllables of the second verse are (as Stevie sings them) "In a ca-afe." Fine, it works, but I think it would be cooler if he sang "cafe" with two syllables so it would be "In a cafe or..." This would make it rhyme with the start of the first verse. But hey, Stevie wrote it, he can sing it how he wants.
Speaking of the lyric, listen to this in the second verse: "In a cafe or sometimes on a crowded street/ I've been near you, but you never noticed me." I get that she's in her own little world, but is this guy a stalker or what?
One more note. Here's the second line: "My cherie amour, distant as the Milky Way." I don't know how to break it to Stevie, but we're in the Milky Way--you can't get any closer than that.
Regardless, it's a great song. I smile every time I hear it.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:27 AM
3 Comments:
Poetry (and the pop music variant of it) doesn't have to mean, it just has to be. This goes double for love songs (where part of the appeal is that the person in love has gone somewhat loopy from his/her state)
When I was much younger (14 or so) I phonetically spelled the line as "Ma Sharia more" or "Moore" which I thought was either an exotic African American name or something vaguely referential to the Nation of Islam (I had an imperfect understanding of life in the city beyond the burbs).
Either interp I suppose could be lovely as a summer's day depending upon your belief system
I did some research and it turns out originally Stevie wrote the song about a girl he knew in school named Marcia.
People often say the words don't matter, but somehow, "Oh My Marcia" just wouldn't work as well.
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