Could Be Wrong
Toy Caldwell died February 25th, 1993, only 45 years old. He was a founder of the Marshall Tucker Band and wrote their biggest hit, "Heard It In A Love Song." (I think more country songs need flute solos.) I heard the song recently and decided to actually check out what it said.
Like most people, the only part I really knew was the chorus, which is, in its entirety:
Heard it in a love song
Heard it in a love song
Heard it in a love song
Can't be wrong
I kind of figured the song, then, had something to do with a love song. But this is not a love song. It's about a guy who's leaving his girl. He likes her, but they've been together long enough and it's time to sneak out. So when he sings "heard it in a love song," he's referring, I assume, to one of those sad country "love songs" about moving on. Or is what he's singing the titular love song? Either way, good to know this isn't just another sap-fest.
However, even by the stadards of country music, the grammar is atrocious. For instance, the first couplet:
I ain't never been with a woman long enough for my boots to get old
We've been together so long now they both need resoled
Is he trying to say "they both need to be resoled"? And don't tell me Caldwell didn't have room for the syllables--in general the lines don't scan, and a few times the singer's gotta rush to fit them all in.
Speaking of which, this is from the final verse:
Always something greener on the other side of that hill
I was born a wrangler and a rambler and I guess I always will
"Always will" what? You'll always be born a wrangler and a rambler? How Hindu of you.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:27 AM
5 Comments:
Ah, the song I hate the most. How evil you are for putting it into my head.
The only country song I liked back then in my youth. (OK Convoy and the CB songs were cool too)
Dropping the "to be" in phrases- i.e. "The lawn needs cut" was a style of speaking common in Pittsburgh and I think was noted as the 3d or 4th most recognizable* trait of "Pittburghese" according to a novelty paperback which Ithink we read in HS English in a unit on dialect(?). Don't know why Marshall Tucker would be using Pittsburghese- maybe its a larger phenomenon
*#1 was using "yins" for "You all" or "Y'all" as they would say farther south. #2 was "Redding up" meaning to clean up. I still see that one in the newspaper. Another was putting an "R" in Washington.("Worshington")
Who could hate this song? It's lovely.
Pittsburgh is a southern city. It practically borders on West Virginia.
Anon 4 Refer to a map, please. One can argue Pittsburgh is a Midwestern city (though the people who live there don't think so- they think they from the Northeast), its laughable to consider it almost southern
(NOTE- West Virginia was formed in 1863 out of of then Virginia citizens who didn't identify with the south) I think however the point is that Pittsburgh is close to/part of Appalachia (which has its own particular dialect) which extends down into the hill country of North Carolina which is from where Marshall Tucker's band hales.
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