Friday, June 20, 2014

Saxon mother's son

One thing led to another. "Only" was on the lyrics game and I played "…only ever has to give me / love forever and forever / she don't give boys the eye" from "She's a Woman," by The Beatles. While I was thinking of the lyrics, I thought about the tune. It's interesting. And the words are pretty much one per note, so that reminded me of my collection of verse in small words (early native-English words in modern poetry and lyrics).

"She's a Woman" has three words I figure weren't native, but came from the Norman French:
presents
peasants
jealous
I cast my mind out to what else might fit on that page, because having added the lyrics to "She's a Woman," I needed one more song to fill my chart. The next song I thought of was "Help":
Help
I need somebody
Help
Not just anybody
Help
You know I need someone
Help
I went to look, and found a recording I had never heard or seen (as far as I remember).


I love the internet. I love the people who volunteer to share the videos that they or their parents made, or that they've scrounged from hither and yon. I love seeing (again) the youthful movements of John, Paul, George and Ringo. I'm happy to have been cognizant when they first produced records, and am happy to have seen Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr on live TV not so long ago.

But "Help" is insufficiently Anglo Saxon for my collection. It has all this mess of borrowed words:
younger
On the other hand, there are some phrases that are beautifully antique.

When I was younger, so much younger than today
I never needed anybody's help in any way

self-assured
appreciate
please
changed
independence
vanish
haze
insecure
If anyone reading here can think of a song (not necessarily by The Beatles) that has almost all elderly English words, please leave a note!
My collection is here: Small Words and has The Boxer, Easier Said than Done, Surfer Girl, Your Cheatin' Heart, Glad All Over, Red Rubber Ball and a few others.

(P.S. The title of the post is part of a description from a Beatle's song. Double points if you knew that before you got here. Triple if you can sing the chorus of that song just from reading that phrase that comes before it.)

(Two black-and-white posts in a row!
Both concern English history mixing with modern days.(

No comments:

Post a Comment