Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Live and Let Parse

I think Paul McCartney got kind of a bad rap from people who complained that he was singing "But in this ever-changing world in which we live in" during "Live and Let Die." First of all, "Live and Let Die" is a really good song, and he's Paul McCartney, so one is inclined to cut him some slack. But more importantly, I've always heard it as "In this ever-changing world in which we're living," which is at least grammatical.

It's plausible, isn't it?

4 comments:

MJN said...

I had always heard "in which we live in," but I decided long ago that the lyric must be "in which we're living," and that I simply misheard it.

But given that the next line is "Makes you give in and cry," shouldn't this line start out "IF this ever-changing world"?

Tom Nawrocki said...

Yeah, I think you're right.

Gavin said...

The twin in "throw in an extra preposition to fill out the meter" lyric writing for me was always John Cougar Mellencamp's "Small Town":

"I cannot forget from where it is that I come from."

Volly said...

"If this ever-changin' world in which we're livin'..."

That one always worked for me.

And for us really old folks, it was "Winston tastes good, AS a cigarette should." (LOL).