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Questions about some English lyrics. | ||
Tags: Song Texts | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Evanitious Triglot Newbie France Joined 4314 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1, Italian | Message 1 of 6 01 March 2016 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi there.
There are two sentences that are bothering me. The first is from the song "Maniac". "And she's dancing like she's never danced before". In this case, I think it means that she has already danced in her life, but right now, she's doing an awesome performance, right ? But how can I say that she is dancing like it's the very first time in her life. She is dancing so badly that it's obvious she has never danced before. I don't know how to express this in English. Maybe : she's dancing as if she's never danced before ? The second is from the Foo Fighters - Best of you : "is someone getting the best of you ?". I don't understand if : a) someone is getting the best from me = receiving = I take care of this someone = I give my best to him/her, all my attention b) someone is getting the best from me = someone is draining me, stealing all the best I have, kinda like "exploiting me". Edited by Evanitious on 01 March 2016 at 3:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mork the Fiddle Senior Member United States Joined 3764 days ago 86 posts - 159 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 6 01 March 2016 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting questions.
Your conclusions about "Maniac" both seem correct to me. As for "Best of You." First, "getting the best of me" is not the same thing as "getting the best from me." Barring further context, "getting the best of me" means "I am not doing well." "Spanish is getting the best of me" = "Spanish is proving very difficult for me." "France is getting the best of Italy in the game" = "France is winning right now." "The Socialists are getting the best of the Christian Democrats" = "The Socialists are winning." "Sarkhozy is getting the best of the press" = "Sarkhozy is dominating the public relations battle with the press." "The taller boxer is getting the best of the short boxer" = "The taller boxer is beating the short boxer." On the other hand, "The boss always gets the best from me" = "I always do my best for my boss." etc. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 3847 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 6 01 March 2016 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Salut!
First, without wishing to appear disloyal to the HTLAL, I would note that most of the "more active" forum members have registered on the REPLACEMENT website A Language Learner's Forum and I encourage you to do likewise. Doing so would increase the number of responses to your post. Second, although English is my "mother tongue", it is only on the rarest of occasions that I would venture an opinion on correct usage and I accept -- in advance -- any and all views contrary to my own. Third, popular music is an art form that is often practiced by younger, somewhat rebellious, self-styled avant-guard people who take a particular pleasure in pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable. Often, such people do not perform well in highly structured environments such as formal education systems and they are rarely inclined to show respect for someone else's notion of "the rules" of correct behaviour and this extends to their compositions. Since their primary motive is to express emotion and since few, if any, of them would perform well on a Standardized Grammar Exam, we should not be surprised that their lyrics contain either the odd grammatical error or some element of uncertainty as to what message is truly being conveyed. Added to this general state of affairs is the rather knotty problem of the choice and proper use of prepositions in English; that is, many native-speakers get it wrong (and I count myself in the throng). So then, as to the examples you provided ... Maniac I remember the song more for the guitar solo than the lyrics, particularly as I recall that the session guitarist expressed surprise over the reception at his musical creation and, when asked what his muse was for the piece, replied: "I don't know, it just came out that way." Please excuse the digression. As to the lyrics, I agree with your interpretation and I would accept your alternative composition, which expresses a notion which differs from the original. Other formulations are possible. Best of You From my understanding of common use, I would say that both meanings that you ascribed are possible. This might be a case where the composer is being deliberately ambiguous. It might also be a case that he was simply unaware of the possible problem of interpretation. Is the matter resolved in the lyrics? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Evanitious Triglot Newbie France Joined 4314 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1, Italian | Message 4 of 6 01 March 2016 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you both for the answers :)
Don't worry Speakeasy, on the other hand, it was very interesting ! And thanks for the other forum. Well, about the song Best of you, to be honest, it was the reason I asked about the meaning of this sentence. Now, I think I have my answer. To be honest, the very first time I've heard the song, I only remembered "is someone getting the best of you ?" and the title of the song "Best of you", I didn't pay attention to the rest of the lyrics so I thought it was about giving someone the best side of who you are. Then I read the lyrics more deeply, I thought it was more like "don't let anyone take you down" but the "getting the best of you" was still bothering me, maybe because I didn't understand it correctly. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe because I don't want to let it go with "taking care about someone", in my mind the meaning of the song became something like "don't let anyone take you down by giving your best part to someone", but I'm not sure it's the correct interpretation. Sometimes I feel like it's more what I would like to see than what the song really means. In the end, I think it really means "is someone abusing you ?" with no ambiguity but my mind is a bit "polluted" by my first impression. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 6 02 March 2016 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not a native speaker, but I have a feeling that "And she's dancing like she had never danced before" would imply a very bad performance. Or maybe it's just not a good sentence...
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| AlOlaf Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4943 days ago 491 posts - 617 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Danish | Message 6 of 6 02 March 2016 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||
I would say “She dances as if she’s never done it before.”, with the stress on "done". Edited by AlOlaf on 02 March 2016 at 7:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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