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Usenet discussion of the words of the performance of
Peggy Day
at Columbia Music Row Studios, Nashville, Tennessee, 14 February 1969 (NCO 98927),
released on the album "Nashville skyline"

97-06-22 09:43 Lonesome Sparrow
97-06-22 11:05   Ben Taylor
97-06-22 21:42     catherine yronwode

From: lvdm@xs4all.nl (Lonesome Sparrow) Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Words of Peggy Day Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 09:43:18 GMT Here I am again asking you all to help me transcribe lyrics exactly as they are sung. There is one line in "Peggy Day" (on the album "Nashville Skyline") that is bothering me. It is published as "Well, you know that even before I learned her name". I hear "Well, you know ever even before I learned her name". Is that wat Bob sings? If not, what does he sing? If it is, is it meaningful English (English is not my native tongue) or are we dealing here with a mistake made by Bob, i.e. should I have included this line in the list of mistakes I recently posted?
From: Ben Taylor Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Re: Words of Peggy Day Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 12:05:33 +0100 Lonesome Sparrow writes: >Here I am again asking you all to help me transcribe lyrics exactly as >they are sung. There is one line in "Peggy Day" (on the album >"Nashville Skyline") that is bothering me. It is published as "Well, >you know that even before I learned her name". I hear "Well, you know >ever even before I learned her name". Is that wat Bob sings? I agreed with you. It sounds to me like an error, which is why Dylan doesn't properly enunciate the word "ever". >what does he sing? If it is, is it meaningful English (English is not >my native tongue) or are we dealing here with a mistake made by Bob, >i.e. should I have included this line in the list of mistakes I >recently posted? It doesn't sound like correct English but it is meaningful. Ben Taylor -- bptaylor@laguna.demon.co.uk
From: catherine yronwode Subject: Re: Words of Peggy Day Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 13:42:37 -0800 Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Ben Taylor wrote: > > Lonesome Sparrow writes: > > >Here I am again asking you all to help me transcribe lyrics exactly > >as they are sung. There is one line in "Peggy Day" (on the album > >"Nashville Skyline") that is bothering me. It is published as "Well, > >you know that even before I learned her name". I hear "Well, you know > >ever even before I learned her name". Is that wat Bob sings? > > I agreed with you. It sounds to me like an error, which is why Dylan > doesn't properly enunciate the word "ever". > > >what does he sing? If it is, is it meaningful English (English is not > >my native tongue) or are we dealing here with a mistake made by Bob, > >i.e. should I have included this line in the list of mistakes I > >recently posted? > > It doesn't sound like correct English but it is meaningful. At the risk of reviving the "meer" (mirror) thread, what you two (one not a native English speaker and the other a British English speaker) are discussing is simply Bob's Mid-Western dialect. Yes, once again, Bob reveals his roots. "Well, you know, even before I ever learned her name" would be the proper word-order that a British English speaker would expect. (And, to be truly proper, "ever" might well be deleted as redundant.) However, the convoluted, "Well, you know, ever even before I learned her name" is not peculiar to Bob Dylan -- and it is not a mistake. The displacement of the word "ever," like the commonly-encountered displacement of other time-frame words such as "nowadays," and "sometimes" is a standard Midewestern colloqialism. It is used for strong emphasis, and the displaced word always migrates toward the beginning of the sentence. In doing so it may aquire shaded connotational meanings. For instance, the forward displacement of the time-frame words "any more" in the sentence "Any more it don't hardly pay to raise tomatoes on this plot." should be interpreted as "We can no longer make a profit raising tomatoes on this plot, even though we did so for years and i am just as good a gardenerer as i wever was -- and i am completely disgusted by this turn of events." The forward-displacement of "ever" is something Bob probably learned as a child and that he knows is "wrong," so it is highly likely that in transcribing the lyrics for publication, he corrected it to make himself seem a better poet and less a regionaist. catherine yronwode The Lucky Mojo Curio Co.: http://www.luckymojo.com The Lucky W Amulet Archive: http://www.luckymojo.com/LuckyW.html Hoodoo Catalogue: http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html Freemasonry for Women: http://www.luckymojo.com/CoMasonry.html The Sacred Landscape: http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredland.html Karezza and Tantra: http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html