Great Songs Ruined By Bad Grammar
We don’t expect our musicians to also be academics. In fact, if anything, we prefer the opposite. As the late poet Daniel Desario once said, “Rock and roll don’t come from your brain, it comes from your crotch.” Still, it can be more than a little distracting when pop stars reveal that they might be able to sing, but they don’t know how to talk.
‘Black or White’ by Michael Jackson
What is “If you’re thinking about my baby, it don’t matter if you’re black or white” even supposed to mean? Okay, that’s kind of a rhetorical question. It’s a song about interracial relationships, so he clearly meant, “If you’re thinking about being my baby,” but that was too many syllables. In fact, he seems to realize his mistake later, singing, “If you’re thinking of being my baby,” but he was too lazy to go back and change it. Inexcusable.
‘Empire State of Mind’ by Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys
Even more inexcusable is the line “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” which would have been ridiculously easy to fix. We’re not even gonna give them a hard time about ending on a preposition here. “Concrete jungle that dreams are made of.” Boom. They’re not allowed to get even a little mad about the “wet dream tomato” business. We’re just trying to make it make sense.
‘Shape of You’ by Ed Sheeran
“We push and pull like a magnet do” is another terrible line that’s entirely unnecessary if you put just a little bit of thought into it. It’s gotta be “do,” because the previous line is, “I’m in love with the shape of you,” so just make it “magnets.” Come on, people.
‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol
Now they’re just messing with us for fun. Snow Patrol clearly knows that it should be “If I lie here, if I just lie here,” because the very next line is, “Would you lie with me and just forget the world?” It would have sounded perfectly good, except now it sounds wrong because we’ve been hearing “If I lay here” since 2006. Damn you, Snow Patrol.
‘Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter
“That’s that me espresso” isn’t just bad grammar — it’s straight-up gibberish, to the point that several linguistic experts weighed in on its meaning, to not much conclusion. Is it “That’s that me-flavored espresso”? Like, “You can’t sleep because I am like espresso”? Or is there an implied comma, i.e., “That’s that me, espresso,” as in “It’s-a me, Mario”?
In the end, Carpenter had to clarify that it was just a pun on “blonde espresso.” Get it? Because she’s also blonde? Yeah. They can’t all be winners, S. Carp.
