Mistakes in songs.

Belatedly,

"For To" is a not uncommon phrase heard in and about California, replacing the simple "To". Being the mega melting pot California is, phrases from far and wide have taken their places in the state's dialects.

As well, when this song became a top radio hit, the country-rock genre and wannabes' life style was nearing its peak popularity.
Baby Boomers at this time played developing societal norms fast and loose, to include such language usage, Y'all.

 

I'm no authority on this, but I think "for to" is a correct, though somewhat archaic, use of English. It's a bit more expressive than simply "to" - it can be rephased as "for the purpose of".

As for its use in the song, it never bothered me much, though if I had written the lyrics I would have said "there ain't no one there to give you no pain", or possibly "there ain't nobody."

The use of the triple negative in that line bothers me more. (Count them!) Double negatives seem to be a common mannerism of American speech (Santana - "I ain't got nobody"), but a triple negative is really taking things to extremes. Taken literally, that song line translates as "It's incorrect to say that I don't have at least one person who will not give me any pain."

 

"Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face..."

 

I think it was Paul McCartney who said "That has to be a mistake, no one is that clever."

 

Really? I have listened to that song many times, being my favorite outside the Sgt. Pepper intro and reprise sections. It never sounded anomalous to me. The solo is set up with the five beat repeated riff on guitar, then "Hey, Hey, Hey...." This full nine yards comes off musically just fine.

"There I will go whoa whoa whu oh" Is the "Whu oh" where Paul's vocal correction takes place?
Re the "correction" by G. Martin, that takes the simple, innocent anomaly to being an "aberration" (as a minimum).

It's one thing, remixing and remastering a "legacy" album or song to make it sound better by altering the mix to make up for technical limitations in place during the original recording process. Imposing squeaky-cleans upon lyrical content is a no-no IMHO.

Musicians, including The Beatles, are not expected to reach perfection at every nuance. This is censorship of human emotion, and the more it is done to a recording the more boring and robotic sounding it will become.

I have almost all of the first version Beatles CD's put out. I have listened to but not purchased any of the subsequent iterations, noticed the differences but to me the cleanups took away something.

Learn to love the warts!

 

On the live version of If I Had $1,000,000 by Barenaked Ladies from the Stunt bonus CD, Steven Page, I believe it is, doesn't just trip over the line following "I'd buy you John Davidson's remains" (John Merrick's remains in the studio version) he tackles it to the floor and rolls downstairs with it.

 

Them is being used in its singular meaning here, it’s not wrong at all.

 

Even if it wasn't singular, it's still not wrong. The lyric speaks of dealing with one particular bully, then says "time for them to be scared of us" referring to bullies in general.

 

It sounds to me like a country hick type of thing to say, and something Neil Young might say. Which may have been what they were going for.

 

Nope, don't get why here..

 

At 2:43 in this video:

 

In all my decades of listening to Get It On it has never occurred to me that this was a mistake.

 

Can't plow through the entire thread, but I'm responding a few things I've found at random:

At the very end of his solo in the middle of "Roll Over Beethoven," Chuck hits an open string, which results in a jarring note that doesn't fit in with the key he's playing in.

I'd have to get out my guitar to determine what that key is and exactly what's going on at that moment.

Doesn't make the song any less great, of course.

 

A big one (two, actually) that no one has mentioned:

In the third verse of "She's a Woman," John Lennon completely misses one of his choppy rhythm guitar strums after "My love don't give me presents."

Then shortly thereafter, with the lyric "Only ever has to give me," he should go to a D chord, but instead hits the A chord twice before belatedly getting to the D.

 

Regarding "for to" in "A Horse with No Name," this is a phrase with a long history in folk music. I wish I could call a specific example to mind, but a little digging would find several. As someone pointed out, it generally connotes "for the purpose of."

It's the kind of thing you might hear in English/Irish/Scottish ballads that found their way across the ocean and into Appalachia.

I can find plenty of other reasons to dislike "A Horse with No Name" without resorting to "for to"!

 

Oh yeah, to me it did - But I would say it was a "leavie" as it makes it more of a "live performance"

 

This has been debated before.

I'm assuming you're referring to the last verse. I believe what you're hearing is John Lennon inserting a brief "ah" in front of his repeating background vocalizations that have been heard throughout the track.

In other words, this one time he sings "Ah-doo-wah-doo" instead of just "doo-wah doo."

This is a much more likely scenario than George inserting an "Ah" after "Do you promise not to tell."

George does make a mistake earlier in the song, though: on the bridge he sings "I've known the secret for the week or two" instead of "for a week or two."

 

"The heat was hot" for a kickoff!

 

Yes. I think of lines like "I'm bound for bonnie Scotland, my true love for to see."

 

Always found him to be arrogant.

 

Donovan - Three King Fishers.

I am reminded of this by currently hearing an instrumental version of this song.

The first line of the song is

Instead of just three, suddenly we have twelve. You can't tell me that's intentional.
My guess is that at some point Donovan decided that "twelve" sounded better than "three", and changed what he sang accordingly, but no one thought to change the title of the song on the record.

 

I think Chuck was being intentionally funny there. Because in the same song he sings Milo DeVenus

 

I’ve always liked it and thought if it as part of the arrangement. I can see how it could be a happy accident though.

 

I remember seeing Steve Martin on one of the late-nite talk shows years ago making fun of that lyric, speaking it slowly like it was poetry.

 

Does the tambourine coming always late on the Stones' Time Is On My Side count?