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 Mon Jun 02, 2008 13:41 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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I'd never heard that ABBA song before, so I found it on YouTube and listened to it.
Remember that ABBA were Swedish, and their English lyrics often don't make very much sense. This particular song, "I Have a Dream", is one of those that doesn't make sense. It's like a long string of various cliché phrases in English that don't necessarily fit together. The result is that the song gives a feeling, but it doesn't really mean anything. The English phrases are familiar, but when put together the don't really have any meaning. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Mon Jun 02, 2008 13:58 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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| Nessie, keep in mind that the English lyrics of many pop songs written in non-English-speaking countries simply mean, "Hi! We're singing in English." I think this ABBA song is an example of that. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Mon Jun 02, 2008 16:07 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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Maybe, "I'll cross the stream" stands for "I'll achieve some of my goals".
I think they're coveying a vague idea in that song, as most singers do. |
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lost_soul
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| Mon Jun 02, 2008 16:19 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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I suspect that in many cases, the best person to ask about the meaning of lyrics is the person who wrote them -- whether the person is a native speaker of English or not. Sometimes I think the author of the lyrics of a song must be the only person who understands them. 
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Yankee
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lost_soul
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| Mon Jun 02, 2008 16:23 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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Yeah, and most of the time I could only guess.
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Amy
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Yankee
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| Mon Jun 02, 2008 16:31 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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At least they rhyme. 
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NinaZara
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Jamie (K)
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| Mon Jun 02, 2008 17:48 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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| Yankee wrote: | | I suspect that in many cases, the best person to ask about the meaning of lyrics is the person who wrote them -- whether the person is a native speaker of English or not. Sometimes I think the author of the lyrics of a song must be the only person who understands them. |
But, Amy, you have to admit that ABBA songs are unique, in that they sound like someone has assembled a huge computerized corpus of old pop songs and told it to generate lyrics from random combinations of rhyming phrases. Then a human went in and connected the random phrases with a couple of words here and there. The result is usually an almost-nonsensical string of clichés. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Mon Jun 02, 2008 18:33 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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Hi Jamie
I really haven't spent any time thinking about or analyzing Abba's lyrics, and I can't remember any Abba lyrics specifically enough to even comment other than to say what I already have.
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Yankee
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:09 am "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Nessie, keep in mind that the English lyrics of many pop songs written in non-English-speaking countries simply mean, "Hi! We're singing in English." I think this ABBA song is an example of that. |
Don't worry Jamie. I know that quite well because here in Vietnam, they "compose" "songs" that are half English and half Vietnamese which are full of grammatical mistakes, not to mention weird language using style. Anyway, whether they are pure Vietnamese or English - Vietnamese songs, most modern Vietnamese songs have nonsense content
| Quote: | | Quote: | lost_soul wrote:
| Quote: | Yankee wrote:
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I suspect that in many cases, the best person to ask about the meaning of lyrics is the person who wrote them -- whether the person is a native speaker of English or not. |
Yeah, I agree with you. You know how many times I wanted to ask Eminem what the hell he's rapping about !
But woe is me ! He's not gonna speak to me |
I teach in the neighborhood where Eminem grew up, and I often get the same sorts of degenerates in my class. Whatever I don't understand, they understand, so I could ask them. I also know kids and young adults from other neighborhoods I can ask if I don't know something. I understand 90% of it, though. |
Well, actually I'm very bad at English slang, especially those that have bad and improper meanings. Besides, I'm not very interested in rock music either, so I know nothing about Eminem abd his stuffs. Once I came across a site in which they translated English lyrics into Vietnamese (for fun). A guy posted a song of Eminen and then translated it. When reading the English lyrics, I didn't understand anything. I didn't get what the song was about at all. Then I read his translation and got appalled  Its contents was all about sex, rude and improper and awful sexual words. I just don't know if he translated it correctly though because, as I said, I'm very bad at slang.
I just want to ask whether those Eminem songs really have such bad meaning.
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nessie
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:27 am "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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| nessie wrote: | | I just want to ask whether those Eminem songs really have such bad meaning. |
It's up to you to form an opinion on his lyrics. Some people are appaled at it, some are fascinated. I belong to the second group.
He sings about the stuff he sees/has seen, he lived in a trailer park home on 8 mile road with his mum who was a buzzo and she did a lot of despicable things to him, in particular she used to send him to a store to buy a pack of cigarrtes (with a note, because he was under age at that time) and at that woudn't give him his lunch money, and he would steal that pack of cigarettes and spend the money on lunch. In a word, he's been through a lot, he's been through his poverty period of life when he was broke as f*ck and now he's a most successful rapper in the world. He set his goals to become a millionare and he achieved them. He didn't give up, didn't succumb to violence, to criminal actions to get his living. He's that sort of guy to look up to.
I suggest that you listen to these songs of his
If I had http://www.lyricsbay.com/e/eminem/ifihad.html
Lose yourself http://www.metrolyrics.com/lose-yourself-lyrics-eminem.html
They are not that hard to understand.
By the way, don't call what Em does "rock music". It's called RAP MUSIC 
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lost_soul
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nessie
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| Tue Jun 03, 2008 13:01 pm "I cross the stream... I have a dream..." |
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| nessie wrote: | | I just want to ask whether those Eminem songs really have such bad meaning. |
The content of a lot of rap songs is pretty horrible, not just those by Eminem. A lot of the time, Eminem's songs are satires of the whole rap genre, so he doesn't always mean what he says.
A lot of parents keep rap music away from their children, and there is a lot of campaigning in the black community to stop record companies from making and selling the stuff, because it has an immoral effect on kids. I know one couple who was so appalled at the lyrics of the music their daughter was downloading that she wasn't allowed to use headphones and had to have her bedroom door open when she listened to music, so that her parents could supervise what she listened to. I know of one younger man who was heavily into rap but threw away all his rap CDs because, he claimed, the lyrics were starting to make him dehumanize women.
But, as with any other genre, various people try to put it to various purposes. In New York, there's even a Franciscan priest, a former jazz musician, who works with the poor and records rap albums. Some people like what he records, and others find it foolish. Judge for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-aaKUnzfXA |
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| misrelated participle | Expression: "What time do you make it now?" |
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