From: jmf@endor.harvard.edu ( ghost )
Newsgroups: rec.music.folk
Subject: Re: Edman Fitzgerald?
Date: 6 Nov 92 06:51:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: das.1992Nov6.065147.23492
Organization: DAS Purchasing, Harvard University

In article <1992Nov4.194835.1851@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> thughes@lonestar.utsa.edu (Toby . Hughes) writes:
>In article <1992Nov4.183129.18308@das.harvard.edu> jmf@endor.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>>
>>Gordon Lightfoot's song has a line in it which needs 3-syllables at one
>>point, so he pronounces Detroit "De-troi-it"...aargh
>>(his rhyming-brain must have got tired...)

>So??  Chalk it up to Lightfoot's Canadian accent, or to creative lyric

Hey, you're insulting Canadians (duck).

>composition. (BTW, rhyming has nothing to do with it; the word "Detroit"
>occurs in the middle of the line, and is not rhymed with anything.)


Each 6-line verse has the symmetric line1-4, line2-5, line3-line6 syllables
the same length (mostly short & punchy), & has stresses fall in the same place.
That's rhyme to me, even though only the line-endings have exactly the same
sound.

"Once  up on  a     mid  night drear y
 While I  pon dered weak and   wear  y

(Poe has internal same-sound rhymes as well)

"By the shores of  Git chee Gu mee
 by the shin   ing big sea  wa ter"

 Longfellow doesn't have same-sound endings, but it still rhymees)

 The  leg end  comes down
 from the Chip pewa on down  
 of the big  lake they call Git  chee Gu  mee

 Da   da da    da    da
 Da   da da    da  da  da
 of the wreck of  the  Ed   mund Fitz ger ald

 Notice I picked the wrong verse as example, as out of decency to
 Chippewa, he doesn't squash their name into Chip-wa to fit the rhyme
 scheme.  Pity he doesn't show such mercy to poor Detroit.
 Also notice I'm blanking out on the words.

 Nevertheless, there's a line, a ways along there, where he could have
 easily said         "In De troit they all  da"
 but instead he says "In De troi  it   they da"

 causing me to believe he slipped some gears at that point.

 This is not a general put-down of Lightfoot, although I could live
 without the Longfellow evocation & think this is not one of his
 better songs...

 Poems, the good old-fashioned kind, anyway, (like here)
 have to build their own internal music, whereas songs have external music,
 & I like lyrics that trust the melody better.

 So I like "Wish I were back home in Derry" better, & initially thought, when
 I 1st heard it, that Lightfoot had stolen the tune, but long discussion
 here a few years ago said that the guy who wrote Derry (I don't think
 Christy Moore wrote it, though he's made it famous)
 credits Lightfoot with tune & inspiration.

>Why does this rate an "aargh" when such folk lyrics as "How many roads must
>a man wa-alk down," and "Auuuu-uhh-a-gust, die she must" are considered

Aw, but wa-alk is a typical Midwesternism, even when you don't need to fill
out a line, just some time.  Detroit already *has* 2 syllables, which are
enough for any decent speaker.  Doesn't need three.

>acceptable? Wanna talk rock?  How about "A-lou-eye, lou-eye-ee, oh-o yeah!"

Isn't this where Mel Brooks starts chasing the other caveperson around with
a big rock?  (That's actually from far before my time...*very, very far*
...but I have had it told to me by one who was there, metaphorically
speaking, & treasures the memory...)


>Or how about the time-worn device of sticking an a' on a word just
>to add an extra syllable and make it fit? ("The times, they are a'changing.")

I just don't think you should mess with people's first names, even when they're
cities...