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another song with a compositional issue

glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
edited 2016-02-22 04:37:07 in General
song: "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow

This line is appropriately set, with regards to its rhythm.
"all I wanna do, is have some, fun"

This line has too many syllables:
"I got a feeling, I'm not the only one"

Here are the excess syllables, indicated by parentheses:
"I got a feel(ing), I'm not the on(ly) (one)"

The presence of these excess syllables makes the second line sound plodding, like there were too many words thrown in just because they were there.  It doesn't sound elegant.  also #whatswrongwithamericanpopmusic
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Comments

  • Imipolex GImipolex G
    Touch the cow. Do it now.
    this song makes me think of 1994
  • sunn wolfsunn wolf
    from my metrical point of view i think it's fine, firstly it's important to remember that a lot of the time metrical rules are there to be broken! and with that specific line, i think the word 'feeling' is elided enough that it doesn't detract from the rhythm too much, and in any case it has the same number of syllables as 'all I wanna do', so i don't really see the issue with it too much, unless you want to argue that 'wanna' is closer to one syllable while 'feeling' is closer to two, which i kinda don't agree with anyway. and i reckon 'i'm not the only one' works because the meaning of the phrase is related to what the meter is doing, i.e. there are words going outside of the meter which reflects the meaning of the phrase 'only one'. holistically i think it works fine

    anyway that's my literary analysis of this line in sheryl crow's early 90s hit, All I Wanna Do, hope u enjoyed it
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