MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB
“Mary Had a Little Lamb” is an English language nursery rhyme of nineteenth-century American origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7622. (More from Wikipedia)
I am not really much of a lyrics guy; even on some of my very favorite albums, I probably couldn’t quote a single line. Obviously that’s not true of my entire collection; the lyrics from Bob Dylan were a big attraction to me from the very beginning. However, the most important thing to me about song lyrics is that they need to mean something to the singer, not that we as the audience necessarily need to know what is being said or even what it means. Years ago, I once wrote about song lyrics, mentioning a Twisted Sister hit song from 1984: “The point is, you can’t sing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ angrily, but you can sing ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ with a bit of venom.”
(June 2013/2)
