Minami
How do you take the meaning of this lyrics? Recently, I'm very much into the band called Rhye. Today, I was reading their lyrics and just noticed there are two different words written for the same line... which are "I'm a fool for your [barely]" and "I'm a fool for your [belly]" Well, I think the second one is grammatically correct and I get the meaning. But in their official lyric sheet, it says "barely" not "belly" and that makes me very confused since I don't really get the meaning of it. So... I wanna know how everyone thinks about this lyrics. How do you take the meaning or nuance of it? Thanks
Jul 28, 2014 3:00 PM
Answers · 14
1
You are right. 'barely' doesn't make much sense. Could this be a mistake?
July 28, 2014
1
You said "in their official lyric sheet", do you own the album and does it have the lyrics? If it's something on the internet it's likely wrong. I would say it's most likely "I'm a fool for your belly". It matches some of the other themes in the song (she talks about other body parts).
July 28, 2014
1
I think it's a typo. It should read: "I'm a fool for you barely" and "I'm full for your belly"
July 28, 2014
1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sng_CdAAw8M , at about 0:53. I am not sure which word I hear. I am hearing something IN BETWEEN "belly" and "barely." I think it is "belly," but the vowel sound she uses is somewhere in between the "eh" of "bell" and the "ay" of "bay." I don't hear any R. I'm not sure what the "official lyrics sheet" would be. I have noticed that Internet lyrics pages are, VERY often, OBVIOUSLY transcriptions by people listening to the words and contain errors. In song lyrics, where the words are evocative and poetic rather than logical, context is a weak guide. The singer may distort pronunciation as part of his or her style. And trained singers are actually TAUGHT to modify vowel sounds and pronunciation in ways that sound better musically. The extreme case of this is the dying tradition of singers being taught to use Italian vowel sounds when singing English! But in any case singers like to open their mouths wide, and prefer big open vowel sounds. I think the "eh" in "belly" is a little constricted, and when she, as a singer, stretches it out, opens it, and sort of flirts with it, it sounds like "ay." And then, given a choice between "Bailey," which isn't a likely word, or "Barely," which is, people hear it as "barely."
July 28, 2014
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