rose
Your favourite song... Hi. What is your favourite song in your native language?
Apr 17, 2019 6:12 PM
Comments · 25
2

 "Aminti Billah" This's one of the Classical Arabic Music I like to listen it. so performanced by the National Arab Orchestra.

April 19, 2019
2
Another, a part of the culture in the United States;

Somewhere over the rainbow:

For science people, a great song from our friends to the North:
April 18, 2019
1
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaHoOgT9vfk" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">More I Cannot Wish You</a>
Frank Loesser, from the musical <em>Guys and Dolls, </em>1950.

Velvet I can wish you, for the collar of your coat,
And fortune, smiling all along your way;
But more I cannot wish you, than to wish you find your love--
Your own true love--this day.

Mansions I can wish you: seven footmen all in red,
And calling cards upon a silver tray;
But more I cannot wish you, than to wish you find your love--
Your own true love--this day.

Standing there, gazing at you, full of the bloom of youth;
Standing there, gazing at you--with a sheep's eye, and a lickerish tooth!

Music I can wish you, merry music while you're young
And wisdom, when your hair has turned to grey;
But more I cannot wish you, than to wish you find your love--
Your own true love--this day;

With the sheep's eye,
And a lickerish tooth,
And the strong arms...
to carry you away.

---
The language and the character's accent have just enough of an "Irish brogue" to tell a US native that he is Irish-American.

The word order is slightly unusual. "Mansions I can wish you" means "I wish that you will live in a mansion," a large, grand house. "Mansions" is plural to be expansive. He could make lots of wishes, and he could wish for not just one mansion, but many.

In, let's say, 1920, rich people in the US lived in mansions, with footmen, and left calling cards on trays when they visited each other. "Fortune" means wealth, too. So the message of the song is "I could wish for you to be wealthy, but my best wish is to wish, sincerely, that you will find love."

"The sheep's eye" and "the lickerish truth" are puzzling even to native speakers. To be "sheepish" is to be shy or timid. "Sheep's eye" suggests that man will be staring at the woman's beauty while also being shy, at the same time. Loesser wrote about finding that "lickerish" is an obscure word that can mean "greedy" or "lecherous," so it suggests desire; but what a lickerish <em>tooth</em> is, I don't know.
November 20, 2019
1
Farewell Miss
November 20, 2019
1
How to Fly-Sticky Fingers!!
April 19, 2019
Show more