-----Original Message-----
From: Donal McEvoy <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Mar 19, 2017 5:51 am
Subject: [lit-ideas] Chuck Berry
McEvoy quotes: "Chuck Berry tributes pour in: 'Greatest rock‘n’roll writer who
ever lived'"
I usually don't use hypertext, but if I do, this may be amusing:
http://www.explorejeffersonpa.com/claytoonz-tell-tchaikovsky-the-news/
The line comes of course from George Harrison's rendition of Berry's classic --
(Just teasing: of course it comes from Berry his self!) -- but Grice, like,
Harrison, was a Brit!
Is there an attending implicature in St. Peter's utterance:
"Roll over, Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news."
We might need a bit of context.
I'm gonna write a little letter ---- as opposed to a big one.
gonna mail it to my local DJ ------ so that will be surface mail.
It's a rockin' rhythm record
I want my jockey to play --- disc jokey, rather than horse rider.
Roll Over Beethoven, I gotta hear it again today --- Note that there is no
Oxford comma after "Roll Over" (it's NOT "Roll over, Beethoven").
You know, my temperature's risin' --- where the dropped "-g" is dialectal.
and the jukebox blows a fuse ----- to be pronounced "foose".
My heart's beatin' rhythm
and my soul keeps on singin' the blues ----- pronounced "bloos"
Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news ---- Pronounce "noos", and
not "njews".
---- If the cartoon makes sense St. Peter's utterance is: "Roll over, Beethoven
-- but before you do that, tell Tchaikovsky the news. The news being that the
singer (George Harrison, say) is writing a letter to his local DJ.
I got the rockin' pneumonia ----- this is a metaphor, since 'pneumonia,' as
Dione Warwick knows, has only one sense ("What do you get when you kiss a boy?")
I need a shot of rhythm and blues -- where 'shot' is dialectal
I think I'm rollin' arthritis --- "arthritis" has been studied philosophically
by Tyler Burge.
sittin' down by the rhythm review --- pronounced "revoo".
Roll Over Beethoven rockin' in two by two -- so that "revoo" rhymes with "too".
Well, if you feel you like it
go get your lover, then reel and rock it
Roll it over and move on up just
a trifle further and reel and rock it,
roll it over,
Roll Over Beethoven rockin' in two by two ----- here the rhyme of "two" goes
back to the earlier "review" (pronounced "revoo").
Well, early in the mornin' I'm a givin' you a warnin'
don't you step on my blue suede shoes --- the implicature is that she is LIKELY
to.
Hey diddle diddle, I am playin' my fiddle,
ain't got nothin' to lose -- here "loose", unlike Queen-of-UK English "news",
is pronounced correctly.
Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news.
The news now expanded to the fact that the singer is playing his fiddle.
The Beatles, as it happens recorded another, less famous, Berry song. It was
sung by Lennon, not Harrison -- and the lyrics are just as implicatural!
Berry, genius!
-----
You know she wiggles like a glow worm,
dance like a spinnin' top
She got a crazy partner --- meaning his self.
oughta see 'em reel and rock
Long as she got a dime the music will never stop --- here the jukebox gets
personified.
Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven,
Roll Over Beethoven and dig these rhythm and blues -- where 'dig' is perhaps
figurative.
