mark tatum started an interesting thread with the following: "In Little Green, there
are these lines where the mother tells the father about the child and he responds with
a poem:
He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter and say, "Her eyes are blue"
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you
Little Green, he's a non-conformer
These are the lyrics as they appear on JM.com. and on JMDL. What does
line four mean to you? Are the two "you"s in the line both referring to
the mother?"
the responses to this question have been interesting, and, i thought, unsatisfactory.
that line has always bothered me too, because, frankly, it makes no sense, and while
the several interpretations that have been presented are interesting, they all seem to
be stretches, in my opinion. there are three people in that verse. there's the guy
who went to california. there's the singer who writes him a letter and there's the
girl with the blue eyes. he, you and her. that's it. one can't start switching the
pronouns around and still have coherency! the hard truth about that otherwise lovely
song is that that particular line - "he sends you a poem and she's lost to you" is
just plain sloppy.
no sacrilege! she's a great songwriter. but she ain't no willy the shake, except
maybe in her own mind.
ric
