In the song Forever Young by Alphaville there is the row:
"Some are a melody and some are the beat"
Why A melody but The beat? Shouldn't both be A ?
Thanks!
Moderator:Forum Administrators
ph0enix wrote:I wonder if this is due to the fact that Alphaville is a German band? Does such usage of articles sound weird to native speaker's ear?
linguoboy wrote:Most pop songs have only one beat but they can and do feature multiple melodies. (If I'm not mistaken, this is true of "Forever Young" itself.)
ph0enix wrote:What about previous line "some are like water some are like the heat"? Why water is missing THE? Was it sacrificed to save the beat?
vijayjohn wrote:ph0enix wrote:What about previous line "some are like water some are like the heat"? Why water is missing THE? Was it sacrificed to save the beat?
Maybe, but "some are like heat" would at least sound odd to me if by "heat," you meant 'hot weather'.
vijayjohn wrote:I think of it as a way of referring to a specific category of individuals rather than to a specific person (e.g. "The seasoned traveler may be familiar with the following localities").
linguoboy wrote:"The llama is a quadruped which lives in big rivers like the Amazon."
Osias wrote:They had to rhyme somehow.
Return to “General Language Forum”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests