"We Can Work It Out"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Two days ago, I listened to a few songs from Past Masters, Vol. 2 ("We Can Work It Out" and "Paperback Writer"), so I could write a post about Brian Wilson's use of "Frère Jacques" in "Surf's Up" and compare it to the Beatles' use of it in "Paperback Writer."  I just listened to "We Can Work It Out" for the sake of listening to it, but I discovered something interesting about some lines in the bridge: "Life is very short, and there's no time / For fussing and fighting my friend."

I'd previously noted the alliteration in that second line ("For fussing and fighting my friend"), but the "my friend" part stuck out in listening to it this time.  Writing it out, it could be either "For fussing and fighting my friend" or "For fussing and fighting, my friend."  In the first, "friend" is the object of "fighting;" in the second, "friend" is a vocative - the person to whom the whole statement "Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting" is directed.

It reminded me of an-other ambiguous "my friend" I discovered in the Beatles' catalogue.  In the first verse of "I'm a Loser" from Beatles for Sale, there's the line: "She was a girl in a million, my friend."  Here, it could be a vocative (someone to whom "She was a girl in a million" is directed) or an appositive renaming the "girl in a million" (which could be rendered as "She was a girl in a million [and] my friend").  I think it makes more sense as a vocative, but it's still viable as an appositive.