#also as a nonnative speaker i never could parse the lyrics to mull of kintyre although I’ve heard it lots

[beatledumpster]

Paul loves enjambments

Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or clause across a line break. For example, the poet John Donne uses enjambment in his poem "The Good-Morrow" when he continues the opening sentence across the line break between the first and second lines: "I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I / Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?"

These are the examples that I could think of right now of Paul hopping across lines (well, if you agree with where the cuts are placed, as lines in a song can be written in several ways, and if you agree that the breaks in syntax are unusual enough to be considered poetic/interesting enjambments) :

...

I've just seen a face I can't forget The time or place where we just met

...

I was alone, I took a ride I didn't know what I would find there Another road where maybe I Could see another kind of mind there

... Ooh, you were meant to be near me Ooh, and I want you to hear me Say we'll be together every day

...

And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong, I'm right Where I belong, I'm right Where I belong

...

There beneath the blue suburban skies I sit and meanwhile back In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass

...

And when the broken hearted People living in the world agree There will be an answer Let it be

...

Mull of Kintyre Oh, mist rolling in from The sea, my desire Is always to be here Oh, Mull of Kintyre

Feel free to add more if you can recall any!

#the beatles #paul mccartney #i like the instances when these enjambments make the phrasing ambiguous with several meanings #or at least one meaning that ends up replacing the first one you constructed (you can look up garden path sentences which is a #related phenomenon) #like the ambiguity in ive just seen a face or obviously fixing a hole (my mind was blown when i realised this one) #also as a nonnative speaker i never could parse the lyrics to mull of kintyre although I’ve heard it lots #especially the ‘oh mist rolling in from’ line #never knew what he was saying until i looked it up #so i would always interpret based on the way he sang it that ‘the sea; my desire’ was a distinct element. #like; he asserts the sea is his desire #then i guess i did understand the next bit (‘is always to be here’) so idk why it made sense to me. well it just didn’t i suppose but i #never really pondered over it or anything! #oh wait omg. The following sentence IS valid although strange in a poetic way : ‘the sea; my desire; is always to be here.’ #(Excuse the semicolons to replace commas because im in the tags) #-> i.e. the sea (which is my desire) ought to always be here ! #(vs. the basic meaning : i wish to always be here; with ‘the sea’ being part of the previous phrase) #OMG paul was this intended? king of ambiguous/multiple meanings! #(am not actually 100% sure this was correct english but i hope so)