Oh James.
Consider the following set of lyrics:
If you leave me, I'll go crazy.
If you leave me, I'll go crazy.
'Cuz I love you, I love you, oh...
I love you too much.
If you quit me, I'll go crazy.
If you forget me, I'll go crazy.
'Cuz I love you, I love you, oh...
I love you too much.
You gotta' live for yourself
Yourself and nobody else
You gotta' live for yourself
Yourself and nobody else
--James Brown, "I'll Go Crazy"
Now, this song is truly kickin', but don't these lines seem blatantly self-contradictory? The first two stanzas suggest that the protagonist is offering a reason to his lady why she shouldn't leave him, viz., that he'll go crazy. But the third stanza suggests, given the use of the pronoun "you" that (at the very least) the person he was addressing in the first two stanzas has "gotta' live for [herself, herself] and nobody else". But this seems to imply that the mere fact that he will go crazy is not a reason (or at least a good one) to remain with him.
Perhaps there's a prima facie/all things considered distinction working here. Perhaps James, in the first two stanzas is offering a prima facie reason why she should remain with him, but overrules that reason with the all things considered reason in the final stanza. But that just somehow doesn't seem to capture what's going on here. It seems like the third stanza is denying that anything that is not "for yourself" is a reason at all; not just that any other reasons get outweighed by the need to live for yourself, yourself and nobody else.
If you leave me, I'll go crazy.
If you leave me, I'll go crazy.
'Cuz I love you, I love you, oh...
I love you too much.
If you quit me, I'll go crazy.
If you forget me, I'll go crazy.
'Cuz I love you, I love you, oh...
I love you too much.
You gotta' live for yourself
Yourself and nobody else
You gotta' live for yourself
Yourself and nobody else
--James Brown, "I'll Go Crazy"
Now, this song is truly kickin', but don't these lines seem blatantly self-contradictory? The first two stanzas suggest that the protagonist is offering a reason to his lady why she shouldn't leave him, viz., that he'll go crazy. But the third stanza suggests, given the use of the pronoun "you" that (at the very least) the person he was addressing in the first two stanzas has "gotta' live for [herself, herself] and nobody else". But this seems to imply that the mere fact that he will go crazy is not a reason (or at least a good one) to remain with him.
Perhaps there's a prima facie/all things considered distinction working here. Perhaps James, in the first two stanzas is offering a prima facie reason why she should remain with him, but overrules that reason with the all things considered reason in the final stanza. But that just somehow doesn't seem to capture what's going on here. It seems like the third stanza is denying that anything that is not "for yourself" is a reason at all; not just that any other reasons get outweighed by the need to live for yourself, yourself and nobody else.
posted by dd0031 at 11:15 AM
2 Comments:
Would the contradiction be resolved if the first stanzas were:
If you leave me, I'll go crazy.
If you leave me, I'll go crazy.
'Cuz I love, I love you, but
I'll throw you out my window.
?
Actually, yes. I mean, I think so. 'Cuz if you have to live for yourself, yourself and nobody else, and if you leave me, you'll die, that's a pretty good reason from one's own perspective not to leave. In that case the "I'll go crazy" is just a causal explanation of why James might throw her out the window.
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