Oxymorons in lyrics

Subject: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 02:56 PM

..."for I knew that topless lady / Had something up her sleeve..."

Other good ones?

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 03:01 PM

An obvious one:

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 03:01 PM

it seems more a nonsense lyric, like Oh, Susanna, than an oxymoron, and there was another long thread about such, somewhere, try 'nonsense'

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:01 PM

Well, I think it's oxymoronic as it is the subset of nonsense that is nonsensical by virtue of a contained contradiction. Other nonsense would not be oxymoronic, but that example was. I really am fishing for oxymorons, not other forms of nonsense...

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:05 PM

Folk Music ?? ;-)

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:07 PM

Not contained in a couplet, but in The Beatles song 'Penny Lane' it's raining all the time under "blue suburban skies"

Don't know if that's what you mean?

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: mousethief
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:09 PM

I don't know if it qualifies, but I like that line from the Larry Norman song, "Reader's Digest":

The Beatles said 'all you need is love'
And then they broke up!

Alex

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:15 PM

In a (probably futile) attempt to stop this thread becoming overcome by junk, here is the OED definition of an oxymoron:

"A rhetorical figure of speech in which markedly contradictory terms appear in conjunction so as to emphasize the statement"

Posts one and two qualify - the rest don't.

I thought it was a good thread idea, Mrrzy

Jim

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:20 PM

Read the lyrics at the johnprineshrine.com... he uses them all the time...

;-)

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Pseudolus
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:22 PM

Well, it was before you called all but two of the posts junk! *BG*

Frank

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:24 PM

so far NO post here is an 'oxymoron', by the definition given, but I don't want to spoil anyone's fun. Saying the 'topless lady had something up her sleeve' might be irony, and is humerous, but not an oxymoron. Likewise, younger/older, ironic, not oxymoronic.

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: mousethief
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:28 PM

I fail to see what the topless lady's sleeve has to do with the elbow.

Alex

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Noreen
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 04:41 PM

Previous thread: Oxymorons

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 08:39 PM

If an oxymoron is defined as..... "A rhetorical figure of speech in which markedly contradictory terms appear in conjunction so as to emphasize the statement".... as defined by GUEST Jim, then does a double negative qualify as an oxymoron?

For example, any one of the innumerable songs with the equivalent of "I ain't got no....." whatever the hell comes next.

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 09:51 PM

How about the line in that pathetic Rod Stewart song "Tonight's The Night", where he advises his "virgin child" to "let her inhibitions run wild"...

What an idiot...

Dylan's done a few odd reversals, like:

"He just smoked my eyelids, and punched my cigarette"

"Don't put your horse in front of your cart"

But unlike Rod, he had a purpose in saying it that way, and it worked.

- LH

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST,Foe
Date: 13 Jun 02 - 07:47 AM

From English ballads:

"false true lover"

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jun 02 - 10:27 AM

I have to say that topless and having sleeves do contradict each other. That is a John Prine one. Yes, false true lover is a good one.

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jun 02 - 11:38 AM

Also, before I get into trouble, I *did* search for a thread on oxymorons first, but none came up.

Subject: RE: Oxymorons in lyrics
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 13 Jun 02 - 11:42 AM

Oxymorons are internally contradictory statements:

Heinz Foods Independent Newspaper Group Army Intelligence

That kind of thing.