Song lesson - 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue' by Bob Dylan

This song has to be one of the all-time greats. Recorded by Dylan in 1965, and covered by many others including notably, Them (with Van Morrison), the Animals (with Eric Burdon), the Byrds and the Grateful Dead.

The meaning of the song has been highly debated. All people seem to really agree on is that Dylan is saying goodbye to someone (a woman perhaps), or to some people (his folk fans maybe), or to something, perhaps to a part of his life (his accoustic folk days?).

This song is from the time when he was changing from being an accoustic folk singer to being part of the new (electric) rock mainstream, and not all his fans appreciated that. (See Wikipedia link below)

1. Vocabulary matching exercise
2. Song lyrics gap fill exercise
3. Extra activity on relative clauses, reduced relatives and nominal relatives

Song - 'America' from 'West Side Story'

America is one of the greatest songs ever from possibly the greatest musical ever, West Side Story.

A distinctive characteristic of this song is its rhythm, which mixes 6/8 time with 3/4 time (see Wikipedia link below). Some cover versions see fit to remove this feature, in my opinion totally ruining the song.

"In the 1961 film version of the musical, Anita (played by Rita Moreno) sings in favor of the United States, while Bernardo responds to her praises with corresponding criticisms satirizing latent racism in American society, especially towards Puerto Ricans"- Wikipedia

Song lesson - These Boots Are Made For Walking - Nancy Sinatra

Written by Lee Hazlewood and recorded by Nancy Sinatra, this record was released in February 1966 and was a Number One hit in the US and UK Pop charts.

There have been many cover versions in a range of styles: metal, pop, rock, punk rock, country, dance, and industrial. (Adapted from Wikipedia)

• Simple song vocabulary exercise
• Vocabulary - different meanings of the verb mess

Word corner - fair

The word fair can be an adjective, an adverb and a noun, and has various different meanings, as well as being the basis of several idioms. Here are a couple of exercises to help you suss it out.

Remember not to confuse fair with the noun and verb fare. There are some dictionary links below.

Lesson on intensifiers

I've noticed that a few people who have googled "intensifiers" have landed up on a post I wrote some time ago about "ridiculously". And I imagine they've felt rather disappointed, as it didn't say much about other intensifiers, just defended the use of ridiculously.

So here, to make amends, is the real McCoy, a lesson on intensifiers.

• The basics - gradable and non-gradable adjectives
• Collocations - adverbs with adjectives
• Collocations - adverbs with verbs
• Collocations - adjectives with nouns
• Intensifying with so and such
• Intensifying with well

Song lesson - 'A Boy Named Sue' by Johnny Cash

"A Boy Named Sue" was first recorded live at California's San Quentin State Prison at a concert on 24 February 1969. The song became Cash's biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his only Top 10 single there, spending three weeks at #2 in 1969. (Wikipedia)

1. Pre-listening vocabulary exercise
2. Pre-listening grammar exercise
3. Find the 'non-standard' grammar
4. Vocabulary exercise - different meanings of mean
5. Grammar exercise - different uses of would

Song - 'One of us' by Joan Osborne - exercise with Second Conditional

I've already talked about this song in another post, but I thought that perhaps it deserved its own post with a full exercise.