Grammatical Sing-a-Long

When The Beatles said they were bigger than Jesus Christ, there was definitely some debate as to whether or not they were better. I won't go into that argument here, but at least in Russia the band is probably more universal. While scanning the mosaics in the Church of Spilled Blood, my Russian guide admitted that because of the anti-religious stance of the former Soviet Union, she didn't know the stories portrayed, but she did know the lyrics to "Yellow Submarine!"


Karaoke Videos

There are a wide variety of karaoke videos on YouTube, and they're not hard to find, as long as you search the song name with "lyrics." Many songs, especially by The Beatles, would make fantastic listening activities in a lesson on informal speech habits, such as the use of "ain't" or leaving out beginning words that can be implied: "(I) Love you every day, girl / (You are) Always on my mind." (Eight Days a Week, The Beatles)

"(You)Can't Buy Me Love" is also a good example of this, but would make an even better exercise in conditional sentences. "I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it makes you feel all right."


Work with Clauses

Songs are also a great resource for grammatical structures, though, because they tend to follow a repetitive pattern. The lyrics of "When I'm Sixty Four" contain examples of the subjunctive ("would you lock the door?") and multiple clauses in every other line! "Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm sixty four?"



Notice that in this example the dependent clause follows the independent clause. I plan to use this in my class to show students how these clauses can be rearranged by having them rewrite the lyrics as "When I'm sixty four, will you still need me?"

This song also provides an opportunity to discuss the punctuation of clauses. While I prefer to mark a beginning dependent clause with a comma, the accepted position is that it is only really necessary if this clause is very long. For example, "When I suddenly discover that I've grown very old, disheveled, and generally bothersome, will you still feed me?" (Not by The Beatles)


Some Advice

Because YouTube and its "directors" have a habit of removing items, I also strongly recommend saving material you like. This can be done through ripping software or a ripping site. Just type in the video URL address and save as an .avi, .mp4, or .mov.