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Alistair
User

Expert Boarder
 
 For Kierkegaarde and Kant and cocoa - 2004/11/22 21:29 Can you help me with translation / explanation for the above lyric from Jake's song To Do With You
In context it is;

And if I were the simple sort of bloke
For Kierkegaarde and Kant and cocoa
Dearest, I would have no more to do with you.

I'm making good progress with the chords and tab, however a little help with understanding the above wording would be appreciated.

. . . ignorant as ever,

Alistair
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dmcgovern
User

Expert Boarder
 
 Re:For Kierkegaarde and Kant and cocoa - 2004/11/23 00:24 Nice one Alastair. The cocoa threw me at first - from the ridiculous to the sublime, you could say.

Kierkegaarde and Kant were erudite philosophers, and so was Nicolay Gogol http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gogol.htm. The line above in your extract is ironic - even if the 'simple sort of bloke' were not so simple, she'll still do for him.

A bit too much late-night transposing went into the lyric on this site, but a more definitive version might be found here http://joni.soc.surrey.ac.uk/~scs1ec/todowith.html .

What a brilliant song!

ATB

David
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Malcy
User

Platinum Boarder
 
 Re:For Kierkegaarde and Kant and cocoa - 2004/11/23 00:59 A brief computer programmer's note :

Although I've seen transcriptions of this verse's lyrics as "Kierkegaarde and Kant and Gogol" I have always sung this one with my heart, which originally heard it (and still does) as "... and Kant and cocoa". The other verses always have contrasting juxtapositions which are pe-empted in the lyrics :

better cooking, better looking = flawless skin and bigger dinners

and

smoother moving, tongue and grooving = better spoken, shorter strokers

So where's the corresponding "bed-time" contrapuntal for "better read and better bed-time women" ? It's not there if Jake just wanted three philosophers - "Kierkegaarde and Kant and Gogol" : and Jake isn't as sloppy as that. Me - I reckon it's "cocoa", and it's just coincidence that there's a thinker whose name sounds a lot like "cocoa". Otherwise it don't make sense and doesn't match and when does Jake do that ? Never. And certainly not in a love song to his wife. QED. ! Eranu !
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dmcgovern
User

Expert Boarder
 
 Re:For Kierkegaarde and Kant and cocoa - 2004/11/23 07:54 Oops! I was having a gentle dig at Keith whose name is on the transcription on this site, thinking the cocoa was in his veins during one of those long transcribing sessions. So before I go any further I'd better stop digging - sorry Keith!

I always took the contrasts to be from one line to another, not actually within the same line, but I hadn't tried to analyse the song so deeply, nor ever sung it.

I think we might need the intense philosophy of Kierkegaarde and Kant (if not Gogol) to help sort this one out! I'm sure another listen will help too (duh!)

David
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KeithD
Admin

Admin
 
 Re:For Kierkegaarde and Kant and cocoa - 2004/11/23 12:39 Well, after Ian Burdon correctly picked me up on a couple of mistranscribed words in my first go at "Policeman's Jig" I listened very carefully, on nice clear earphones, to all the lyrics, as often as was necessary for me to reach my own decision on what Jake was singing. And to my mind there's no doubt whatsoever that Jake sings "cocoa". And all the other words I listed.

As Malcy points out, it's in the 'better read and better bedtime' verse. I also plead in support "eruditer wives at night". So 'better read' and 'eruditer' for the two Ks and 'better bedtime' and 'at night' for the 'cocoa': a bit of erudition before bedtime, as it were, is not what Jake is after.

Also there's the internal rhyme between "bloke" and "coc" which doesn't happen with "Gog"

'Simple' (not 'simplest' to my ears) is irony, and also fits the metre.
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KeithD
Admin

Admin
 
 Re:For Kierkegaarde and Kant and cocoa - 2004/11/23 13:57 A general point worth making here is that the lyrics on this site have been transcribed from scratch rather than merely lifted from Edmund's site. As a result there are differences between the lyrics on the two sites and there's no guarantee where they do differ that those here are more authoritative. Although the people who transcribed them put their best efforts into it, that is surely also the case for the many people who contributed lyrics to Edmunds's site (each of them individually credited there). The main difference is likely to be that Edmund's transcriptions were made from vinyl while those here were made from CD, and with luck the increased CD clarity and the greater ease of playing a doubtful segment over and over has led to more accurate transciptions here. However, if anything in one transcription seems funny to you, take a look and see if you're happier with the other one. And if you think you've found something wrong here contact me or post in this forum.
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