Sir, – I would like to add to Alison Healy's excellent analysis of factually incorrect song lyrics (An Irishwoman's Diary, August 25th).
Vanessa Williams’s 1992 song “Save the Best For Last” has a lyric that informs us that “Sometimes the sun goes round the moon”.
It doesn’t. – Yours, etc,
DAVID POWER,
Lucan,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Many works of art should not be taken at face value. However, questioning the veracity of Johnny Cash’s “One piece at a time” – in which he details the theft of a car from the factory perpetrated by the steady purloining of its components, over decades, for assembly at home – borders on heresy. Alison Healy points out that a car includes “about 30,000 parts” and thus argues that it would be impossible to smuggle them all out in one’s lunchbox within the average working life. However, one must first reflect on what a constituent part or “piece” is.
Johnny Cash was clear on the fact that “the first day I got me a fuel pump, and the next day I got me an engine and a trunk”. These are of course large component systems of a car, while the usual estimate of 30,000 parts includes each screw, fuse and washer. And when possible, he has exceeded one item per day, starting as early as day two.
Accommodating some of these items in a standard lunchbox does indeed challenge the mind’s eye. Again, though, close scrutiny of the lyrics rewards the listener as Cash clarifies “the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy’s mobile home”. How he got that vehicle onto the factory floor, without drawing attention, isn’t entirely clear, admittedly. Nonetheless, I think the broad point is clear, and I shall continue to regard the song as essentially autobiographical. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’BRIEN,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.