Thanks, Annie and Hung

In my LifeType blog, my former students Annie and Hung left their response to the "English song" question. 

http://www.tiec.tp.edu.tw/lifetype/post/1130/27088#comments

Here is my response to their answers.

Dear Annie and Hung,

Thank you for your response. All the three songs are among my favorites. Not only are their melodies beautiful but their lyrics inspire. Among the three, I taught "the Rose" almost every year. Its lyrics are as follows:

 

Some say love it is a river

that drowns the tender reed

Some say love it is a razer

that leaves your soul to blead

Some say love it is a hunger

an endless aching need

I say love it is a flower

and you it's only seed

It's the heart afraid of breaking

that never learns to dance

It's the dream afraid of wakingthat never takes the chance

It's the one who won't be taken

who cannot seem to give

and the soul afraid of dyingthat never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely

and the road has been too long

and you think that love is only

for the lucky and the strong

Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows

lies the seed

that with the sun's love

in the spring

becomes the rose

I like the idea of the song that everyone can be the beginning of love. Besides the meaningful words, this song is good to review some grammatical points, such as the relative clause, the cleft sentence, and the complex sentence. The last verse of the song is only one sentence, a very complex sentence. And I often like to challenge my students to tell me how many clauses there are and where is the main verb. Since they like the song, they are willing to do the analysis. Once I asked a class to analyze the last verse, a student said kiddingly that it was a symptom of occupational disease to ask them to analyze sentences of even a song.

Click tne following URL, and you can watch Bette Midler sing the song.

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=JYWAYLZWZBg